Nonsense

Outfit of the Day - Work to Tool

2012-02-01T06:21:00.003-05:00

I went to the TOOL concert in London last week, which was awesome. It was my third time seeing them and they are totally worth seeing live if you ever get the chance.

The problem with that day was it was one of those crazy days where my feet hit the floor at 5:30 a.m. and I didn't stop until 1:30 a.m. So rather than having a fight with a pair of jeans, I just left my work clothes on for the concert. I told myself that the skirt was plaid and therefore kind of grunge and therefore appropriate for a concert. Plus I changed out of the heeled boots and into the more casual brown boots that I always wear. Plus, I really didn't care.

Top - George (secondhand for $1)
Skirt - Smart Set (clearance for $7)
Tights - Zellers (I bought them in extra large and extra tall and they still won't stay opaque on my stupid giant legs. Grr.)
Boots - Payless

Here's a fun fact - I always push my sleeves up like that. I seem to have oddly long arms, because sleeves usually aren't long enough. So I just push them up to make it look intentional, rather than having my shirts end an inch before my wrist. I would have been awesome on Miami Vice.

I am a master at rewearing the same couple of items!

GNG in 2012!

2012-01-31T07:00:00.000-05:00

If you've been reading and loving the blog as much as you should be, then you know all about the Graphic Novel Group. I've been a member of the LA Mood Graphic Novel Group since its inception in June 2009, which makes me pretty awesome. We recently had our pitch session meeting to decide what we'll be reading for the upcoming year. You should totally come out for a meeting - it's a great group of people with awesome discussion and sometimes I bring baked goods. What more could you ask for?

We meet on the 2nd Saturday of the month at 11:00 a.m. in the basement of LA Mood. Hope to see you there!

February - Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure (or The Secret of the Unicorn/The Crab with the Golden Claws to tie in with the movie)

I read some Tintin when I was younger in French Immersion. I've already read Red Rackham for the next meeting and found it awesomely outdated and mildly offensive.

March - Sandman Vol. 1

I haven't read any Neil Gaiman. I KNOW! I'm a terrible nerd. Definitely looking forward to this one.

April - Locke & Key Vol. 1

I've been eyeing Locke & Key for sometime now, so I'm super excited that we're finally getting a chance to read it. I've heard so many good things about this fantasy/horror story - especially from Stephen King, who isn't biased about it at all what with the author, Joe Hill, being his son and all.

May - Chew Vol. 1

We decided to do something light and easy for May since it's a busy month with Free Comic Book Day the week before. This story about an FDA Agent who can get something's life history just by eating it fit the bill.

June - Batman Villains

Free choice! I love it when we do "topic" months instead of a specific book. It gives us all a chance to read what we want and still get some great discussion. This way I can also read The Killing Joke without getting in trouble because we imposed a "No Alan Moore" rule for 2012. But seriously, who wouldn't want to read The Killing Joke? It's amazing!

July - Two Generals

July is our Can-Con month, where we try to read something Canadian for Canada Day. I've heard really great things about this book, so it should be a good month! I love the art already.

August - R. Crumb month - your choice!

This should be an interesting month. I've never read any Crumb, and I'm not a huge fan of his art. We're also going to be doing some sort of screening of the documentary though, so hopefully I can get a bit of background and appreciation for him.

September - Asterios Polyp

I had never heard of this book before, but I already love the minimalist art. The plot sounds a bit confusing, but I'm intrigued by how it seems to weave in Greek mythology.

October - Hellboy

Another open character month. Anyone have any recommendations of what I should check out?

November - High Society

This should be an interesting month. A controversial creator should provide us with lots of discussion!

We take December off since people are so busy anyway.

So there you go - sounds like a great year for reading. Will you be joining us? Even if you can't in person, you should read along and check out our Facebook page here. I post notes from the meetings, but they might not make sense if you're not along for the ride!

Apparently I am not a plumber.

2012-01-30T06:13:00.000-05:00

I like to think I'm pretty handy. I don't always know what I'm doing, but I'll look it up online, or just kind of figure my way through it. So when the new dishwasher was due to be delivered and someone had to disconnect the old dishwasher, I figured I was up to the task.

Everyone I talked to about it said the same thing - Make sure the water is turned off, and you'll be fine.

I should have listened more closely.

Apparently when people say "make sure the water is turned off" they mean really, really turned off. Like turn the valve as hard as you can, then try to turn it another quarter turn more. And if your hands are so dry and cracked that you were literally wearing five bandaids on your hands a few days before and you can't make a fist, then maybe you should use something else to turn that valve so you can turn it hard enough to shut off the water.

So here's what happened. I went to disconnect the dishwasher. I found that the hoses from the dishwasher were attached to the pipes with clamps. Took the clamps off, no problem. Then I come to find that the hoses are glued to the pipes. Hmmm. Not a problem, I'll grab a utility knife and hack through it.

Cut through the drain hose, no problem.

Cut through the water access hose and a little water starts to come out. I figure, no problem. That seems right, there's probably a little water left in the hose, that's why I have a towel here. I cut a little deeper and all of a sudden...

WATER IS SHOOTING EVERYWHERE!

Holy crap.

So I bolt downstairs to the basement and start turning any valve I can find. Run back upstairs, water is pouring all over the kitchen. Try to force the valve under the sink to turn a bit more and finally get the water to shut off most of the way.

So now picture me standing in the kitchen, home alone, in my underwear (my pants were soaked, so I just threw them off in a mad fit) with an inch of water all over the kitchen floor.

Of course I take some pictures for the blog, because what else am I going to do in this situation? You can't really tell how much water there is anywhere though, you know, since water is clear and all.

Here's where I desperately tried to attack the pipe with duct tape. It didn't really work.

And the ceiling and foggy window. Did I mention it was hot water that was shooting out? Fun for me.

So there I am, standing in a kitchen full of water and no idea what to do next. It was late, too late to call anyone for help. And really, what would they do? I don't have a shop vac, so I just started throwing down every towel I owned trying to sop it up and then try to mop up the rest.

Incidentally, I've decided that a shop vac totally pays for itself the first time you have one when you really, really need one. I might need to invest in one.

I managed to get it cleaned up enough, but you know how floods are. The damage is done. Here's the trim in the kitchen...

And yes, I didn't bother to paint the whole wall behind the dishwasher. I'm lazy like that. Also, do you see how crazy that wall is? It's like someone spackled it with a butter knife or something. Also, the trim work in this house is kind of nuts - I keep finding terrible joints like this, all conveniently hidden behind things.

So yeah. I might not be a plumber. We'll see how I make out installing the new dishwasher. Hopefully it's a little less eventful!

Vivian Vendredi - All the Little Things

2012-01-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

Often when I look at Vivian, I have a hard time seeing myself. I don't find that she looks like me, and I don't know that she ever will. And isn't that the whole point of having a kid? To have a mini-you wandering around?

Vivian's always been very much her own person, but I'm finding more and more that she has my personality. Of course, she doesn't have my personality as a baby, she has my personality now. She's like a 29 year old trapped in a 20 pound body.

She's stubborn. She's independent. She's sassy. She has a temper. She loves completely.

And when she's tired, I'll notice her making little circles with her feet. Just twirling her foot around absent-mindedly while she sucks on her bottle, and that's when it hits me.

I do that when I'm tired. My mom does that when she's tired.

Maybe there's more of me in this little girl than I think.

Outfit of the Day - Wannabe Hipster

2012-01-26T06:21:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I want to be a hipster. But then I remember that I like dance music and reality TV too much to be able to pull it off. So instead I wear something like this and tell myself that it's close enough.

I'm a big fan of this outfit. The dress is just long enough that I can wear it with sandals in the summer without it looking obscene, but I think it looks pretty good with tights and boots too.

Dress - Old Navy
Tights - Zellers
Boots - Aldo

Collect all...3?

2012-01-25T06:27:00.001-05:00

I don't think it's any secret that I am someone who enjoys free things. I also enjoy cereal. So imagine my delight when I found boxes of cereal with a code to send away for a free retro T-shirt. I was determined to collect all four.

Things started out well with Shreddies...

...Honeycombs...

...and Alpha Bits...

I only needed the Sugar Crisp to complete my obsession. Of course, my plans were thwarted. I couldn't find the box with a code. I figured the promotion was over and accepted that my collection would never be complete.

Then - a miracle! While wandering the Superstore in that special haze that only comes when you escape the house without a baby in tow, I found a box of Sugar Crisp with the promo code. Being the well brought up girl I am, I ate the cereal before tearing the box apart to get the code.

You guys - they were out of Sugar Crisp shirts. Total devastation.

Fun fact - the CCM T-shirt I'm wearing also came from a cereal box. I might have a problem.

So now I have an incomplete collection of cereal shirts that no one else cares about but me. And it drives me crazy.

My only hope now is to find a Sugar Crisp shirt at Value Village or something one day. I saw a kid at the arena wearing the Shreddies one...unfortunately it's not the first time I've encountered a child wearing a shirt I also own.

(P.S. - I'm not some insane egomaniac who is all of a sudden obsessed with putting her own pictures up everywhere or anything. I've just been reading articles on xoJane constantly lately and they have a policy where every post has to include a picture of the author, to help the reader connect to them. I think it's a pretty good idea, and I've just realized that taking pictures with the webcam is a lot easier than using the camera and then uploading them. So be prepared to see a lot of random webcam pictures of me. Lucky, lucky blog readers.)

Sickening Slippers

2012-01-24T06:20:00.000-05:00

I think it's pretty fair to say that we all have at least one article of clothing that is completely disgusting, but we hold onto it anyway because we love it so much.

Say hello to my slippers.

They can say hello back to you.

And my other toe can say hi too.

If I've ever been over to your house, odds are pretty good that you've seen my slippers. I tend to drag them around everywhere with me.

Mom got them for me for Christmas years ago. Like maybe 7 years ago? I'm not sure. I know I had them for at least one year of university though. My sister got a pair too, and we've both just worn the shit out of them. Courtney wears hers as outside shoes in the winter.

They're Emu and they've definitely held up pretty well considering the use they've had. Mine are so gross - there's paint on them, and stains from where I've dropped food on them. For reals.

I love them though - they're the perfect slipper! There's no lip on the back to bug your foot, there's a nice hard sole so you can wear them outside if you need to, they're warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Awesome.

Will I ever get another pair of slippers? I guess one day these bad boys will actually die and I'll have to say goodbye. There will come a day when I can no longer hot glue them back together (true story) and that will be a very sad day. I might have to keep them around in my archives or something.

What's your most disgusting article of clothing that you just can't give up?

O-M-G!

2012-01-23T06:23:00.003-05:00

I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm pretty much famous.

I know, I know. It might come as a surprise.

But can you see this?

If you can't quite make it out, that's a screencap of my comment on Young House Love, one of my absolute favourite blogs. Sherry had a post last week about these antlers that she bought and spray painted and was naming Malcolm, so of course I had to post to tell her about Darrell.

And she commented back!

Can you read it? She says "I. Love. Darrell." Do you know what that means? That means that Sherry from Young House Love actually read my blog. My blog! And that she loves Darrell. My crazy random Darrell.

We're basically best friends now. Internet best friends at least.

Famous!

Vivian Vendredi - No Go

2012-01-20T20:07:00.000-05:00

So I've been trying to get Vivian off of bottles. I'm sick to death of washing stupid bottles, and all she does is fling them around. There are white spots everywhere on my floors (yes, this could be solved by mopping. No, I'm not going to do it.) and she just makes a mess with them. Do you realize how disgusting it is to have someone throwing milk around your house all the time? Awful.

Of course, she's being all Vivian about it and is flat out refusing to drink milk from a cup. Milk from a bottle is fine. Water in a cup is fine. Milk in a cup is an affront to nature apparently.

I realized later that she might be cutting her molars, and maybe that's why she's in such a terrible mood. So for now we're back to bottles, but I really, really hope it will end soon.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Outfit of the day - Boots and shorts?

2012-01-19T22:10:00.004-05:00

Okay, okay, okay. I promised myself I would only do one outfit post a week, but I just couldn't wait to post this one! I've been wanting to try the whole winter shorts look out, but was a little worried that the whole deal kind of just screamed, "THIGHS! LOOK AT MY THIGHS!" And seeing as how my legs are my least favourite feature, that's generally not what I go for with a look. However, I was intrigued by these adorable shorts, made all the cuter by tights and boots. So, when I happened upon Smart Set having a major clearance sale, I scored two pairs of winter shorts of $2.49 each. I ended up getting 6 items for $30. Oh yes, I'm awesome.

So here's my outfit for today - I couldn't decide whether to wear it with my casual, brown motorcycley boots from Aldo a couple of years ago...

You can't really tell from the pictures, but the shorts are brown with a black plaid.

...or my trusty black heeled boots from Payless even more years ago...

In the end I went with the heeled boots since I was in court today and thought it was a bit fancier.

What do you think? I have to say, I actually am loving the look. The tights cure all my leg problems - I might have to start wearing them year round. Nothing weird about that, right?

What about you? Have you tried the shorts in the winter look? Do you love its menswear meets sexy meets casual meets comfortable appeal as much as I do? Or am I completely wrong and I'm not pulling this off at all and should never attempt it again?

Cardigan from Walmart
T-shirt from Smart Set
Shorts from Smart Set
Tights from somewhere...
Boots from Aldo/Payless

My Binders - Old School Pinterest

2012-01-18T22:04:00.000-05:00

Long before Pinterest came along, I had my binders.

I loved magazines, and would read and re-read them, carefully pulling out all the ads, articles and pictures that spoke to me. Anything that struck me as interesting or funny or too good to throw away got carefully filed into binders. I have one full of travel ideas, one full of decorating ideas, a few filled with recipes and entertainment ideas and my favourite binder - the miscellaneous one.

Blurry binders in my crates

Yes, I have and use a label maker. I'm okay with this.

I checked out the old Miscellaneous binder the other day and was surprised at what I found.

Inside were page dividers from high school covered in music lyrics, art cards that I've had forever...

...the University newspaper from my last day at Western, sections of newspapers from important events...

...Vanity Fair covers that I always imagined framing and hanging up in a bathroom...

...essays from university that I would probably be too embarrassed to read now...

...favourite columns and articles from magazines that aren't even made anymore...

...articles written by authors I didn't realize were someone famous...

...just things that meant something to me.

What I found, was me.

It's a binder, but also a time capsule. It's the high school me, the university me, all brought together in one bulging binder.

This binder has pictures I had hanging in my locker in high school. Articles I used to write essays in university. I can sift through this binder and remember those late nights studying, driving to two different towns with my friend to find that Vanity Fair with David Beckham on the cover, the love I had for our ridiculous student newspaper at Western.

This binder represents the bests parts of me at that time. It's me without the insecurities, without the stresses of school. It's all the parts of me that I liked, but was sometimes afraid to show. All the bands that I liked that maybe weren't so popular. The art that maybe would have been considered weird. The articles that were from Psychology Today and Jane instead of Cosmopolitan or Seventeen.

It's me, in all my hoarding, obsessive compulsive glory. Maybe I should bust out my label maker and change this binder from "Miscellaneous" to "Ashlie - 1996-2005"

Outfit of the Day!

