Bread Crumbs In The Butter

I'm sorry

I'm sorry that I woke up in a bad mood. When you get up before the sun rises and the whole house is warm and quiet, it can make you cranky.  Besides I went to bed late, but in my defense the hour between 11pm and 12am is the one hour a day where no one is talking, except for Jon Stewart or whatever book I'm reading. I like hearing you snore peacefully and warming up your cold feet with my socked ones.

I'm sorry that I didn't check the beautifully colour coordinated calendar on the fridge and forgot that today is the day you have to bring in six cans of food, a family picture and twelve dollars for a field trip. Oh, and I'm sorry I have to work the day of that field trip and can't go with you.  I'm doing my best to be everywhere everyday, and that day, I have to go where the money is.

I'm sorry that I made that mistake with that customer or put the wrong item into that slot. I'm sorry if my head seems to be in the clouds, but some of my head is still back at home, feeling the extreme guilt I felt before I even left the house. Besides, I'm not even sure that I made that mistake, but I'll take the blame, cause that's the kind of girl I am, right?  Everything just rolls right off my back.

I'm sorry that I yelled at you when I went came home for lunch, but I know you sat on the computer with your coffee for a few minutes before starting the work you do at home every day. I'm sorry that I rolled my eyes and asked sarcastically if you had seen the dishes or knew where the dishwasher soap was. It's just that when I get home later the kids will tell me they couldn't empty the dishwasher because it hadn't been started.  It's the same thing every day - I don't think I should have to ask anymore. I've never heard you ask me to clean the toilets, but somehow, it gets clean every week. I wonder how?  Maybe it's elves?

I'm sorry I didn't cook what we had on the calendar for dinner.  I just didn't feel like poaching fish and sauteeing vegetables.  The pizzas in the freezer looked awesome, even if it was pizza day at school. Eat it.

I'm sorry you can't go to bed at 9pm like your sister, but you're younger and though you don't think so now, I really do know what's best.  At least, I hope I do, because what's best is a lot harder than what's easy.

I'm sorry I shouted and got angry when the shower curtain bar fell on you. You were supposed to be getting your pajamas on, not taunting your brother in the bath. When he pulled the curtain to tell you to scram, it fell on you. I admit, I was more angry that you weren't listening to me than I was worried you were okay.  Besides, by the time "What the hell are you doing?" came out of my mouth I knew I was overreacting, but yelling felt so good, I didnt want to stop.

I'm sorry I promised myself that tonight I would go to bed earlier, sleep better and greet the day with a bit more optimism. I'm sorry I never listen. I know you get that you relish the quiet at night and resent it in the morning.

Not every day is like this, but the ones that are make me feel sorry.

Random What's For Dinner Post, Edition 1

At the beginning of September, John came to me, down in the dumps and feeling a little ... fat.  He asked me to help him lose weight and get ready for hockey season.

I told him I would, but he had to listen to me, had to try everything I gave him and was not allowed to get mad.

He reluctantly agreed.

All in all, John is an easy dieter. He adores food and is not at all picky. If he's hungry he'll eat. He's not too thrilled about my non-negotiable rules - portion control, less sugar and cream in his coffee and always eating breakfast (in fact, smaller meals more often instead of huge meals only twice a day was the hardest thing for him to get into).  But he deals and he looks and feels better.

One area I realized I had to work on was getting back to planning our meals. The summer was spent slacking in that area and we ate on the fly. In general, we eat quite well. We rarely have packaged foods, dinner especially and John and I were known to eat an entire pie only once in a while.

Now that I am back at it, planning and shopping like a sexier version of Martha, life is easier, less complicated and much better tasting!

So every once in a while, when the mood strikes, I'll update a little post to let you know what we're having. Maybe you could let me know what you're having and we can have a little inspiration fest, eh?

So here is Sunday and Monday for this family:

Even though we get our beef from a local farmer, I'm trying to limit red meat to twice a week. So today, in preparation for the typical busy Monday rush, I fried some ground chicken, threw it in the crock pot with your usual chili fair (peppers, tiny cut up carrots, tomatoes, spices, kidney beans and chick peas). I put the crock pot in the fridge and will turn it on tomorrow morning when I leave for work.

Today they had fresh tilapia fillets on sale at our grocery store so I got six of those. I'm roasting them in lemon and garlic and we'll have them with capellini pasta and some stir fried veggies (broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms and tomatoes). I've got a frozen pumpkin pie in the freezer that I popped into the oven just now and that will be our treat for the weekend.