2012-01-17T23:28:00.002-05:00

I love reading other blogs that have an Outfit of the Day. I love seeing how people put outfits together and reuse pieces in interesting ways. My clothes aren't incredibly exciting, but maybe by making an effort to blog about it, I will stop wearing the same four things over and over again. Or this will be a really boring series that will just be me wearing boring T-shirts and stuff.

We'll see.

Anyway, this was my outfit today.

When I get dressed for work, I'm all about pieces that are comfortable and easy, but come off looking like I care about how I look. It's a careful balance.

I like this skirt - you can't really tell, but it's corduroy and has buttons on the front. I love the little pleats in it, it makes me feel like I'm wearing a kilt or something.

The boots are from Payless from about 6 years ago.
The skirt is from Smart Set, I got it on clearance for like $11
The top is George, but I got it secondhand for $1. Because I'm awesome.

And I may or may not be wearing an old maternity camisole because it's just too darn comfortable to give up.

And yes, I'm in Vivian's room. It's easier to take pictures in there!

Did you wear anything fancy for work today?

Two Kinds of People - Sleeping with the TV on

2012-01-16T20:26:00.003-05:00

The way I see it, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who like to sleep with the TV on and those who don't.

I am definitely the kind who likes to sleep with the TV on.

There's nothing better than curling up in bed, turning the sound down on the TV so you can just barely hear it and drifting off to the glow of the TV while you listen to it. I like to fall asleep to things that I don't need to see - The Food Network works well, reruns of Seinfeld or Friends, or late night talk shows are also favourites. I think the combination of the sound and the light of the TV is what does it in for me. Set that sleep timer so it automatically turns off in a couple of hours and I'm set for the night. Love it!

I come by it honestly too - my mom and my brothers and sister are all TV sleepers. When we all lived at home we had seven TVs in the house for five people because we all needed a TV in our room to fall asleep.

There are others though, who don't agree. Some people can't stand to fall asleep with the TV on. These people are called crazy nut jobs.

Which camp do you fall in?

Is there something wrong with my sweater?

2012-01-14T15:42:00.001-05:00

Or is there something wrong with my elbows?

Because try as I might, I can't get my elbow patches to stay where they're supposed to be.

Stupid nerdy fashion.

Vivian Vendredi - Bathtub Tricks

2012-01-13T06:25:00.000-05:00

Vivian's been a little under the weather this week - again. Man, babies suck in the winter. Either you're chasing them around trying to convince them to put on hats and mitts or they're throwing up all over the place. Good times.

Anyway, this week I finally managed to catch a couple of Vivian's tricks on camera. She's been talking a lot more - she's added "Hi" "Bath" and "Down" to her little vocabulary, and now you can see her shaking her head no (a favourite trick of hers. Luckily she's just learned to nod as well.) and blowing kisses. Hold onto your hats, it's about to get adorable in here.

Pants are Dumb

2012-01-12T06:20:00.000-05:00

Can we all agree that pants are stupid? They're impossible to shop for, they cost too much, and they never perform the way you want them to. They're always either too loose or too small or too short or too long...bah, pants suck. Their only saving grace is that you only need to wash them every 5-6 washes.

So for the most part when I'm working, I'm a skirt or dress kind of girl. I've found that dresses are awesome for work. The best part about them is that you put on a dress and everyone says things like "Oh wow! You're wearing a dress, you're all fancy!" What they don't realize is a dress is the laziest thing possible to wear. You throw it on and you're good. You don't have to match it with a top or anything. They're awesome, but not what this post is about.

Anyway, pants suck. And jeans suck even more than pants do. I've basically been surviving with one pair of jeans for the last year or so, but now it appears I may have some options on my hands thanks to finally being able to somewhat-comfortably wear some B.V. jeans. That's Before Vivian jeans. We're talking about a couple of pairs that I haven't worn in like 2 years, people. This is big time.

So let's take a look. This is my current pair of jeans. I bought them like not even a month ago and now they're driving me crazy. Nothing fancy, just Old Navy jeans. Sure, they look okay here, but these are the kind of demon jeans that magically grow 2 sizes as soon as you wear them for 10 minutes. Next thing I know, these are falling off of my non-existant butt and are only being held up by my giant former-hockey-player thighs. Pants that always need to be washed? Not my favourites.

I also note that there seems to be a grease stain of some sort on the leg. I'm awesome.

But here's the really big news - these are my favourite jeans. And yes, they might still be tight, but I think I can almost get away with wearing them out in public. Especially if paired with some sort of distracting flowy top.

Note the ass-pocket detail. This is a trick to make it appear that I have some sort of butt. It probably doesn't work as well as I think though.

This was the real surprise - these are my skinny jeans. The ones I don't dare wear unless I'm feeling really good. Definitely not going to be wearing these bad boys out any time soon, but the fact that I can button them up and continue to breathe is a pretty good sign.

Once again, ass-pocked details are my friend.

Yes, this post was basically an excuse for me to show off that I can wear some normal person clothes again. Yay for me!

Here's a little out-take from when I tried to do this the other day. I was trying to show off the ass-pocket detail and Vivian decided to check out the dirty mirror. This pretty much sums up my parenting style - taking pictures of my ass for the blog while Vivian bumbles around. Yep.

Where do you like to get your jeans? How many wears do you go before washing? I may never wash my favourite jeans again - I'm terrified they will never fit!

Pardon the interruption...

2012-01-11T07:43:00.000-05:00

So I was going to have this fun post up today all about jeans and how I can wear my favourite pair of jeans somewhat comfortably now, and I was going to take all these pictures and it was just going to be awesome...

Then this happened.

So, yeah.

Meet Darrell

2012-01-10T06:18:00.000-05:00

If you're on Pinterest or if you check out sites like Apartment Therapy, you've probably noticed the trend of spray painting random crap to make it interesting.

I spray painted something pretty random and craptastic.

Remember Darrell?

My new $5 friend?

Well he met a can of $5 Krylon spray paint in Bahama Sea (probably one of my favourite colours ever) and now he looks like this...

Not bad, right?

I started out by roughing him up a bit with some wadded up tin foil since I didn't have any steel wool. The roughing up was all consensual though. Then wiped him down with vinegar and water. This time I actually did things the right way and used a spray primer first, then hit him with the Bahama Sea.

Looking at it now, I probably should have filled that crack beforehand, but I didn't notice it before. Plus, I was kind of excited to get him painted.

Sorry about the crappy pictures - I took them at like 10:30 in my bathroom so I could get the post up for today. He's not going to live in the bathroom, but I already had a hook there, so I just went with it. Actually he won't live in the bathroom because I want to paint it basically that same colour. Anyway, sorry for the crappy pictures, but I have a crappy camera. One day I'll get a better camera and start being a pretentious hipster who takes artsy pictures of their freshly folded laundry and you'll all wish I had my crappy camera back.

Anyway, that's Darrell. I loves him. What do you think?

Thrifty Finds

2012-01-09T06:37:00.000-05:00

One of my favourite parts about being back at work (aside from getting to actually interact with other adults) is that I get to do some lunch time thrift shopping. There's a Talize and a Value Village pretty close to my work and I love to wander the aisles and see what I can find. I'm pretty impressed with what I got this week - hopefully there's more to come!

These pretty little plates are real stoneware and were 49 cents each! Love the colours.

I love vintage Pyrex and have decided that I want to start collecting it, because clearly I need more junk around the house. I thought this wheat bowl was a pretty good place to start, even though it was a little pricey at $6.

I can never resist a good cheap book, so it was pretty easy to slip these bad boys into my cart.

And here's my prize - my favourite find. He was right there as soon as I walked in and I just had to take him home.

I think his name will be Darrell. He looks like a Darrell to me. The antlers come out, and for some reason they never look quite right when I put them in, but I'm working on it.

Not your idea of an awesome find? Well, just you wait and see what I do with it with a little help from some spray paint. This $5 find is going to be awesome, just you wait!

Then on Sunday I stopped in to check out a new resale store in Strathroy called "One Man's Treasures". The store is really cute and will no doubt be a new favourite! They have an antique library desk identical to one I was stalking on Kijiji a few months ago, but could never justify buying. My favourite part about this store is they take requests - just write down what you're looking for and they'll give you a call if they come across it! I've got them on the hunt for more vintage Pyrex and vintage Fiestaware. Here's the thing about me and Fiestaware - I've come across some pieces twice and didn't buy them, and I will forever regret it. One time it was a set of mixing bowls that I obsessed over for about a week and by the time I decided to pull the trigger, someone else bought them. Another time it was a vintage turquoise pitcher that I loved but for some reason never bought. At the time I didn't realize what Fiestaware was - damn my younger self! Let me know if you ever come across one - I'll love you forever!

Anyway, all I picked up at One Man's Treasures were these little chess pieces.

It was $2.25 for all of them, and I love them. I love chess pieces, but don't know how to play. These will also be getting a bit of a facelift thanks to some new spray paint I also grabbed today!

Have you found anything great lately?

Vivian Vendredi - Close, but not quite

2012-01-06T20:31:00.001-05:00

This week was Vivian's first full time week at daycare. Well, almost full time. I had Monday off because of the holiday.

She seems to be dealing with the change well - I wake her up at about 6:30, try to have breakfast with her (apparently she would rather eat breakfast at daycare with the kids than with me) and drop her off around 7:00. I'm told she has a great time at daycare - goes down for naps like clockwork, eats great at lunch and plays well with the kids.

It's been rough in the evenings - I basically have 2 hours with her, and it's a hectic couple of hours. Get home, cook dinner, clean up dinner, bathtime, bottle then bed around 7:00. It's a mad dash.

But, with all that activity I think we are maybe almost getting close to her sleeping through the night. Maybe. I don't want to get too high of hopes, because she might read this and try to destroy me again.

She's been off this week - something's not quite right in her belly, and she's got a nasty diaper rash. This has led to many, many, many screaming fits. Really loud screaming fits. Sometimes from 2:00-3:00 a.m. And I've been going to bed around 1:00 a.m.. And getting up at 5:30 a.m.

Yes, I will be rewarding myself with some wine for getting through this week.

But the bright side is we had one night. One single, glorious night where she slept from 7:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. No crying. No whining. Just sleep.

I really, really hope that we're almost there. Even if she was just waking up at 4:00, I would be okay with that. As long as we can get rid of the screaming.

Don't let her fool you. She can be a real horror show.

What I'm Watching - Winter Edition

2012-01-05T20:43:00.004-05:00

So I was going to write a post about comics today, but Jenn decided I should write about all the midseason premieres. Gotta keep the readers satisfied, so here's what new shows I'll be watching and recording in the coming weeks!

Sunday

Angry Boys - 10:00 p.m. HBO - The newest offering by Chris Lilley. If you haven't checked out Summer Heights High or We Can Be Heroes, I highly recommend you do. I love his mockumentaries and the characters he comes up with are priceless.

The Firm - (Premieres on January 8th at 9:00 p.m. on NBC, but its regular time slot is Thursdays at 10:00) I'm not a huge John Grisham fan, but this show looks interesting. I'll give it a couple of episodes and see if it sticks.

Napoleon Dynamite - 8:30 p.m. FOX (January 15) Definitely won't be watching this premiere live since the Golden Globes are on that night and I love me some awards shows. I don't have super high hopes for it, but I'm definitely interested.

Monday

The Bachelor - 8:00 p.m. ABC - Yes, it's a terrible, terrible trainwreck. I still love it. Don't judge.

Alcatraz - 8:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. regular time slot) FOX (January 16) Can't. Freaking. Wait! I'm so excited for this show. Let's see, I love JJ Abrams, love Jorge Garcia, love Sam Neill, and love Alcatraz. This show has all of those things!!! (P.S. - How freaking good does Sam Neill look? The man is 64. Can you believe that?)

Being Human - 9:00 p.m. Syfy (January 16) I watched the first season of this last winter when I was home on maternity leave. It wasn't bad. I would like to check out the original British version. I'll probably watch a bit more of this one though since one of Jagger's high school classmates is in it (Kristen Hager).

Smash - (February 6, NBC) I wasn't super pumped about this one, but the commercials are making it look pretty decent. I've been reading that the pilot episode is pretty great so hopefully it doesn't drop off from there.

Tuesday

Remodeled - 9:00 p.m. CW (January 17) I don't know much about this show except what I saw in the commercials that aired during ANTM. It seems to be about a man who yells at models. I can get behind that concept.

The River - (February 7, ABC) I haven't seen much about this show yet, and I'm not sure if that's because they're keeping it tightly under wraps or I just haven't been looking for it, but I'm still stoked. This one is coming at you from Oren Peli, the director of the first Paranormal Activity. A famous explorer goes missing on the Amazon and his rescue teams films their hunt for him. It all seems very Heart of Darkness.

Wednesday

Are You There, Chelsea? - 8:30 NBC (January 11) I don't know about this, I'm not a huge Chelsea Handler fan, and I'm not a huge Laura Prepon fan. I'll give it a try, but it has stiff competition on Wednesday nights.

Thursday

Jersey Shore - 10:00 p.m. MTV - Yes, it's back on. Yes, it's still terrible. Don't judge. Hopefully this season is better than the terminally dull Italy season.

30 Rock - 8:00 p.m. NBC (January 12) Finally! Can't wait for more 30 Rock. I want to be Liz Lemon when I grow up.

And of course, in addition to all those new and returning shows I'm eagerly looking forward to new episodes of all my returning favourites - The Simpsons, Family Guy, Cleveland Show, American Dad, The Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, Pan Am, How I Met Your Mother, 2 Broke Girls, Suburgatory, Modern Family, Happy Endings, Revenge, Grey's Anatomy, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Up All Night, Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, New Girl, Glee, Fringe, Saturday Night Live, A Gifted Man...AND the return of Game of Thrones and Mad Men this spring! Can't wait!!!

Also - the glaring omission here is that Cougar Town still hasn't been given any premiere date, which is a travesty. I'll be playing Penny Can until it returns (hopefully when they cancel Work It)

What will you be watching? Does anyone watch as much TV as I do? This isn't even including all the reruns of Pawn Stars and Storage Wars that I watch...plus all the usual TLC trash...maybe I need to take stock of my life...

Snackie Style

2012-01-04T20:37:00.001-05:00

So, how is everyone doing with their resolutions? I usually resolve not to make any resolutions because otherwise I just end up being a giant disappointment to myself. However, I would like to comfortably be able to wear my favourite jeans again (I can do them up, but moving around in them isn't really an option) so hopefully that will be happening soon. I'm back to work all the time now, which I think will help since I'll be eating at normal times and can get into a routine. Routine works for me.

I'm trying to do the Weight Watchers thing again, and was supposed to start yesterday, but kind of forgot to write things down. Then I ate some chocolate. That's the worst part about Weight Watchers - as soon as I screw up once I'm like "Whatever, I'll just eat everything for the rest of the week and start for real next week." Yeah.

So, my plan is to eat breakfast at home, take my travel mug of coffee to work and pack my lunch as often as possible. Because my job sometimes keeps me in court through lunch, I always like to have something on hand in case I'm a little rushed. Say hello to my new favourite lunch...

Isn't it adorable? It's better when there's a little yogurt or stack of pepperettes nestled up with the cheese, but I didn't have any. I actually didn't even need to pack this lunch because I have a lunch date tomorrow. I packed it just so I could take a picture of it and blog about it. That's dedication, people.

Anyway, snackie little platters like this are pretty much my favourite thing ever. I don't see anything wrong with eating nothing but appetizers for the rest of my life. A little of this, a little of that = awesome. The crackers are rosemary and olive oil Triscuits, which I'm basically obsessed with. For reals, I could eat them forever. The grapes give me something sweet and the carrots give me something crunchy to make me feel fuller. I'm a ridiculously fast eater (seriously, I'm probably way faster than you are) so having little compartments to pick at helps slow me down. Plus, it's so cute! People at work always see it and ask who has the nice little lunch. I love it. It's a Lock and Lock container that I got at Walmart and it's so helpful. You can take out the compartments if you need to put something bigger in it too. Hopefully this will help keep me eating normal things and normal portions at lunch instead of getting into the whole mindset of "I'm starving and I hate my sad little lunch of leftovers that I don't want. I'll run to the Superstore and get a pizza bun instead! That's healthy, right? Not really because it's covered in grease? Well then I'll counteract it with a Greek salad. What's that? I shouldn't eat so much feta cheese? It's a salad, it's healthy! Oh hey wait, it's a Wendy's!"

So that's my plan. And I don't mean to brag or anything, but I wore a new pair of pants today that were super big on me. I'm figuring that it's because I've been eating like a normal human being for two days and obviously am getting super skinny because it's just that easy to lose weight and not because I most likely bought the pants a size too big and then they stretched throughout the day. Yeah, that's it.

Ethics 101

2012-01-03T21:04:00.004-05:00

I know everyone is probably just as tired of Christmas as I am. That being said, I do have one little holiday story I've been meaning to share.

To protect myself, I will neither confirm nor deny the details.

Okay, so imagine it's Christmas Eve. Mom hasn't finished her shopping yet, so she arms me with some cash and her list and I head out to London to get things done. First stop, a very popular toy store in London. I wander around the store and get what we need - a play kitchen with food, stocking stuffers, a Leapfrog toy, some other little stuff and a Wii. The Wii was going to be a family gift. Mom had been going back and forth trying to decide whether to get one or not and finally decided to bite the bullet.

So I grab what I need and head into the electronics department to collect the Wii. Luckily, there's one left sitting the shelf. Perfect. I head up to the register to check out, the register in the electronics department. As I hand the items over to the young cashier boy, I start into my usual routine in a store. That is, I start rambling like a crazy person. For some reason, I'm overly chatty with cashiers. True story - a cashier at Chapters gave me some Hunger Games temporary tattoos the other day because I wouldn't stop talking about his Mockingjay pin.

Anyway, I'm babbling away to this kid as he scans the items. Then he launches into the sales pitch for the extended warranty. I figure why not, give me the 2 year warranty. I don't usually buy into them, but I figure with Mom and the foster kids and grandkids, who knows what might happen. At least this way if someone drop kicks it or throws up on it, we can get a new one.

So he rings everything up - "That'll be $201.47. Wow! You did really well!"

Of course I immediately know something is wrong. The Wii was $150. The warranty was $25. The kitchen was $100, then there was all the little stuff. I figured the kitchen must have rung up wrong, but didn't want to say anything. Plus I was kind of in a fog with the whole shopping on Christmas Eve thing, so I just swipe my debit card and think I'll figure it out later. He gets the little flyer about the extended warranty, grabs my receipt and stresses how important it is to keep the receipt because I'll need it if anything is ever wrong with the Wii.

I grab my receipt and book it out of the store. No issues with any sensors or alarms. Load the stuff in my car and sit down to look at the receipt.

You guys, he didn't scan the Wii. He took off the security cable and didn't scan it. At least, that's what he did if this is in fact a true story...

So I do what any other practical, educated, responsible 29 year-old would do.

I call my Mom.

"Mom, I just left the store."
"Oh, okay. How did you make out?"
"I'm having a moral dilemma."
"What? Why?"
"The kid didn't scan the Wii! I kind of just stole a Wii!"
"What? - She starts imitating that IKEA commercial - Start the car! Start the car!"
"Seriously, I'm sitting in the parking lot and I don't know what to do! I just looked at the receipt and realized what happened!" (I proceed to tell my mom the whole rambling story)
"Well, you didn't really do anything wrong, it was his mistake. And he even looked at the total, he should have realized something was off."
"I really don't want to go back in there. But what if it comes off his pay? They won't be able to track it or anything will they?"
"Honestly, I think it's fine. You're the best Christmas Eve shopper ever! You're doing this every year!"
"Okay, I'm just going to go. There's no rule that says I had to check the receipt before leaving. I could have just looked at home and then it would have been too late!"
"Just finish the list. I think you're fine."

And that, my friends is how I kind of sort of stole a Wii this year at Christmas.

Or did I???

IKEA hack

2012-01-02T08:07:00.000-05:00

So I bought a whole bunch of stuff the other day with the intention of completing a few little projects I've had sitting around the house. Most of them are boring (anyone want to help me re-caulk the tub?) but some are a little more interesting and fun. (Coming soon - mixing concrete! For reals.)

This was a quick little project that I've been meaning to do for awhile. We have this bulletin board where we keep all of our concert/sporting event tickets and it was getting just a little crowded.

So, when I saw this little project on IKEA Hackers I thought it would be an easy way to change up the ticket board. I already had one set of 3 cork trivets from IKEA, and grabbed a couple more when I was there last month. From there it was just a matter of sticking some Command picture hanging strips on them (which are pretty much the greatest thing ever. Thank you, 3M!) and sticking them to the wall.

You can see how I started out being good and using my level on the left side, then my usual manner of girl measuring took over on the right side and it got a little lopsided. My trivets were slightly different sizes, so I left the gaps between them instead of having them touch.

Then it was just a matter of repinning all the tickets and taking a little walk down memory lane.

I think it's kind of funny how you can see the wall between the gaps now, and it makes me want to repaint that room a brighter colour to play up the contrast. Not right now though.

I filled it up really quickly, but the nice part about it is that it's easy to add another three trivets to the side and just keep expanding!

I'm really happy with how it turned out - especially since you can't tell how lopsided it is now that it's covered in tickets.

What do you do with tickets? Keep them in a shoebox? Photo album? A ticket journal like this one my friend Jenn found?

Finally!

2011-12-31T15:35:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was a pretty special day. Vivian was in daycare for the day and Jagger was at work. Which meant I had the entire day to myself! Crazy. Of course instead of planning ot have a relaxing day to myself, I decided I needed a project to tackle.

Enter my kitchen. The kitchen I've been wanting to paint since I first set foot in this house. Here's an old, old picture from when we first moved in.

Bland city. Blah.

Well, after a day of running around getting paint and supplies for some other projects and a quick trip downtown to buy myself a pair of fantastic vintage earrings it was time to pick Vivian up from daycare and I hadn't started painting yet. Mom had said I wouldn't be able to do paint the room in a day though, so I was determined to get it done anyway.

So, at 8:00 p.m. I started the first coat. At 1:30 a.m. I started the second coat. And at 3:30 a.m. I had a painted kitchen. And it's fantastic!

Sure the lighting is bad and my camera is crap, but you get the idea. It's so awesome, I loves it.

Now, I know what you're wondering. Yes, that is a trifle bowl filled with bags of goldfish crackers for Vivian on my kitchen table. And yes, my napkin holder is filled with napkins from Quiznos.

The colour is Cedar Green by Benjamin Moore. I'm in love with it. I'm a big fan of using colour - no beige for me!

I'm so glad I finally got my ass in gear and got it done. It's definitely not a perfect job (I don't really believe in taping things off, so it's a little messy in places) but it's done. Finally.

Now all I have to do is something with that little area above the stove. I didn't want to paint it because it's a weird textured area. I think I might try and tile it and do something fancy since it's such a small area.

Happy New Year!

Vivian Vendredi - Tantrum Time

2011-12-30T23:10:00.000-05:00

Holy crap. Vivian has started throwing tantrums all. the. time. The littlest things will set her off and before you know it she's thrown herself on the floor screaming. It's awesome.

Here's an example. Yesterday I was getting ready in the bathroom, trying to brush my hair and maybe get some makeup on. Vivian all of a sudden figures out how to flush the toilet.

Flush
Me - Wow, Vivian! You learned how to flush the toilet!
Flush
Me - Okay, honey. That's enough. Come play over here.
Flush
Me - Vivian, no. Mom says no.
Flush
Me - Vi...
Flush
Me - No, Vivi-
Flush
Me - Okay, that's enough. You're not listening. You get to go to the hall.

I pick her up and put her in the hall where she throws herself on the floor screaming and crying for 15 minutes. Awesome.

I'm hoping most of it is because of the craziness of Christmas (which was fun, but sooo overwhelming) paired with her getting annoyed at being home with me all day. Time for full-time daycare!

Any suggestions for a drama queen 1 year old?

Don't let the innocent look fool you.

Oddly Attractive Men

2011-12-29T08:56:00.000-05:00

It has been brought to my attention that I kind of have weird taste in men. Take the conversation we had the other night for example...

(While watching The Big Bang Theory)
Mom - You know, it's kind of weird that he (Johnny Galecki) is a nerd on this show, because he's actually kind of buff.
Me - Yeah, I think he's good looking.
Jagger - Really? He's short.
Me - I didn't say he was tall. I said he's good looking.

I think I've proved my point.

How about Jon Stewart? He's funny and has grey hair. I love grey hair!

True story - I once went to see the movie "Wimbledon" with some girl friends. After the movie I had to ask - "Does anyone else find Paul Bettany oddly attractive?"

I wasn't the only one.

Any Sam Rockwell fans? Just ignore him in "Green Mile". Don't base your judgment on that.

Here, maybe the dancing will help.

This is an important distinction -

Chubby Seth Rogan = adorable. Skinny Seth Rogan = kind of weird.

You know what? This one shouldn't even be oddly attractive. Just plain attractive.

Jason Lee

And my favourite version of Jason Lee! The Mallrats version!

Jason Sudeikis

Funny = Hot.

Michael C. Hall. This one isn't that odd either, I don't think. Maybe it's odd that I find him even more attractive in his "kill outfit" on Dexter though.

Djimon Hounsou

Maybe not an odd choice, but not a super common one either.

Larry David. I want to marry him. Seriously.

Peter Dinklage

Yup.

Jeff Goldblum

I could listen to him stammer all day.

I'm sure I could go on, but you get the idea. Any one else have some left-of-center crushes? Come on, I can't be the only one!

Ashlie Mix #6

2011-12-28T08:55:00.000-05:00

Last one!

The Postal Service - "The District Sleeps Alone"

Stevie Nicks - "The Edge of Seventeen"

Guns n' Roses - "Mr. Brownstone"

King Cobb Steelie - "Below the Stars"

The Used - "Yesterday's Feelings"

John Fogerty - "The Old Man Down the Road"

Ryan Adams - "Come Pick Me Up"

Feist - "Mushaboom" (Postal Service Remix)

Fleetwood Mac - "Never Go Back Again"

Temple of the Dog - "Hunger Strike"

CKY - "Escape from Hellview"

Aphex Twin - "Film" (LP Version)

Junior Boys - "Count Souvenirs"

The Inbreds - "Any Sense of Time"

Death Cab for Cutie - "All is Full of Love"

Dismemberment Plan - "Gyroscope"

Weezer - "Pink Triangle"

Huey Lewis and the News - "The Power of Love"

Coheed and Cambria - "Always and Never"

Phil Collins - "In the Air Tonight"

"Weird" Al Yankovic - "White and Nerdy"

The Best Week of the Year

2011-12-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my absolute favourite week of the year - that weird, dead week between Christmas and New Years.

Most people are off work, everybody's broke, nobody care what they eat because the resolutions start next week, you can get drunk on a random night in the middle of the week and it's socially acceptable because it's still the holidays, there's World Junior hockey on, movie matinees to check out, new DVDs to watch, new clothes to wear, new toys to play with, new books to read - it's awesome!

This year my favourite week of the year also happens to be my last week at home with Vivian. Even though my maternity leave ran out at the end of November, I've been on vacation from work all month and only working one or two days a week to ease back into things. The new year brings full-time work for me so I will definitely be enjoying this last wonderful lazy week.

Any big plans for this week?

My favourite part of Christmas so far...

2011-12-26T06:46:00.000-05:00

...was Mom reading "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids.

"It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, with the hopes that Santa Claus soon would be there. The children were asleep in their beds while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. Kids don't understand any of this anymore. And mama in her kerchief - you know what? Mom and dad were in bed. They really need to update this thing."

Ah yes, a traditional Christmas at our house.

Wishing you all a lazy, hockey filled Boxing Day!

Radvent: Day 25 - Becoming

2011-12-25T11:53:00.002-05:00

I've always hated when people would say they needed time to "find themselves". Usually it was coming from someone who was trying to rationalize taking a year off from school when I was finishing high school/in university. It always felt like a cop out to me, just another excuse to delay becoming an adult.

So that's why I'm not going to say that I need to "find myself". I know where I am.

What I do need to do though, is put more focus on myself.

The last few years seem to have been about everyone but me.

2009 - was the wedding.

2010 - was being pregnant

2011 - was figuring Vivian out

So I think 2012 should be spent with me finding ways to focus on myself a little more. Obviously I'm still a mom, which means I can't always do what I want to do, but I think I need to find some little ways to take better care of myself and to generally take charge of my own happiness. It doesn't always have to be some big pampering day or anything, but just little ways to let myself know that I deserve just as much time and attention as everyone else in my life.

I can go to bed early when I need to.

I can stay up late when I want to.

I can read a trashy magazine.

I can order the large fries.

I can go for a walk to clear my head.

I can buy a new pair of jeans without feeling ridiculously guilty about it.

At least, I think I can.

We'll see how it goes in 2012.

This is the last Radvent post! I'm so sad. I hope everyone had as much fun reading them as I've had writing them. Maybe next year you'll join me?

Merry Christmas to All...

2011-12-25T10:43:00.000-05:00

...and to all a good night.

Radvent: Day 24 - Magic

2011-12-24T12:47:00.002-05:00

I love Christmas Eve. I love that feeling of finally being able to sit down and look at the wrapped gifts and have a beer with my mom and feel like we finished. It's never easy getting to that point - there have been lots of Christmases, most Christmases, where it feel like it just isn't going to happen. There's too much to buy, not enough time, not enough money.

Somehow though, things work out. Somehow everything comes together. The presents get bought, wrapped and put under the tree. The groceries are in the fridge, the beer is ready and Christmas happens. Somehow.

It's funny the Christmases you remember as a kid. One of the Christmases that always stands out in my mind is the year our dog ate all of our ornaments. We had an artificial tree stuck in a bucket of sand because we didn't have a tree stand. For a single mom with three kids, it was a rough Christmas. Every time we came home the tree had fallen over out of its bucket of sand - our sad tree with a couple of garlands and like three ornaments that were saved from the dog.