So... whatcha eatin'?

Bullety: Edition 39; Fame

• Typepad is 5! My blog is almost 5! Get that - I was in on a trend. Go here to read my little write up and a brief reason why I started spewing this out in the first place. 

• Is it getting cold where you are? It is here. Last year it cost us an arm, a leg and almost two children to heat this monstrous house. Seriously, I worked for four months to pay the oil bills! This year, we have a plan - not one part of which was the price of oil dropping in such a blessedly dramatic fashion, but it will do nicely.  Last June, in a moment of genius, John bought three electric fireplaces discounted from $500 to $100 each. In June I was all "Seriously? Who's thinking about that now?  Let's go to Wonderland instead!" It pains me to say it, but my husband was right. It was -4 degree Celsius last night and we were warm and toasty. I think he deserves some leg humps for this one, no?

• Did you happen to see me at work today? Maybe one of you did.  If you came across me and wondered why in the world I looked like I had sprayed myself with battery acid this morning, it's probably because I pretty much did just that. I bought some new Garnier face cream which has a hint of fake sun in it and - naturally - I am allergic to it.  How did I know? The burning was a pretty good hint.

• Any of you Canadians watching So You Think You Can Dance Canada?  Was I the only one who had no idea that Romina is a professional dancer? I feel so duped! In any case, I'm over it (she's gone) and I'm officially in love with Lara and Miles. If you tell me they both won Emmy's for choreographing the Emmy's while working with the Boston Ballet and orchestrating Britney's comeback, I give up.

A vote worth more than yesterday's, and it costs less too! - UPDATE

*** Voting is now closed ***

Congratulations to Charlene (my super cool friend and Alex's rockin' sitter)!

Her submission of "A Parently So" was my favourite and I'm so glad most of you agreed. I would have hated to have to skew the results!

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Holy Shit!

You guys are talented.

I've managed to narrow down your awesome suggestions to my top five favourite.  I did change some words here and there to better convey the point I'm trying to get across with just a few words. That said, we have a real contest on our hands here folks!

So vote vote vote!

A New Gig! Now with more contest.

Know what I love?

Local newspapers.

I am not lying. My favourite Saturday activity as a teen was to plop down with a peanut butter and banana sandwich, a huge glass of milk and the local newspaper.  I don't mean the Ottawa Citizen (or the like) either. I'm talking the fourteen page community newspaper that was hand delivered once a week.

I'm not sure I could pinpoint for you exactly why I love community newspapers so much.  It's a mixture of the local stories, off the cuff columns and the chance that you could spot yourself or someone you know in it's pages.  I still remember the day I almost choked on a banana after recognizing a photo of myself and the local Canadian Tire manager each holding on to my prize winning Christmas painting. You just can't beat that!

To this day, I still enjoy sitting down and pouring over our community newspaper. In these parts, that paper is called The Almonte Gazette.  Given that our town is small and I already know practically everybody, not a week goes by that I don't see someone I know.  Also, I don't mean to brag, by two of my children have graced the cover and our entire family has been either named or photographed on a few occasions. I know. We're rock stars.

One thing I've long thought the paper was missing was a parental edge. Someone to come in and rant/gush/philosophize about parenting and raising kids in the Almonte area.  So, I pulled up my big girl pants, got really really brave, and emailed the Associate Editor's wife. Okay, so I wasn't that brave, but I thought I would test the waters on a friend first.

In any case, she loved the idea and her husband was equally interested. We hammered out a few details (I say hammered, but really Phil is so easy going that he pretty much just said "Sure" and "we can do this monthly" and that was it) and you are now looking at The Almonte Gazette's newest columnist!

How's that grab ya, eh? Nifty, no?

Here's where I need your help.

Phil would like me to name my column.

Writing out random thoughts and whatever flotsam appears in front of me is easy. Naming a blog or column is not. Bread Crumbs In The Butter is, decidedely, the most creative name I could come up with.

Moyra and I brainstormed some ideas and I think we went in the right direction. I want something that speaks to my exasperation and enjoyment of parenting, but also reflects my snarky and occasionally crabby personality.

We yelled out things like:

What Did I Just Step In?

What's That Smell?

Mommy Mania

Mommy Needs A Time Out

See where I'm headed?

Here's the awesome part. If you throw out your suggestions I will put them out for a vote. The winning name will get an Almonte Theme Gift Pack, including some yummy local treats and a year's subscription to the Almonte Gazette, so that you can read my column once a month (it is a weekly paper, so you get the added bonus of hearing what tractor pulls are coming to town and seeing the adorable babies born!).

Let's hear it blogosphere! Blow me away in 3, 2, 1 ...

Dwellings Through The Years

Since we moved in together in July of 1995 John and I have lived in a wide variety of dwellings. Our first "place" was with four other people in a big house on Lisgar Street in Downtown Ottawa. We (the two of us) shared a tiny room that had no closet to speak of.  We thought the room was pretty big and that the rest of the house afforded us lots of space for our sparse belongings.

Our first real apartment was a cute one bedroom on Metcalfe Street, a stones throw from Parliament Hill. We adored it and thought there was no way we could ever fill it with stuff. We would always have room!  It was brightly lit, had beautiful hardwood floors and was right above the building's garage door. You have no idea how loud that was. It was like the apocolypse every time one of our neighbours came home. Which is why we decided to move upstairs to the third floor.  That apartment had a better layout, a bigger bathroom and was right across the street from a church. Sunday mornings were interesting if we had been out the night before. Loud doesn't even begin to describe the sound of church bells when you have a hangover.

It was while we lived in that apartment that we found out I was pregnant with Kristyn.  As I grew and we gathered more baby stuff than anyone ever needed it became obvious that we had outgrown that apartment as well. Not to mention John wasn't exactly keen on having a baby and living right downtown.  We set out to find a reasonably priced rental condo, preferably somewhere in South Ottawa, way (it was way at the time) up Bank St.

I know you're thinking "Good luck finding reasonably priced rental housing in that area!", but it did work out.  It just so happens that I am a very bad driver and rear ended a very nice lady right at the corner of Bank and Heron one day.  Not only was she quite a good actress, rubbing her neck and swearing at the crazy pregnant lady with poorly applied mascara (oops), but she had owned a condo in South Keys and was willing to rent it to us!  So, I paid for the repairs to her tiny little Mazda and we moved right in to her beautiful two bedroom, five appliance, air conditioned condo.  Again, we never imagined that we could fill that joint with crap.

Wrong again.

I'm sure you see where this is going. As our family grew, our stuff grew and our houses grew.  From South Keys we bought a townhouse in Kanata and filled that one to the rafters with junk.  When we outgrew that house, we bought a gorgeous (and still my favourite of all our homes) 2200 square foot semi-colonial house one a corner lot in Stittsville. I'm not sure how, but we managed to fill that house and a two car garage!

In 2005, we made the biggest move we ever have and bought our current house and property from my father in law.  A 95 acre farm just outisde Almonte. Our move here has meant a complete change in lifestyle. We have more space, more land and a lot more to keep clean. The main house has six bedrooms, a bathroom in every room and an insane amount of storage.

It amazes me that in 13 years we've managed to grow from one tiny bedroom in one tiny house to filling one massive house, one massive barn and a pretty decent sized shed!

Recently, we made the decision to switch banks and mortgage types, which means we have to endure a property appraisal (again).  This property is hard to pigeon hole into one specific type. Is it a farm? Is it two homes or one (we have an "old house" and a "new house")?  Could it be a bed and breakfast one day?  Or is it just a massive house with a lot of bedrooms and way too many bathrooms?  Appraisals make us shake because not one appraiser seems to agree on it's value. They're either wowed or totally confused.

For the last month we've been working feverishly to better define this house. We've moved furniture, built walls, finished the basement, given everyone their own room and encorporated a guest room on the main floor.   There is new paint, new furniture and a new look.  It looks great! (At least it will once I clean it today!)

What struck me as I walked through last night was that this house finally has a grown up feel to it. After years and years of living in a mish mash of college furniture and undefined rooms (we've used dining rooms as family rooms) it feels like we finally live in a house adults built. My bedroom is now and oasis with a huge bed and no tiny mattresses on the floor. We have a dining room set and not a hand me down table and patio chairs for guests. We have a family room. In the basement.  That, in itself, is a big deal.  I have finally have a room I can throw my kids in!

Does this mean I have to start acting like a grown up?

Cause beyond paying the mortgage, making sure we have insurance and not losing one of my children, I'm not sure I can do that!

Click through the photo above to see a Flickr Set of our house transformation!