I don't remember what I got for Christmas that year. I will never forget that tree though. That tree sums up Christmas with my mom. It might not be perfect, and it might seem like it's going to fall apart, but it's there and that's what matters. When I think about that tree, I laugh every single time. That sad tree lying on the floor is burned into my memory, and even though it might not have been very funny at the time, it makes me laugh now to think of that year.

I hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas Eve! Cheers!

Radvent: Day 23 - Presence

2011-12-23T23:27:00.003-05:00

It's always surprising to me when someone comments on how I appear. Not how I look, but how I appear to be. Usually, I'm incredibly transparent. People can always tell when something is bothering me or when my mind is somewhere else. I tend to wear my emotions right smack in the middle of my face and have a hard time hiding what I'm thinking.

Every now and then though, someone will make a weird comment. It happens a lot with Vivian.

"You're so calm with her. Is she your first? You seem so relaxed?"

Really?! Because inside I feel like a complete and utter failure with food in her hair and suitcases under her eyes. How could I possibly be calm? Am I putting on some sort of brave face instead of the look of sheer misery that I feel like I'm showing?

Or are they seeing a different level? Am I somehow breaking through the exhausted exterior to show that at my core I know what I'm doing? Or are they just getting things complete wrong?

I'd like to think they know something I don't.

Vivian Vendredi - Sicko

2011-12-23T12:14:00.001-05:00

This past week has been a rough one - poor little Vivian was sick, sick, sick, sick! She must have had some kind of stomach bug because there were things coming out of places all week. It was so bizarre to see her so lethargic, just lying on the couch and falling asleep constantly. Poor little girl.

She's back to her old ways just in time for Christmas though - the house is a disaster again, so she must be feeling okay!

I'm really looking forward to Christmas with her - she's been practicing unwrapping presents already, so it should be fun.

She got a haircut last night too, although you can't really tell from this picture. She's got a little bob now though, much better than the baby mullet she was rocking!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Radvent: Day 22 - Promises

2011-12-22T22:03:00.001-05:00

Promises to Vivian

I promise to let you eat junk food once in a while.

I promise to try to remember what's really important before getting frustrated with you.

I promise to let you be yourself.

I promise to listen to you.

I promise to make you a bed on the couch when you're sick.

I promise to laugh at your jokes.

I promise to encourage you to do whatever you want.

I promise to make you learn the value of hard work.

I promise to always be proud of you.

I promise to play with you, even when I'm tired.

I promise to buy you books.

I promise to teach you.

I promise to let you decorate your room however you want.

I promise not to get worked up if you want green hair.

I promise to worry about you.

I promise to guide you.

I promise to try to make Christmas magical for you.

I promise to do my best.

I promise to love you.

If you haven't been reading Megan's original Radvent posts, you really should check out today's. She writes a monthly letter to her daughter, Alice and they're so beautiful!

Radvent: Day 21 - Wrapping

2011-12-21T21:02:00.002-05:00

I feel like this prompt kind of sums up most of my previous Radvent posts. Which is funny, because that seems to be the impression that some of the other Radvent posters have gotten from it. (Have you been checking out other's entries? You can find the links on each of Megan's posts on www.princesslasertron.com you should check them out!)

Anyway, because I don't feel like another deep "who I am on the inside" kind of post, I'll tell you about one of my many, many quirks.

Once, when I was little, I wrote a letter to Santa on behalf of myself and my brother and sister. We asked him if he could please wrap all of the presents in our stockings, thank you very much. Love, Ashlie.

One year we woke up to find all of the wrapping paper still laying on the dining room table. We were told that Santa was in a rush and had to leave behind the wrapping paper. It's funny, because one year the Easter Bunny also left all of his leftover candy in our kitchen cupboard. Apparently our house was his last stop. Makes sense.

This tradition has continued to this day, much to my mother's chagrin. Every year I get asked if everything has to be wrapped, and I still insist on it, even if it means I have to do it myself. Yes, I have spent many a Christmas Eve wrapping the gifts for my own stocking as well as my brothers and sister. I love having everything wrapped. I once wrapped a tube of Chapstick. I take this very seriously.

This now poses a problem for Jagger, since he "can't wrap presents". And I put that in quotes because I don't believe it. Anyone can wrap a present, they just might not do it well. Anyway, I still insist that he wraps everything in my stocking. What's the fun in just shoving a bunch of random things in a stocking?

On that note, I should probably get back to wrapping some presents.

Radvent: Day 20 - Mentoring

2011-12-20T21:30:00.002-05:00

This one is tough.

I don't know if I necessarily have a mentor. I have people who have taught me, people who inspire me and help me at work, but no one that I would necessarily call a mentor.

I have friends, I have people I admire, I have people who do things that I would like to one day do, but I've never thought about any of them being mentors.

Do I look at people the wrong way? Maybe I should be looking for a mentor. Maybe then I could write a better post about mentors.

Radvent: Day 19 - Identity

2011-12-19T22:56:00.002-05:00

Who am I at my best?

Let's see.

I'm a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, neighbour, confidante, coworker, pet-owner, blogger, night owl, fangirl, TV addict, pop culture junkie, bookworm, comic book nerd, runner, rower, book club member, DIYer, spray paint addict, Dr. Pepper lover.

And at my worst?

I'm a procrastinator, stubborn, jealous, lazy, shallow, bad backer-upper, judgmental, critical, messy, self-doubting, phone call ignorer, late bill payer.

I think it all balances out though.

Radvent: Day 18 - Style

2011-12-18T16:23:00.001-05:00

I feel like I have much better style in my head than what I actually project to the world. There's always something keeping me from actually dressing the way I want to - usually it's money, but sometimes it's just the way my body is and the way it works (or rather, doesn't work) in a lot of the clothes that I like. Basically on the weekends I end up looking like a 6-year old boy - jeans and a comic book T-shirt. It works for me though, so I'm okay with that.

I was thinking last weekend that I need a change though. I have the perfect one in mind - something simple, but a dramatic result. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag yet though - it'll be a surprise when it happens! I basically realized that my style is too low maintenance right now. It's great having a look that doesn't take a lot of effort, but I feel like right now I need to have something higher maintenance. I need to spend a little more time and effort on myself. I need to have a reason to keep up with things.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

2011-12-18T14:42:00.001-05:00

I'm a very stubborn person. A few weeks ago, I got the idea in my head that I wanted a white Christmas Tree. So I threw the idea out there on Facebook - tacky, or fabulously tacky?

There were many naysayers who thought I would regret not having a traditional tree. But the more people tell me not to do something, the more I want to do it.

So I went with my fabulously tacky 60% off white Christmas tree.

The pictures don't really do it justice - in person it looks much fuller and sparklier - it's actually white and iridescent, so it's all glittery and sparkly in person.

I bought a bunch of cheap-o disco ball ornaments from Jysk - they were all marked down to like $2.50 a package. Once I got the ornaments on it, I thought it needed something a little extra, so I pulled out my box of paint chips and made a little colourful garland. I tried stringing them together, but no matter what I did they ended up flipping around backwards and just looking wonky. So I busted out my glue gun and just glued them all together in a long chain to wrap around the tree.

Of course I topped it all off with a big purple bow. What else would you put on top of a white disco ball Christmas tree?

I think the trick to having a white tree is to stick with a theme for your ornaments. If you were to put on a mishmash of ornaments, it would just look a little crazy. Keeping things in the same vein - bright, colourful and disco balls - keeps it grounded and leaning towards the fabulously tacky side of things.

I still have all my regular ornaments, which I think I might use on a garland wrapped around the bannister for the stairs or something - I would hate for them to go to waste!

What do you think? Tacky or fabulously tacky? You should see it in person - it looks much better! Come on over for a holiday drink, you can see my bottles hiding out on the top of the china cabinet next to the tree!

Radvent: Day 17 - Music

2011-12-17T19:47:00.001-05:00

It's funny this prompt should come today, because I was at a concert last night! My first concert in far too long. My friend Jenn and I went to see AWOLNATION, and it was amazing. If you get the chance to see them live, I highly recommend it. It was a super high energy show and the crowd was awesome.

Not sure who they are? Perhaps you've heard this song...

Awesome.

It was a small club show, which completely renewed my love of club shows. I mean, really, it's the best way to see a band. People at club shows are super pumped because they love the band. I find people tend to see bands at big arenas or festivals just to say they went. People go to a club show out of love. I love the intimacy of the stage and how the band will interact with the crowd. At this show, by the end of the encore the stage was completely covered with people from the crowd, it was awesome.

Sure it can make me feel old when I desperately want to sit down somewhere after an hour, but it's so totally worth it.

What's the best concert you've ever been to?

Radvent: Day 16 - Rhythm

2011-12-17T11:52:00.003-05:00

Oops. I'm a day late. But the reason why I'm a day late ties into the next Radvent post, so you can see more about that later today.

First, Rhythm.

It's funny, one of the things I realized about myself while I was off work for maternity leave was my natural rhythm - my natural state of wake and sleep. I'm definitely a night owl. If I had my way, my preference would be to stay up until at least 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. and sleep until 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. That's what I did for pretty much this whole last year, and it was pretty great - despite the multiple times waking up between 2:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.

I just feel like I get more done at night. When the house is quiet I can finally relax and do what I've been meaning to do all day.

Could you imagine what it would be like if everyone could work hours according to their own natural body clock? I suppose it would be terribly inconvenient, but it would also be awesome.

Vivian Vendredi - Party!

2011-12-16T06:38:00.000-05:00

Well, Vivian had her first birthday party last weekend. Here's a little-known fact - planning a kids party is pretty much the worst thing ever. For me, I was all worked up about it about 6 months ago. I was full of Pinterest ideas and had colour schemes and themes planned out...it was going to be awesome.

But as the date inched closer and closer, I thought, "To hell with this. She doesn't care if her party has a theme or not. I might as well just take it easy and stress about big fancy parties later when she can order me around."

So we kept it simple - the kids went swimming, then we had cake and Quiznos. Easy-peasy, right? But it was still super stressful and exhausting. Oh, and kids parties go by at the speed of light. Especially first birthday parties. The whole thing went something like this - get the kids in the pool. Okay, now the kids are getting cold, get them out now before they start screaming! Okay, everyone's happy again. Feed them before they start screaming! Okay, Vivian needs to get out of the chair now. Open presents before they start screaming! Now cake before they scream! Now everyone go home and scream there! Seriously, it goes by so quickly, and you don't have time to remember to enjoy any of it or take any pictures of anything.

But the important thing is, it's over. Now we can worry about pulling Christmas off, which is becoming more and more interesting since Vivian's been running a fever and throwing up for the last few days. Yeah, shopping is going to be fun this weekend.

For the record, she was pretty unimpressed with the whole "you get to make a mess eating cake" thing since I let her eat like that for every meal. We still had fun though.

Radvent: Day 15 - Success

2011-12-15T14:23:00.001-05:00

I don't know what will make me feel "successful". I'm happy with my job, but it's definitely not something I want to be doing for the next 20 years. I'm happy with our house, but it definitely needs some improvements. I'm happy with myself, but I could definitely use some improvements too.

Maybe that's what makes you successful? Knowing what your limitations are and where you need improvement? I'm in a place in my life right now where I don't know what exactly comes next. The last few years have been so focused on the next thing - get married, get a house, have a baby - that now it's a bit of what next? I'm happy with things being the way they are for now, but what is the next box to tick off?

Do I go back to school?

Do I focus on paying off debts?

Do I take it easy for a few years until Vivian starts school?

Do I look for opportunities to earn extra income at home?

Will any of these things make me happier?

I'm the type of person who likes to have something to look forward to - a goal in mind. And I guess right now I don't necessarily have that.

But maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe I need to just enjoy things now, and not try to rush things.

I do like a project, though.

Radvent: Day 14 - Pride

2011-12-14T19:22:00.001-05:00

I'll admit it. I miss living in the city. Living in London was great - everything was there. It was easy to run out to the mall to get whatever you needed, there was always a 24-hour Shoppers Drug Mart close by, and a wide variety of fast food.

I miss the old neighbourhood, Wortley Village. If you haven't been to this part of London, you should check it out. It's like this weird small town right in the middle of the city, and it's beautiful. One day I was literally going for a walk and two little girls went skipping down the sidewalk signing "My Favourite Things" from the Sound of Music. For reals.

I miss my old running routes. I miss being able to smell the Labatt's brewery. I miss being able to go home for lunch. I miss being able to drive with my gas light on for days because I only had to stay in the city.

Don't get me wrong, Strathroy is great. It's big enough that you have everything you need, but small enough that you don't have to deal with traffic or any other big city problems. And it's only 20 minutes to get to London for anything else.

It's not the same though. It doesn't have that same feel, it's not home yet.

Maybe as Vivian grows up here I'll be able to appreciate Strathroy a little more and it will feel more like home.

Until then I'll just cruise by Labatt's every now and then to catch a whiff.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

2011-12-14T18:16:00.000-05:00

I love barbeque chicken pizza, don't you? I mean really, who doesn't? It's like heaven on a plate. I usually order it from Dominoes, but recently decided to try making it myself and it was pretty awesome.

Looks pretty awesome, right? It was super easy too - I just used Pilsbury pizza dough, then topped it with Jack Daniels barbeque sauce, leftover grocery store chicken (grocery store chicken is the greatest thing ever. I don't know why I bother buying any other form of chicken), green peppers, onions, then topped it with shredded cheese. I should have added bacon, but I forgot. Still pretty awesome though.

Have you made any fun pizzas lately?

Radvent - Day 13: Performing

2011-12-13T22:30:00.001-05:00

When I saw that today's prompt was "Performing" I figured I could go in two directions. One, I could write a mildly pretentious post about the different roles I play in my life - mother, wife, sister, friend, daughter...blah, blah, blah. Or, I could tell you about my job.

I don't talk about my job too much on here, mostly because people from work read my blog and I wouldn't want to say anything bad about work. Not that there's anything wrong with any aspect of my amazing job, of course! (That was close.)

See, I'm a court reporter. I work in traffic court. Yes, every single time I tell someone what I do for a living they start to mime typing on a stenography machine. No, I don't use one. Yes, I can type very fast. Most of my days at work are spent sitting in a court room in front of the justice of the peace and facing a room full of people. I have to wear a stupid black robe and even stupider white dickie and read charges, swear in witnesses, do paperwork at the speed of light, make sure the computer is recording everything that's happening and type lightening-fast notes on everything that's going on. It can be hectic sometimes, but I really do enjoy it.

What's often the hardest part of my job, however, is keeping a straight face. See, even though I sit facing the whole courtroom, it's really easy to forget that everyone can see me. Weird, right? But it's true. I get caught up in whatever I'm doing and can forget about all the people. This can be a problem when someone is telling a ridiculous story to explain why they were speeding (everyone has an excuse) or why they absolutely couldn't stop for that yellow light. My eyes are just dying to roll at them, but I have to be professional and reserved. Sure, there's lots of moments when the mood is lighter and we all have a good chuckle about something, but more often than not, my inner monologue is being snarky and sarcastic while my face tries to remain impartial.

It can be exhausting not letting people know how crazy they can sound sometimes.

Radvent: Day 12 - Creating

2011-12-12T23:58:00.002-05:00

One thing I've definitely found about myself as I get older is that I keep looking for outlets to be creative. I've taken a knitting class, I've tried different crafts thanks to Pinterest, I'm inspired to work on refinishing and improving furniture...all things that I never would have thought I would do.

There's something so incredibly satisfying when you are complimented on something and can proudly say, "Thanks! I made it!" I love being able to create and share things with my friends and family, and I really hope I have more opportunity to do so in the future. I would love to learn to sew. Really sew, not just "I can fix that button" sew. There are so many things I would love to try, it's just a matter of finding the time to do it all!

Maybe that should be my new years resolution - to make time to create.

Radvent: Day 11 - Resting

2011-12-11T20:51:00.001-05:00

Oh, what a timely choice. As I write this we've just finished the exhausting task of Vivian's first birthday party. This weekend consisted of Vivian throwing up all over the living room and Jagger coming down with strep throat while I wait for everything to make me sick. If things go as they usually do, I'll probably be half-dead by Christmas day.

I know that I need to take a break - go to bed before 2:00 a.m. for once - maybe even before midnight! Take some time to relax while I still have time off. The problem is just this time of year - we have no decorations up (due to a self-imposed "no Christmas decorations until after Vivian's birthday and party" rule) and I have no Christmas shopping done.

Are you one of those people who says things like, "I can't get sick right now. I don't have time. I can be sick next week, but not right now." Yeah, I'm one of those people. One of those people who spent every slack week in university in bed with a cold instead of partying. One of those people who needs a nap on Christmas day not because it's Christmas day but because I feel like shit. Can't get sick when it's busy, so I get sick the second I slow down.

But really, I should just rest ahead of time.

I went to IKEA...

2011-12-11T08:55:00.000-05:00

...and now my living room looks like this.

Can't wait to see how it will look after Vivian's birthday party and Christmas.

Radvent: Day 10 - Writing

2011-12-10T20:18:00.001-05:00

I'll be honest. This blog is about the only time I write now. I keep a notebook with notes and letters to Vivian, but other than that, this is it. When I was younger, I used to write all the time. I had notebooks filled with partial stories and lofty dreams of being a writer.

And now here I am, talking to you.

The one thing I hear all the time about my writing is that I write just like I talk. So if you've never met me in real life, you can be pretty sure that reading this is basically like talking to me. Maybe I should try and do a video blog sometime so you can see just how random I can be. That's always been such a strange comment to me though - how else would I write? If my writing doesn't sound like me, then who should it sound like? Am I supposed to be fancy and throw in bigger words to make myself sound smarter? Should I try to be more flowery and deep?

That's what I like about having a blog. It's my rules. I can write about whatever Nonsense (see what I did there?) I like. There's no rules, there's no guidelines. If people like it, that's awesome! And if people think I'm a lunatic, well, that's just the way it goes I guess.

Maybe you should do a little writing in the comments section! Tell me what you like to write about, or just gush about how wonderful I am. That works too.

Radvent: Day 9 - Influence

2011-12-09T14:29:00.001-05:00

I have to admit, Megan Hunt of Princess Lasertron, and the creator of Radvent is hugely influential to me. I love the way she takes charge with her vision, the way she has created a brand out of herself and for herself. She's an entrepreneur in every sense of the word and she does it all with incredible style and grace. I love reading her blog, and have been reading it for close to three years now, I believe. I love seeing how she's changed to be a working mother, and finding out how she's managed to juggle and balance everything while expanding her company and constantly coming up with new projects.

If you haven't read her blog, I strongly suggest you start doing so. I usually save checking her blog for last in my morning routine. It's like my blogging dessert.

Vivian Vendredi - One Year

2011-12-08T23:57:00.001-05:00

Can I ask a question?

Who the heck is this baby?

Because it can't possibly be the same baby as this one.

Yes, a whole year has gone by and Vivian has had her first birthday. She has changed so, so much this year, it's really pretty unbelievable. What's even crazier is how much she's changed in just this last week. She's been taking a 3 hour nap every day, and has been sleeping through the night (well, basically. She cries a bit, but I leave her to herself now.) I haven't even wanted to say out loud that she's been sleeping better for fear that it will all fall apart tonight, but she's really come around. I really do believe that the combination of homeopath + weighted blanket + blacked out room + sound machine + night light + giving her time to figure things out has gotten us to this point. We had tried letting her cry it out when she was younger, and the best we would get was 45 minutes of screaming followed by an hour of sleep. Not fun.

She's really breaking through on language too - signing for "More", "All done" and "Milk", asking for her bubba and saying "Mama" and "Dada". Even if there's something she wants but can't ask for it herself, she'll clap when we figure it out and give her the right thing. It's really made things easier, and I can't wait for her to get some more words in that vocabulary.

I'm not sad to see her grow up. I still don't have those moments where I wish she was a newborn. I love our time now. I love that she'll snuggle on the couch with me when she's sleepy, and that she will hold her hand over my mouth to make me blow her a kiss. I love being able to interact with her and see her understand me.

Things can only get better from here, right?

Radvent - Day 8: Comfort

2011-12-08T23:51:00.001-05:00

Weird that I kind of wrote about comfort yesterday for "Travelling", so I suppose I should focus more on getting myself out of my comfort zone.

But what is my comfort zone? What aspect of myself should I be breaking?

There are lots of habits that I should improve - my eating, my sleeping, my working out, but that's not really a comfort zone thing. I think I put myself out there, introducing myself to new people. I would like to try new things.

I suppose right now my one big idea that I've been considering doing but am a little scared of is the furniture. I loves me some cheap and free furniture, and am so incredibly inspired by so many other bloggers who refashion and repurpose sad old furniture. Some may call me a hoarder (hi, mom!) for amassing so many pieces of random furniture, but it's all with the idea of one day working on them and reselling them so they can have another life. I picture myself spending the winters and spring painting and sanding and reupholstering, only to have a great big yard sale in the summer.

I'm a little scared though.

What if I spend all winter working on stuff and no one wants any of it? What if I price things wrong and people walk away or just figure they can do it themselves? What if I don't finish enough pieces, or I don't do a good enough job?

Right now I have the comfort of having the space to keep all this furniture, so it isn't a problem having it around. Maybe I need to light a little fire under myself and get this project off the ground.

Radvent - Day 7: Travelling

2011-12-07T23:33:00.001-05:00

Yes, I need to spell "travelling" with two L's because I'm a good Canadian like that.

I'm not a big traveller. Can't say I've got that wanderlust in me. I'm a home body. Give me some jogging pants, a kitchen full of snacky food and a full DVR and I'm good to go. I like feeling at home, being in my own space. Heck, I get homesick just going across the border for a little shopping!

I would love to travel - to see exotic and interesting parts of the world, but I guess I always figured I didn't want to do it unless I could do it right. No hostels for me. Whenever I hear about someone's trip, even if it's just to Cuba or Mexico for a week of sun, sand and drinks, I wonder if there's something wrong with me for not wanting to do the same. Should I have more desire to travel? Am I too stuck in where I am? Or is there a dignity in knowing where you belong and owning that space?

If you have an answer, you know where to find me!

(For anyone tuning in late, I'm participating in Radvent, a daily blogging challenge hosted by Princess Lasertron. You can check out her blog for more fun!)

Radvent - Day 6: Starting

2011-12-06T22:09:00.001-05:00

Momentum is a funny thing. Sometimes it takes ages to make your feet hit the ground and actually start doing something, but once you get up, it's impossible to sit down again. I'm bad for this - there's always a million things I want to get done around here, but never seem to just get them started, even if they're just the tiniest of projects. There's always a show I want to watch, laundry that needs to be folded, something else that needs to be done.

Case in point - my kitchen. I've wanted my kitchen painted since first moving here. I've had the colour picked out, but just haven't gotten around to doing it. To be fair, it is a big, messy job. But it must be done. Also on the list is the bathroom to be painted. And my desk needs to be painted. And I have a crafty little job in the office I want to finish.

I'm putting it out there for you to see - these are things I want do finish! Mark my words, I'll get them done and show you when I do.

Now to get started.

Mad Props

2011-12-06T11:33:00.001-05:00

I'll be posting my Radvent entry later today (it's Starting today - a tough one!) but in the meantime I wanted to post a link about my little old blog here. My good friend Dan was kind enough to write a very flattering column about the randomness I do over here every day - you should go check it out!

http://www.lfpress.com/comment/columnists/dan_brown/2011/12/05/19072396.html

Radvent - Day 5: Drawing

2011-12-05T22:03:00.001-05:00

I've always wished I could draw. I really, really can't though. I think what I like best about drawing is the supplies. Is there anything better than art and office supplies? I hardly think so.

I'm a big notebook fan. A new notebook holds such promise - you can fill it with thoughts, ideas, memories, lists - the possibilities are endless.

One of my favourite notebooks is one for Vivian. It's where I scribble letters and thoughts, things for her to read one day. Who knows, maybe one day she'll fill it in with art of her own.

Radvent - Day 4: Caring

2011-12-04T12:20:00.001-05:00

I bought myself a Christmas present yesterday. Did you read that right? I bought something for myself. Something I didn't need. Something I just wanted.

I had been thinking about buying myself a rowing machine for a few weeks. I know with winter coming I need to do something for myself. Something to help lose that last bit of weight and help keep my sanity on all those cold snowy days. The rowing machine was always my favourite at the gym - cardio and resistance all in one, which somehow comes together in a hypnotic and addictive way. I love it. Of course I struggled with the decision. Vivian's birthday is coming up, and then Christmas is right after it. How can I justify spending money on myself?

I can justify it because I'm important. I'm as important as the other people in my life. My sanity, my happiness is worth it.

It's hard to put yourself first - but it's worth it.

Radvent - Day 3: Fascination

2011-12-03T14:35:00.001-05:00

It's a hard thing to think of yourself as interesting. At least it is for me. I'm too self-deprecating to consider myself interesting, let alone fascinating. I do think it's important to try and make yourself interesting though, even if you can't admit to it. It's important to explore new opportunities and to take chances. It seems silly, but for years I resisted the urge to read comics. I always wanted to, but I didn't want to cross that line into being "someone who reads comic books." It seemed too geeky, even for me. Since crossing that line, I've cultivated a hobby that I really enjoy. I've met awesome friends who I wouldn't have met otherwise. I've brought art into my every day life.

As an adult, it's easy to get stuck. To keep hanging out with the same people and going to the same places. When you break that stagnant cycle, you open yourself up to all kinds of interesting people and places. And who knows, you might just be the interesting friend that someone else is looking for.

Radvent - Day 2: Balancing

2011-12-02T16:47:00.001-05:00

I love being a multi-tasker. I love the feeling of having a million balls in the air (not those kind of balls) and being able to manage them. I like having a big project in front of me and piecing it together, seeing it take shape. I love that my job depends on me being able to multi-task. Nothing makes me feel more satisfied or confident in my abilities than being able to keep up at lightening-fast speed in court and not missing a thing. I like being that person you can rely on.

It can be difficult sometimes though to see the forest for the trees. It's hard to keep perspective on the big things when there are so many little things that seem so important. It's hard to juggle those balls and keep the important ones going. I suppose what I need to remember is that sometimes, balls can bounce. It's okay to drop the ball once in awhile.

Vivian Vendredi - First night with the weighted blanket

2011-12-02T16:32:00.001-05:00

I'm still battling with Vivian to sleep through the night. Some nights she's not too bad, and even slept for 6 1/2 hours one night, but still nothing consistent. Now that I'm going back to work a couple of days a week, I really need to get her to sleep.

So, it was weighted blanket time. I had one custom-made for her, and it weighs four pounds. My thinking was that she might be disturbed by noises or lights from passing cars and that instead of being able to just get over it and go back to sleep, she wakes up enough that I need to go in to give her back a soother or a bottle or whatever. I was hoping that the comfort of the weighted blanket would be enough to get her through any disturbances.

So, I tucked her in to bed last night with a light blanket to snuggle with (she likes to pull a blanket over her face when she sleeps) and then her weighted blanket. I closed the door and crossed my fingers.

Thirty minutes later, she was crying. I cursed a little, and went back in to give her back her soother and tuck her in again.

I tried not to expect a miracle overnight, but I have to admit a tiny part of me was thinking that she might magically sleep all night long.

She did not.

It was a pretty typical night for us. She was up at 2:30, 4:30 and 6:00, then up for the day at 8:00. Sigh.

I'm not giving up though. My next plan of attack is to pair the weighted blanket with overnight strength diapers in a bigger size than she usually wears and hanging up a dark sheet in the window to help block the light. Beyond that, I don't know. I'm pretty much tapped.

Any more suggestions?

Radvent - Day 1: Challenging

2011-12-01T09:33:00.001-05:00

Now that NaBloPoMo is done, I'm starting a new blogging project. Megan at Princess Lasertron is hosting the second annual Radvent. What is Radvent? It's a 25 day blogging project giving you prompts to help kickstart your journalling and creative process leading up to Christmas. I really enjoyed reading it last year, and I'm a huge fan of Princess Lasertron. Megan's creativity, individuality and hard work is incredibly inspiring. I'm so excited to be a part of Radvent this year!

So, every day until December 25th, I'll be posting a Radvent post. I'll still be throwing in my regular posts, so you'll still get your regular doses of randomness and Vivian.

Here's day one - Challenging.

Without a doubt, 2011 has been the single most challenging year of my life. Being home as a first-time mom has been difficult emotionally, physically, financially, mentally...you name it. There were days I didn't want to keep doing it, there were days that I couldn't bear to be alone at home with her for a minute longer. Of course, all of that difficulty gets balanced out by the little successes, the bright spots that keep you going. Smiles, giggles, successful naps, even just getting out the door with your hair dried seem like momentous victories.

I wouldn't give up this year for anything, even though it's pushed me to the brink more times than I can count. It's shown me how strong I can be. How far I'm able to bend without breaking. It's taught me how to prioritize and recognize what really needs to be done in a day, and what I really need to keep going.

Looking ahead, there are many more challenges in my future. Of course the immediate one is dealing with going back to work. Beyond that this year, I'm planning to push myself to lose the rest of the "baby weight" (let's be honest though, it's Taco Bell and McDonalds weight at this point), push myself to pay off bills, and push myself to find more opportunities to grow as a person - things I can participate in to feel autonomous. I need accomplishments outside of Vivian and outside of my home. I love being a mom, and I love that little girl like crazy, but I need to continue to challenge myself to define myself on my own terms. I need to be proud to be Ashlie, not just "Vivian's mom".

My Pinterest Christmas

2011-11-30T12:33:00.000-05:00

Oh, Pinterest. What did I ever do without you? With the holidays fast approaching, I thought I would share some of the Christmas ideas I've been pinning for those of you who don't follow me on Pinterest. (And you should follow me - use the red button link to the right!)

I love paint cards, and thought this was a cute alternative for gift tags. I don't have the patience to sew little trees on them, but a cute snowflake punch might be a nice effect.

(Originally from here)

"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" is possibly the greatest Christmas movie ever. This print would be great as a Christmas card for all your extra-cool friends, or I think it would be fun just framed as decoration.

(Pinned from here)

Just by adding ribbon to a string of lights you get a fun, colourful garland! You could use any combination of colours to match whatever you've got going on at home.

(Pinned from here, originally from here)

I love this newspaper tree, but I'm pretty sure our cats would eat it.

(Pinned from here, originally from here)

This felt Christmas tree might be a fun way to keep little hands away from the real Christmas tree. They can change out the decorations as much as they want!

(Pinned from here, originally from here)

I've somewhat randomly decided that I want a white Christmas tree. Mostly because so many people think it's tacky. I'm determined to make it fabulously tacky! Here's a great inspiration picture - love the bright, unexpected colours with the white tree!

(Pinned from here, originally from here)

Have you been pinning anything fun lately?

Just under the wire...

2011-11-29T23:02:00.001-05:00

Ugh, I'm so late on posting this, and Blogger is being an asshole and not letting me load pictures to write the post I want to write, and I'm almost done NaBloPoMo so I'm not going to miss a day now!

So, until I can get a better post up here, I will leave you with this.

That's what I was watching instead of writing a proper blog. I love watching the Victoria's Secret Fashion show - it's fun and sexy and goofy and I loves it.

Enjoy!

Dress Me Up

2011-11-28T12:26:00.001-05:00

Of course I'm overthinking my outfit for work tomorrow. I was lucky enough to snag this awesome Shabby Apple dress from a Facebook mom to mom seller group for $15, can you believe it? Here's the picture from the website...

Obviously, I don't look like that. Luckily though, the dress looks pretty good on, and I love it!

The only problem? What shoes do I wear? I can't decide between the following three options - tell me what your choice is!

Option one - black boots.

Yes - fair warning - all of these pictures are pretty crappy because I took them myself in my bedroom mirror while Vivian was napping. Also, you have to smack my camera to make it work, so we're not dealing with the best technology here.

I like the boots, and I usually wear them with dresses in the winter, but I think this dress is a little long for boots and they might weigh the dress down too much.

Option two - purple peep-toes.

I love these shoes, and I don't wear them enough. Can I pull off a red dress with black tights and purple shoes though? I don't know.

I'm pretty attached to the idea of wearing the black tights as opposed to regular nylons - am I wrong?

And option three - beige sandals, still with the black tights.

Kind of an unconventional look, but I am actually really digging it. What do you think? At least this picture turned out a bit better - the sun must have come out while I was taking it.

Also, try to imagine my hair being done (I'd just gotten out of the shower and started taking pictures) and make up on and whatnot.

Okay, your turn! What shoes should I wear? And no, I don't have a pair of just plain black heels. Apparently I got rid of them in some sort of crazy cleaning binge.

Back to work!

2011-11-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

Know what tomorrow is? Tomorrow is officially my first day back to work. Except that I'm not working. I'm on vacation. I had enough vacation time available that I was able to extend my maternity leave through the Christmas break and start full time on January 3rd. Awesome, right? Except that I'm a crazy person, so I'm going to work part-time in December. So really, my first day back to work is Tuesday this week, then I'm off for the rest of the week. Why am I doing this? Well, to help my co-workers through what is traditionally a crazy month at work for one thing. Also to help transition Vivian and I into the world of waking up early and being at work/daycare all day long. And the most important reason? I'm losing my freaking mind.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very grateful that I've been able to have this year at home with Vivian. Not everyone is able to take the full year, so I'm definitely appreciative of what I have. That being said, if this year has taught me nothing else, it's that I'm just not cut out to be a stay-at-home parent. I'm sorry, but I need to spend time away from cutting up grapes, the constant chaos of my house, and the damn Toopy and Binoo theme song that is constantly stuck in my head. I need to be around grown-ups. I need to use my brain.

I love Vivian, and it is amazing being with her all day, but I think I need to miss her. I need to look forward to seeing her at the end of the day, and to get excited about spending time with her doing special things on the weekends. I need to be my own person away from her.

This year has been much harder on me than I thought it would be. I wasn't completely prepared for how difficult it would be mentally. Dealing with the isolation, the depression, the sobbing into the sink while I do the dishes - it's been hard. For a million reasons, it's been hard. And I know that it's going to be hard going back to work. I know that I'll deal with that fantastic Mommy guilt where you can't wait to be away from your baby and then the second you are away from them you feel like the worst person in the world for wanting to be away from them, and you feel like you should miss them more. It's a terrible thing.

So while I feel like I should be sad, and wishing my maternity leave would stretch on forever, I just can't. I can't help it, I'm excited to go back to work. I'm excited to wear grown-up clothes, to wear makeup and to do a job that I enjoy and that I'm good at. I'm excited to get a little bit of my old life back. I'm excited to feel like my old self, even if it's only a little teeny tiny bit of that old self.

This doesn't make me a terrible person. This will make me a better Mom.

Wicked Style

2011-11-26T11:47:00.000-05:00

So far I've been pretty good to not go crazy buying clothes for Vivian. She grows too fast, she refuses to wear a bib, she rolls in the dirt...in general, she's just a human disaster. So her life has mostly been spent in hand-me downs. I might have to make an exception for the new Harajuku Mini for Target collection by Gwen Stefani. It's unbearably cute and crazy awesome.

I mean, come on. Check it out and tell me this isn't the cutest stuff ever made.

Plus, Vivian dances to the commercial. She clearly has style for miles.

Vivian Vendredi - Black Friday Baby

2011-11-25T14:25:00.001-05:00

We didn't do any actual shopping today, but Vivian did do lots of pretend shopping with her new grocery cart.

I got it a while ago with my Pampers Points and was going to save it for her birthday or Christmas, but then I realized that she doesn't know the difference if something is "saved" or not, so I just went ahead and gave it to her. She LOVES it. Totally worth it.

Of course, we will be doing lots of shopping in the next few weeks what with her impending first birthday (!!) and Christmas. I'm having a hard time decided what she should get for her birthday, versus what is a Christmas present. Either way, she's bound to be completely spoiled over the next month.

But all she really wants to play with are the remote controls and the phones.

Christmas has come early!

2011-11-24T10:59:00.000-05:00

You guys. Look what I freaking found at Walmart!

That's no regular Ginger Ale. That is Raspberry Ginger Ale! Schweppes Raspberry Ginger Ale! Only one of the rarest pops out there! (It rivals my beloved Tahiti Treat) For reals - the last time I drank this was in 2002 when I found a dusty 2 liter bottle in a gas station.

I love this stuff, and am so happy to see it back, even if it is only for a limited time. Sounds like a good reason to hoard to me!

I'm an idiot sometimes.

2011-11-23T08:02:00.000-05:00

My friend Lisa has a cookie exchange every year. Everyone who comes bakes a dozen cookies for each person participating. You swap them around and end up with loads of different cookies that you can freeze and have on hand for the holidays. It's a great idea, and is a fun way to get different recipes. This year, there are 14 girls participating, so I have to bake 14 dozen cookies.

Because of my mild to moderate Pinterest obsession, I was inspired to bake these cookies...

They're cute, and it's really easy. The recipe actually calls for you to just use a sugar cookie mix, cut them using a bell-shaped cookie cutter, then turn it upside down to add the pretzel antlers and use M&Ms for the nose and eyes. Easy-peasy.

So I set out to Walmart to get my supplies. I found the sugar cookie mix and proceeded to read everything on the back of the package trying to figure out how many cookies one package would make. I couldn't find anything anywhere on it, so I did the only practical thing and panicked, buying all six bags that were on the shelf.

At the checkout, I asked the girl if she had ever used the mix before and knew how many cookies each package made. She wasn't sure, but guessed 16-20 cookies a package, which is totally a random made up number.

So I got home with my stuff, still worrying that I had too much/not enough cookie mix to get through my marathon baking session. What do I notice as I'm putting everything away?

Can you read that? What is clearly printed on the front of the package? "Makes 3 dozen cookies".

At least I have enough, and not crazy amounts of extras. But still, I feel like an idiot for poring over the back of the package without even thinking to read the front.

Cookie Doh!

I got spoiled!

2011-11-22T13:25:00.001-05:00

I can hardly believe it, but it's already been 3 weeks since my birthday! I don't know if I mentioned it on here or not, but I turned 29 on October 29th, so we had a party to celebrate. I figured I would rather make a big deal this year and just quietly let next year pass by! We had a great time having our friends and family over and I got thoroughly spoiled! I got so many wonderful things, I just had to share with you!

In addition to lots of bags of Peanut Butter M&Ms (how did they know?) popcorn, Bud Lite Lime and many bottles of wine and champagne, I got these treasures...

Books! So many lovely books. The Mad Men one even has paper dolls in it! And the Joan paper doll even comes with an accordion and a wine bottle to throw at her idiot husband!

I know, the picture is terrible because my camera is terrible (I didn't get a new camera for my birthday) but I got a beautiful new Chamilia bracelet and a super pretty and delicate necklace. I already have a bunch of new charms picked out that I want for my bracelet!

My friend Carol made this beautiful quilt for Vivian. It's called "Brightest Day" and is based on the Lanterns from the Brightest Day comic series. You can check out more about it at her blog. My picture doesn't do it justice - it's so beautiful!

I finally got a new purse! Vivian's big enough now that I can get away with only carrying a few things for her, and I don't need a giant diaper bag all the time anymore, so I'm back in purse land!

How awesome are these? Dharma wine! Custom made by our friends James and Christine!

Have you seen Fast Five yet? You should go watch it immediately. It's pretty much the best movie ever made, no joke.

My friend Amanda got me this great ceramic egg carton dealio. It's perfect for jewellery or change or little bits and pieces you have sitting around your bedside or your desk. I love it - it's just like the one Sherry on Young House Love has! (If you're wondering, that's the cork from the bottle of champagne from my champagne birthday!

I was also lucky enough to get a gift card so I could finally buy some makeup after going without for a year and another gift card for Canadian Tire to help support my spray painting habit! Hopefully I'll be able to show you how I used that one soon!

It really was an awesome birthday - and thank you to everyone who came over to help celebrate!

Now let's all forget about my birthday next year, shall we?

So when are you going to have another baby?

2011-11-21T19:55:00.000-05:00

It's funny how people work. When you are dating someone, everyone wants to know when you're moving in together. Then you move in, and people ask when you're getting engaged. You get engaged, they want to know when you're getting married. You get married and they start asking about kids. You have a kid, and they start asking when you're having another kid.

It's exhausting.

For us, the short answer to this question is no time soon, if ever. At this point, with Vivian being nearly 1, I don't have any desire to have another baby. I don't want to go through being pregnant again, I don't want to have a newborn again, and I really don't want to see how Vivian handles having a baby around that demands all my attention. I just don't feel that need, that feeling of "not being done". I honestly feel like I could be very okay with just having Vivian. I think she could be enough. A psychic actually once told me that I would only have one baby, and that it would be a very strong child. Sounds like Vivian to me.

On the other hand, I don't necessarily want Vivian to grow up as an only child. I don't want her to have to miss out on all those fun brother and sister things, and I worry about her being alone if anything were to happen to Jagger and I. Of course, there are lots of ways to make a family. Maybe there's a better option for us. Vivian absolutely loves playing with older kids. It's like she was made to be a little sister. Who knows, maybe we could adopt, or maybe I'll follow in my mom's footsteps and be a foster parent. Maybe we'll end up adopting one of my mom's foster kids - who knows! All I know is I'm not attached to the idea of having another baby of my own. I've always wanted to be a billet family for the local Junior B level hockey team, so maybe that could be a fun option of helping to raise and support a kid without them being a biological part of the family.

There's lots of options out there, and there's lots of time to explore them. And who knows, maybe I'll be eating my words in a few years when I suddenly get the urge to be pregnant again.

How do other people feel? Do you know absolutely when you want other kids? Is anyone else completely ambivalent about it, or am I some kind of baby-hating monster?

Painted Little Tikes Furniture

2011-11-20T17:03:00.000-05:00

Remember the dingy old Little Tikes table and chairs I picked up off the curb back in May?

I finally got around to painting them!

Some people don't think you can paint plastic - but you totally can. Just get the spray paint that specifies it's for plastic and you're good to go! Originally I started painting the chairs blue to match the table, but it wasn't covering super well, so I just gave them a fresh coat of yellow to brighten them up. It definitely seemed to work better to paint it in a similar colour to what it originally was. You could paint it a totally different colour, but I think it would take a lot more coats to get it totally covered, and I was too lazy for that.

Not bad, right?

This one's for you, Jenn!

2011-11-19T15:09:00.001-05:00

I was out with my friend Jenn last night (I know, shocking! I left the house!) and we checked out her friend's band. They 90s covers, so it was a good mix of stuff. The one song I was missing? The 90s classic, Possum Kingdom by the Toadies.

My sister can never remember the name of this song, so she just calls it "The Scary Song" and I always know exactly what she's talking about.

Hope you enjoy - this is one of my all-time favourite songs to crank up and belt out!

Vivian Vendredi - Vivian the thief

2011-11-18T13:45:00.001-05:00

Vivian is so grabby lately. She pulls everything off the fridge, she steals cell phones and wallets, drinks and snacks. The other day at the arena she tried to steal someone's Gatorade and fries. Of course, if we were to hand her any of these things, she would completely lose interest.

Take her sippy cup, for instance. I've been trying to get her to drink her milk out of a cup during the day, rather than a bottle. She has no interest in doing so, and usually ends up shaking the cup until the milk spills everywhere. But if someone else is around with a sippy cup, she's all over it. Stealing cups from other kids at daycare and from the kids at mom's.

I suppose the grass is always greener, or the sippy cup always more appealing.

Keep your purses and cell phones close! You never know where she'll strike next!

Back to the drawing board...

2011-11-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

I think it's a pretty common human experience to think you've invented something that's going to make you a millionaire and having you living on easy street. Of course, the common human experience that goes along with it is the soul-crushing realization that someone else has already had your idea and made your million dollars.

My most recent brilliant idea that already exists? Glow in the dark soothers.

After many nights of crawling around on the floor feeling under cribs and chairs looking for Vivian's soother, I knew that glow in the dark soothers were something that should exist in my life.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one to have had this idea. There seems to be many, many versions of this on the market already.

Now to buy one for Vivian. And then get back to the drawing board to make my millions.

Penn and Teller Tell a Lie

2011-11-16T11:25:00.000-05:00

Do you love Penn and Teller as much as I do? I love them. They're so funny and bold and eccentric - I just think they're great. I would love to see one of their Vegas shows one day. Until that day comes, I'll have to settle for watching them in their new show on Discovery Channel.

Have you seen it yet? It's called Penn & Teller Tell a Lie, and I think it's really fun. They present six outrageous claims and stories. Things like the Nazis used exploding bottles of wine as weapons, you can blow out a forest fire with a jet engine, you can crack a safe with liquid nitrogen - all kinds of weird and wacky things. They present the options, and you have to decide which one is the lie. You can vote online for your choice, which they reveal at the end. It reminds me a lot of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, only with their signature Penn and Teller comedy and style.

If you need something fun and interesting to watch on Wednesday nights at 10:00, check out the Discovery Channel, and try to find the lie!

Book Clubs

2011-11-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

Sookie and Pam might not do book clubs, but I do.

I've always wanted to be in a book club, because I'm cool like that. Now I'm lucky enough to be in two of them.

The first one is the graphic novel group. We meet at LA Mood in London on the second Saturday of the month to discuss our choice. It's a great group, and if you're in the London area and have ever had any desire to check out graphic novels, you should check out our group. It's okay, it's not a bunch of "Comic Book Guys" who know every detail about everything and scoff at people who have only read Archie comics before. It's totally laid back and easy to make your voice heard. It's been great for us to expand our reading and check out a bunch of stuff we never would have read otherwise. We've been meeting for over two years already, and I definitely hope that there will be many more years with the group.

My other book club is the Third Tuesday Book Club. Obviously, we meet on the third Tuesday of the month. The story behind this one is I "met" Jenn by commenting on Nikki Stafford's blog. Eventually we realized we were in the same city, and I stalked her Google profile to find out that she had a blog for the book club. Somehow, I manage to infiltrate the group. What I love most about this book club is that we barely talk about the book. We meet at a Starbucks and literally talk about the book for about five minutes before launching into chatting about anything and everything else. Honestly, there was one meeting where none of us had even read the book. It's relaxed, it's easy going, there's no pressure if you don't finish a book or don't like a book because before you know it we'll be talking about vampires - especially the Edward Cullen look a like who dominated our meeting last month.

Between the two clubs, I've read a lot of great books, met a lot of great people and had a lot of great conversations - with many more to come.

Anyone else in a book club?

Is this no longer a thing?

2011-11-14T16:20:00.000-05:00

I love cereal. Like, I love it to Seinfeld proportions. I could eat cereal for every meal, quite happily.

But I've noticed something lately - what happened to prizes in the cereal box? Do they not exist anymore? Is Vivian going to grow up never knowing the joy of sifting through a box of Shreddies looking for the prize? It seems like everything is promotional codes to enter online. My most recent box of cereal had a PIN you enter online to send away for a free retro T-shirt. I got another T-shirt a few months ago, as well as an issue of The Hockey News. Another box of cereal had a coupon printed inside for a free container of yogurt.

So do we have better prizes, but you have to put in the effort of going online to get them? Are the days of the cheap plastic toy to incite you to buy a box of cereal gone?

Someone please tell me somewhere there is still cereal with a prize inside.

Clap Clap!

2011-11-13T20:45:00.001-05:00

If there's one thing I love, it's a song with hand claps. I don't know what it is, but it gets me every time! Here's some of my favourites. Let's clap along, shall we?

And, of course,

What are your favourites?

Those shows you hate that you love

2011-11-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

Do you have shows like these? Shows that just drive you crazy, but you keep coming back for more? For me, there are two shows that definitely stand out - Whitney and Grey's Anatomy.

Whitney is a new show that just premiered in September. I was wary of it from the start - it's a traditional 3-camera style sitcom starring Whitney Cummings. What bothers me about the show is that it seems really outdated and on-the-nose. It's very, "Oh wow! She's wacky! She doesn't want to get married! Look at her brightly coloured apartment and scruffy boyfriend! She's so awkward, but she's hot too!" It drives me crazy. But, because it has a primo timeslot, I keep watching. I hate myself for doing it, and mostly just make fun of it while watching, but I don't think I've missed an episode.

Grey's Anatomy, on the other hand, is an old friend. I've been watching it since the beginning, and there have been times when I've genuinely enjoyed and looked forward to watching it every week. I stopped watching during the season where Izzy gets a brain tumour or whatever and we have that all-too famous "ghost sex" scene. I just couldn't take it anymore after that. But, in true Grey's fashion, they brought me back with the whole rampage shooter in the hospital episode. So here I am, watching it again every week and only becoming more and more irritated. Derek is a jerk, Bailey is a jerk, Lexi has nothing to do...it's so incredibly frustrating. And yet, I keep watching. And what's even worse is the show keeps making me cry! Not as hard as it used to (remember the Amish girl who was dying and had to say good bye to her friend? Or those brain tumour teenagers who were in love?) Grey's used to be able to reduce me to full-on tears - not an easy feat. But today it's more of a choked up feeling, which only serves to irritate me more.

I'm a prisoner of these shows.

Anyone else? Is there a show you just can't stand but continue to watch it for some strange reason? I could throw Glee in here too (what the hell is going on this season? Why is Quinn such a hateful shrew?) but Glee is in a whole other category of it's own. It's the ultimate show that people love to hate, and hate to love.

Vivian Vendredi - Grading on a curve

2011-11-11T09:46:00.001-05:00

I have come to terms with the fact that Vivian just isn't like other babies. She probably never will be. I've come to accept that a good night for Vivian is what some people would consider a terrible night, a good meal with Vivian would be a disaster for other parents. She's just a different kid. We're seeing progress though!

I didn't want to say anything last week, because I didn't want to jinx it, but Vivian's sleeping has improved so much. I'm sure it doesn't sound great to other people who have babies who sleep through the night, but when you consider where we were a few months ago, it's an amazing difference.

Let's go back - I would say things with Vivian's sleeping were at their worst in the summer. She was waking up every 1-2 hours at night screaming. Not just yelling, screaming. And she would be completely inconsolable. I would try everything to settle her down - rocking, bouncing, feeding her, ignoring her...it would take me about 45 minutes to settle her down enough to get her to sleep for an hour. It was dark times, my friends. The end of July was when we started seeing the homeopath and things got markedly better. She was calmer, napping better during the day and going for longer stretches at night. We still weren't quite there yet.

Skip to a couple of weeks ago. My homeopath switched remedies for Vivian. We went through a rough week where she was teething and waking up all the time at night and not sleeping as much as she should have been and I was on the computer at midnight writing to Amanda (our homeopath) desperately trying to figure something out. Amanda is great to deal with me emailing her constantly and told me that things usually have to get worse before they get better, and it might just be whatever has been bothering her all along working itself out. She said she would drop off another remedy to help with Vivian's teething and the runny nose she'd been fighting.

So we started with the remedy to help with the teething on a Friday. The next day was my birthday and Vivian was going to be spending the night at my mom's. I was a little worried about whether or not she would sleep, but knew my mom could handle it.

She slept awesome at mom's! She still woke up a couple of times, but she was calm enough that mom could just give her a bottle in her crib and she would go back to sleep. So when she came back to me for the Sunday night, I figured I would have a battle on my hands as payback for sending her away for a night - but it's been the same every night since! She "wakes up", which is basically her just crying and whining in her sleep. When I go in to her room, her eyes are closed, but she's whining and usually sitting up. I give her a bottle and lay her down and she'll just hold it herself and roll over when she's done. That's it.

Again - to someone who has a baby who sleeps through the night, this probably doesn't sound very fun. But for me, someone who used to go in to a baby who would stand in her crib and scream and shake with rage several times in the night, this is nothing! Sure, it's a pain to stand beside her crib waiting for her to finish her bottle, but seeing her roll over and hug her Dolly and go back to sleep all on her own is totally worth it.

I'm still hoping to get her down to waking up only once through the night, if not sleeping all night (right now she usually goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00, wakes up around midnight, 3:00 and 6:00 and is up for the day around 8:00 or even 9:00. One day this week she slept until nearly 10:00!) I still think that she has nightmares - last night she was crying in her sleep and crawling around her crib. What a baby has a nightmare about, I have no idea. I don't know if there's much we can do about that, but I know things will change when I go back to work and she has to be up at like 6:30 to get ready to go to daycare, so maybe between that and her weighted blanket (I'm still working on that one) we'll have a soundly sleeping baby.

I know that not everyone is sold on homeopathy - but for us, I'm continuing to see the positive effects on Vivian. We have a remedy to help with runny noses and coughs and it clears her up almost immediately - it's pretty amazing. If you're interested in homeopathy, you can contact Amanda here. I've heard from so many other people that their kids "just weren't sleepers" and that's what I used to think about Vivian. As time went on though, I just knew that there was something more going on with her that needed to be taken care of - and I'm finally feeling like I'm figuring her out. She seems so much happier - just ask her yourself. Oh no wait, you can't - she's happily napping in her bed!

Wish Book

2011-11-10T09:15:00.000-05:00

In our increasingly digital and paperless world, there is one item that sticks out in my mind as being unchangeable.

The Sears Wish Book.

Is there anything better in the whole, wide world than getting your hands on a new Wish Book for the very first time? Sure, as an adult it can be a bit annoying to see it pop up as early as Labour Day, but I still can't resist flipping through it one page at a time, over and over again. When we were kids, we used to have to get multiple copies to avoid fighting - everyone always wanted to look at it! I remember I would always flip to the back to look at the toys first, then meticulously go through the entire catalogue page by page. Even now I've gone through our Wish Book at least a dozen times.

Of course there are other ways to shop - you can just hop online and start adding items to your virtual cart and be on your way. I don't know what it is though, nothing quite compares to calling Sears and reading out all those item numbers, then going to pick everything up in a couple of days. We still do most of our Christmas shopping out of the Wish Book - it's just so convenient!

Don't ever change, Wish Book. I want Vivian to grow up with that same excitement of flipping through the Wish Book page by page and circling the toys she wants. If only because it makes shopping much easier on me.

Tell me you also have fond memories of fighting over the Wish Book with your siblings!

It's always a good time for some Beastie Boys

2011-11-09T19:31:00.001-05:00

Nothing clever to say today, folks. Cow bell solo instead.

My bid for "Sister of the Year"

2011-11-08T15:50:00.001-05:00

I don't usually write blog posts that are just about what I did over the course of a day, but yesterday was no ordinary day.

11:00 p.m. - I go to bed.

1:30 a.m. - Vivian wakes up, I give her a bottle and we both go back to bed.

3:30 a.m. - Vivian is up again.

3:45 a.m. - And again.

4:30 a.m. - And again.

5:00 a.m. - Vivian finally settles down, I lay in bed and pretend to sleep.

5:15 a.m. - My alarm goes off, I get ready to head out for the day.

6:10 a.m. - I grab Vivian out of bed and we head out.

6:15 a.m. - Drop Vivian off at daycare.

6:30 a.m. - Leave Strathroy for Simcoe.

8:20 a.m. - Arrive in Simcoe to work a French court.

10:00 a.m. - Court is done and I'm on my way home.

12:00 p.m. - Yay! I'm home and Vivian is with my mom. Maybe it's time for a nap.

12:25 p.m. - Mom calls to tell me she's at her place with Vivian, so I head down there.

1:00 p.m. - Get to mom's. Vivian's being insanely whiney since she's exhausted. I make her scream herself down for a nap.

1:30 p.m. - Vivian is sleeping, I help mom make a flyer for a Christmas Party.

2:30 p.m. - Vivian is awake.

2:50 p.m. - Mom is getting ready to pick kids up from school/daycare. She talks to my brother, Matthew, on the phone and he wants to go to a midnight release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

4:00 p.m. - Mom gets home with Matthew and the kids. I agree to take Matt and his friends to London for the game release.

5:30 p.m. - Matt starts hovering around me, so we head out to pick up his friends in Grand Bend while Vivian stays with mom.

6:10 p.m. - Drop the boys off at EB Games in London, head back to mom's.

7:00 p.m. - Get back to mom's. Vivian's already been bathed, hooray!

7:10 p.m. - Matthew calls, they need an adult with them to buy the game, so I have go back earlier than I thought.

8:00 p.m. - I leave mom's to take Vivian home.

8:40 p.m. - Get home, put Vivian to bed.

9:00 p.m. - Finished unpacking all of Vivian's stuff from the day. I go to wash the dishes and make bottles, but we're out of dish soap. I throw in a load of laundry before heading out.

9:30 p.m. - Return from the grocery store with dish soap, wash the dishes, make bottles. Going to sleep is starting to sound really, really good.

10:15 p.m. - Take a shower in an attempt to wake myself up.

10:30 p.m. - Sit down to watch How I Met Your Mother. I try to inject myself with just enough caffeine to make it through the rest of the night, but not so much that I won't be able to sleep later. I settle on some Peanut Butter M&Ms and a small glass of Diet Pepsi.

11:00 p.m. - Head out the door to meet up with Matt and his friends. I start to regret the M&Ms.

11:30 p.m. - Get to EB Games and Matt tells me they might have to wait until 12:30 or 1:00 because they haven't pre-ordered the game.

12:01 a.m. - The game is on sale! Hooray! Line is moving.

12:30 a.m. - Douchebags pull up in their truck, we witness a near-fight which ends in a girl being called the C-word. She totally deserved it though.

12:45 a.m. - The boys have their games and we all get back in the car to head home.

1:30 a.m. - Drop of the boys in Grand Bend, head to Port Franks.

1:40 a.m. - Drop Matt off at home.

2:00 a.m. - I'm nearly home, but am considering pulling over and sleeping on the side of the road.

2:10 a.m. - Finally pull into my driveway. Put Vivian's carseat back in the car.

2:30 a.m. - Curl up in bed. Didn't even brush my teeth.

I'm completely exhausted, and I put about 600 kilometers on my car in a day, but it was worth all the trouble to help out my brother and to let him do something special.

Next time they pre-order though.

The Sliding Doors Haircut

2011-11-07T05:41:00.000-05:00

Have you ever seen the movie "Sliding Doors" with Gwyneth Paltrow? It's a pretty good movie that shows how one small decision can change your life. In the movie, we see what happens when Gwyneth Paltrow's character comes home early from work one day to find her boyfriend cheating on her. We also see the alternative, where she is delayed on her way home and doesn't catch him.

The most exciting part of the movie? In the timeline where she catches her cheating boyfriend, she ends up with the world's most awesome haircut.

You know how sometimes women get that urge to cut their hair short and are constantly searching for that perfect short haircut? This is that haircut.

I know many, many women who have attempted this haircut, myself included. The problem with haircuts like these is they work best when you have a professional styling it for you every day. Otherwise, you just end up with hair that can't be put into a ponytail and constantly falls in your eyes and just doesn't work.

Isn't that always the way?

It's the same thing with Meg Ryan haircuts. My mom is a hair stylist, and it's funny to see how many people will come in asking for the same thing. Meg Ryan hair is definitely one of those. The problem with these haircuts is that they only work if you have that specific kind of hair.

Take my hair, for example. Right now my hair looks like this.

That's me at my birthday party. I got customized Dharma wine. I was pretty excited about it.

See, that's my hair. Not horrible, I guess. But not awesome.

But in my mind, it looks something like these haircuts...

Cobie Smulders and Dianna Agron I am not.

Oh well. I'll just avoid a mirror and keep thinking my hair has that cute disheveled look, and not that "my baby rips my hair out and I haven't used a blow dryer or straightener in a year" look.

Have you tried the Sliding Doors haircut?

You know that feeling...

2011-11-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

...where you're standing in the kitchen trying to wash the dishes and make dinner at the same time while your baby pulls on your legs screaming for your attention and you think just for a second, "I wonder how hard I can just flick my leg to get her off of me without actually kicking her across the room?" and then you realize that your baby is slowly pulling your pants down because you're wearing jogging pants again and nothing fits you right and you realize that this is what your life has come to?

No?

Just me then? Okay.

The Aspartame Intervention

2011-11-05T11:23:00.000-04:00

I like to think I live a pretty clean life. I like to exercise, although I haven't been able to do it often enough lately. I enjoy a beer after a long day, but rarely drink to excess. I've never smoked, never done drugs - unless you count forgetting to open the garage door while I'm spray painting furniture. All in all, pretty clean living. I do have a vice though - diet pop.

I used to be much worse - in university it wasn't unusual for me to go through five or six cans of Diet Pepsi in a day. At the time I didn't drink coffee, so it was my main source of caffeine. After university I gradually weaned myself down to a more reasonable one or two cans a day. I've tried to give it up entirely before - once when I was getting a lot of migraines, and then again when I was pregnant. When I was pregnant I stuck to regular pop in order to avoid the aspartame. I always feel better when I'm off it, but somehow I end up sucked back in.

So here I am - once again drinking way too much Diet Pepsi and/or Diet Dr. Pepper. Living with Vivian definitely requires a certain amount of caffeine, but I rarely drink coffee at home. The last time I made myself a pot of coffee, it resulted in Vivian dunking her hand in my cup of coffee. So yeah, that doesn't happen very often. Lately I've been finding myself going through several cans a day again, which usually ends up with me feeling like crap by the time dinner rolls around. I know I should cut it out and focus on drinking more water or something, but it's so hard!

Part of it is definitely the caffeine addiction. When I only drink coffee once or twice a week, I need the daily pick-me-up of a sweet, delicious can of aspartamy goodness. The other part of it is the entitlement. Because I don't have many vices, I can tell myself that I deserve it. There are far worse things I could be indulging in on a daily basis, so why should I feel badly about a can of pop? Or three? The sweetness can often keep me from digging into chocolate or something else equally bad for my waistline, so I feel stuck.

Any suggestions?

Vivian Vendredi - Toddler Time

2011-11-04T09:25:00.000-04:00

Vivian is almost 11 months old! And finally, finally we seem to be making some progress. She's sleeping much better at night, eating better, walking, chattering like crazy - she's totally a toddler now. It's so weird to see her just wandering around and mimicking what I say to her. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this is way more fun than having a teeny tiny newborn.

Of course, with Vivian being a toddler now come the challenges. Like her climbing onto her play table...

Yeah, the table was removed shortly after this, since she walked right off the edge more than a couple of times.

She still insists on feeding herself everything, which means that bathtime is always immediately after dinner time...

And she will climb into anything and everything she can manage to squeeze herself into.

She's quite the maniac. It's hard to believe I'll be back to work before too long. Luckily, she loves her daycare so I'm not worried about it at all!

Cillian Murphy

2011-11-03T09:40:00.000-04:00

It's time for a serious discussion about Cillian Murphy's face. Is anyone a big Cillian Murphy fan? Can someone tell me what's happening with his face?

The first time I became aware of Cillian Murphy was when I watched 28 Days Later. See, at the start of the movie he's in a coma and is all beard-o.

I distinctly remember watching the movie and thinking, "Meh."

Soon though, he decides to shave. Because this is important during a zombie apocalypse.

Then all of a sudden - whoa! Lose the scruff and now we've got something to look at for the rest of the movie!

Somehow though, I've never been able to feel the same way about him in any other movie. Somehow he ends up coming off looking a little too pretty or smug or something. I don't even know what it is. I mean, in this picture he almost looks like Kat Dennings.

And I love Kat Dennings.

I'm so confused.

I don't think I'm the only one though - there's a whole blog dedicated to unflattering screencaps of Cillian Murphy. Very interesting.

Pinterest Challenge - The Sequel

2011-11-02T11:10:00.002-04:00

Young House Love and Bower Power hosted another Pinterest Challenge for the fall season. The point of the challenge is to stop pinning and start doing! When you get into Pinterest it can become really, really easy to just pin every wonderful thing in sight and not ever get around to trying any of them. Nothing like a little internet challenge to get those creative juices flowing!

This time around, I took my inspiration from this pin...

...which I repinned from this board, which was originally from this blog.

It seemed simple enough - turn a coffee table into a bench. I just so happened to have this coffee table sitting around the house which I picked up off the side of the road in the summer.

It had pretty straight lines, and I needed something new for the front door area since Vivian was about five minutes away from pinching her fingers in the gossip bench which had been occupying the space. (Does anyone else constantly rearrange their furniture because their kids are always finding new and wonderful ways to get injured? Just me?)

A quick coat of paint, some foam from Walmart and a vintage sheet later, I had this.

Not bad, right? I need to add some trim or something to help cover the staples, but for right now it seems to do the trick. It was the perfect thing for the front entrance when we had the party on the weekend - just the thing for people to drop purses on or to sit on to put on their shoes.

It was a super simple project. I roughed the whole thing up with some sandpaper before painting the legs and sides with some white paint I already had. I picked up some squares of foam from Walmart (3 of them for $6 each did the trick) and used a vintage sheet I bought a couple of months ago. (This blog does amazing and inspiring things with vintage sheets, so I've started keeping my eye out for some in case I ever get some sewing skills) Some spray adhesive on the top of the table kept the foam in place (the foam is 3 inches wide and each square was 18 inches by 18 inches. Using three covered the top pretty well, but I had about an inch gap all the way around. It works though, I'm not stressed about it.) while I flipped the whole thing over and started staple gunning the sheet down. Easy-peasy.

Like I said, a little trim around it would give it a much more finished look, and I'm sure I'll get around to that one day. Not today though.

In case you missed it last time (or are new here from the link party!) here's what I managed to make for the last Pinterest challenge!

Happy Pinning!

Mixed VHS

2011-11-01T12:36:00.000-04:00

Poor Vivian. She'll never know the feeling of having to blow in a VCR to try and get it to play, or the endless frustration of a VCR that has eaten a tape. She'll also never know the joy of the mixed VHS tape.

Did you ever make those? I was a big recorder back in the day. I guess it was just the old fashioned version of having a DVR. I would record all kinds of things - awards shows, TV movies, episodes of shows I loved, music videos, and had stacks and stacks of tapes with all kinds of random things on them. I can distinctly remember having one tape just for cartoons (old episodes of Family Guy from before it was cancelled, South Park, Simpsons) one for episodes of Saturday Night Live, and all kinds of movies recorded. I would record really random things sometimes - I know I had "The Top 10 Haunted Vacation Spots" recorded for some reason (number one was the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast). I don't really know why I did it, I never got around to watching most of the stuff again. I suppose part of it was the collector aspect of me - I wanted people to know that these were the things I was watching. Unfortunately, I chucked them all in a dumpster a few years ago in a fit of cleaning my too-small apartment. It's silly to be attached to things that you can just find on YouTube now, but still. Sometimes I miss those days of having to rewind things.

Here's a few gems that lived on those tapes.

NaBloPoMo 2011

2011-11-01T08:59:00.004-04:00

Hey! Today is November 1st, which means it's the start of NaBloPoMo 2011! National Blog Posting Month is where people try to get into the habit of blogging by posting every day. I wanted to do it last year, but with the impending arrival of Vivian I thought it best not to start something I couldn't finish.

So what can you expect here this month? Randomness. A lot of randomness.

I'm not going to lie - it might get hard to find something to yammer about every day for the month, so there might be some days where the post is just a picture or a video or a quick thought.

So stick around and check in every day to see what I come up with! I'll be posting again later today!

My love/hate relationship with Paranormal Activity

2011-10-31T09:53:00.000-04:00

Since it's Halloween, I thought I would explain something about myself - I have a bit of a complicated relationship with the film franchise "Paranormal Activity". I'm not a huge fan of horror movies in general. I don't hate them, but I don't love them either. Usually I'm pretty meh on them. But in 2009 I started hearing about a little movie called "Paranormal Activity".

Do you remember the first time you heard about it? I do. See, I read Entertainment Weekly's website pretty much constantly. One day, I read about this movie that was made for practically no money that was making a huge splash. People were leaving the theatre because it was so scary. There was a "Demand It" campaign where you could vote to have it be played at a theatre in your town. But best of all, the trailers showed the audience reaction.

Seeing the audience reaction made it impossible for me to not want to see it. How could a movie really be that scary? How could it affect that many people?

Then I saw it. And immediately regretted it.

That movies stayed with me for weeks. I just kept thinking about it. There's something so terrifying about the simplicity of it that just got to me in a way that very few movies ever have.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to watch it again. In broad daylight, of course. It wasn't quite so terrifying the second time around, but it was still effective.

When the second movie came around last year, I was more reluctant. I don't know if you've seen Paranormal Activity 2, but the main focus of the movie is a baby. For some reason, I decided to go see it when I was about 8 months pregnant.

Terrible idea.

I still haven't seen it again. It was bad enough that I was still thinking about the first movie, but now with the addition of the sequel? Bad news.

Over the course of the last 11 months with Vivian, I've gotten up at least two or three times a night. And let me tell you, I still think about those movies every single time I get up. Every time I have to walk across the hall to tend to Vivian, I have to peek at the living room to see if there's anyone there. I can't sleep with my feet out of the blankets anymore, because I might get pulled down the hallway by some unseen being. Shadows, creaks, bumps in the night - my first thought always goes back to Paranormal Activity.

So of course, I thought it would be a great idea to go see the third movie yesterday.

I think the third one scared me the least out of all of them. Don't get me wrong, it still offered plenty of scares, but it just didn't cut to the core of me like the other two did. I'm wondering if it was because we saw it in a relatively empty theatre.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I do love seeing these movies. I especially love seeing them in the theatre. Half of the fun of them is hearing everyone else jump and scream and react to every slammed door and unidentified shadow. Sure, I pay for it later, but it's worth it for the scare.

And isn't that what Halloween is all about? Getting a bit of a scare?

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Vivian Vendredi - Vivian's Ladies

2011-10-28T15:41:00.000-04:00

I'm kind of oddly strict with Vivian's dolls. She has three special dolls that all live in special places. See, I have this whole theory that if she only gets a specific doll at a specific time/place then it's more exciting and special.

So here's our three...

At the top we have Mermaid - she lives in the car and gets to come with us to places like graphic novel group.

In the middle we have Dolly - she lives in the crib. Vivian loves her and is always trying to break her out of crib jail by pulling her through the bars.

And at the bottom is Baby - she lives on the stroller, but I think she's going to move to daycare and have naps with Vivian there.

That picture was nearly impossible to take, by the way. Vivian was so excited to see all of her dolls in the same place that she kept trying to grab them and hug them all.

Moving in for the kill

I love that she loves her dolls so much and that she seems to understand that they each have their place. Sometimes when she wakes up she'll be in her crib hugging her Dolly and have her soother in her mouth, but I'll tell her that Dolly and suckie live in the bed and she'll just leave them there. It's nice for her to have a comfort everywhere.

Don't worry, she has lots of other toys to hug and play with, these are just her special dollies.

In other Vivian news - she's pretty much mastered walking and rarely crawls when we're at home now. She's a pro at standing up on her own too - I've never seen a baby just stand up the way she does - not even using her hands to push off or anything. I finally caught it on video for you!

Have a great Halloween weekend, everyone! It's my birthday tomorrow and Vivian is spending the night at my mom's for the second time ever. I'm pretty excited at the possibility of getting six or maybe even seven hours of sleep!

Visiting the Lost Souls

2011-10-27T10:04:00.003-04:00

Last night I did something awesome. Something I've been talking about doing for years. I went on the Lost Soul Stroll with my friend Jeannette.

The Lost Soul Stroll is a 90 minute guided walk through downtown London which is put on by the Fringe Festival. As you walk, you encounter all sorts of dastardly and unfortunate souls from London's history. Our guides last night were Dr. Thomas Cream - London's own version of Jack the Ripper, as well as Phoebe Campbell (the only woman ever hanged in London) and her lover, Tom Coyle. On our walk through the dark alleys of London we encountered such ghouls as Captain Donald Rankin - captain of the SS Victoria, whose capsizing killed 181 people, the worst tragedy in London's history; Effie Moss - a fraudulent medium who would take you for all you were worth (mind your codpieces!); Bridget Donnelly - the Midnight Lady who supposedly can be seen riding up and down the Roman Line every February 4th; the Talbot Tot - the poor infant who was found buried during the construction of the John Labatt Centre, buried and unknown for over 100 years.

All of the Lost Souls were excellent performers - the amount of work that must go into each performance is staggering. The costumes, the dialogue, the ad-libbing with the audience, and all of it happening in the rain. It was a fantastic show, and at $20 a ticket, an excellent deal.

With different Lost Souls each year, I'm definitely looking forward to checking it out next year as a new Halloween tradition. Won't you join me?

Drive

2011-10-26T08:46:00.000-04:00

Don't let the pink 80s writing fool you.

I don't usually review movies on here, mostly because I'm too rambly and there's just so many other people who do a much better job than I could do. However, my friend Jenn and I went to see Drive the other night and I feel I need to share my thoughts on this film.

Holy. Shit.

That's my review.

This was honestly the craziest experience I've ever had at the movies. I went in thinking I knew what the movie was about - Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt man who is also a getaway car driver on the side. Seems pretty simple. Bryan Cranston is in it, which is awesome. So's Christina Hendricks - extra awesome! For the first half of the movie we were kind of lulled into this nice movie - oh, he has a cute neighbour with a cute kid! Oh, they want him to be a racecar driver! This is great.

About halfway through the movie, it takes a huge turn and we spent the rest of the time hiding behind our hands asking each other, "What is happening?!"

I won't tell you what happens - it is a really good movie, and you should see it for yourself. This is honestly the first movie in a very long time that literally made my jaw drop. For anyone who has already seen it - it was the hotel scene that did me in. Crazy. I mean, Albert Brooks plays a mobster. Do you know how disconcerting it is to hear Finding Nemo's dad yell obscenities and stab people? Crazy.

See this movie if you can handle gore and violence. Be careful driving after it. Jenn and I could barely find our way out of the parking lot after.

Halloween misfits

2011-10-25T08:43:00.001-04:00

It's almost Halloween and the shelves are full of candy. This, of course, is awesome. However, in every delicious multipack of mini chocolate bars, there has to be the one that you avoid. The one that you eat as a last resort when there are no better options left.

Let's review, shall we?

Here's our first mix.

This is one of my favourite varieties, because I loves me some Wunderbar. So for me, the order here is Wunderbar, then Crispy Crunch, then Caramilk. Last place of course goes to the Mr. Big. It's not that there's anything really wrong with Mr. Big, it's just that he's the misfit. He's the one that you avoid until you have no other choice.

This one's easy. The Aero is the clear loser here. The rest of the order goes Kit Kat, Coffee Crisp then Smarties. Stupid Aero. It's barely even a chocolate bar.

Obviously in this case you have Snickers, Twix, Peanut M&Ms and then the dead last Plain M&Ms. These should only be eaten in case of an emergency.

What would be interesting is if you could take the best of all these variety packs and have them duke it out. Let's say for instance you had a package that had Snickers, Twix, Kit Kat, Wunderbar and Crispy Crunch together. That's almost impossible to rank! If I absolutely had to choose, I think I would go with Wunderbar, Snickers, Kit Kat, Crispy Crunch, Twix. So maybe the crappy chocolate bars serve a purpose. They allow us to better appreciate the really good bars. I mean, in what universe would Twix be the final option?

What do you think? What's your favourite Halloween variety pack?