Verily, I laughed at this

(source)

Ironic salt and pepper shakers

When it came to picking out delicate personal handmade jewelry for our wedding, I actually chose to shop at Etsy for three things.  A unique choice of wedding band for Sean.. titanium and yellow gold from a great metalwork shop; and to custom order my own jewelry for the day and my girls things from MiaBeads.  I just loved her stuff and she was really interested and available to listen to all my ideas so it was a great experience, and she did a great job of course!  I follow her cute blog as well where she regularly features a nice eclectic mix of other Etsy stores that I just enjoy browsing.  You might also like it, if you're into that.

http://www.miabeads.com/

It doesn't hurt that #9 is something I'm personally obsessed with: wall decals!  [from janeymacpress]
Oh boy do I love eye-shopping wall decals, and I am itching to use one in a practical way ... I did buy decal chalkboard once but no I really don't live in a world where a giant cherry blossom over my couch would be practical.  If you live in that world, bless your little hipster heart... I bet you even have adorable oven mitts, fun ice trays, dishes that don't match, ironic salt and pepper shakers, and a toaster that burns some kind of picture into your toast.  You are my eclectic window shopping hero and your apartment slash artist loft space is a place I'd love to come have breakfast one day.

I'm tempted though, the baby room decals are so cute!  Just thought I'd share the Etsy goodness :)

Parental Decisions

Far be it from me to judge parents on what they do to their kids.  If there is anything I've learned it's that.. shy of tattooing them with Nazi symbols and putting Jack Daniels in their lunchboxes, of course. 

I'm watching Aliens tonight with Sean and he tells me he's never seen it because his parents wouldn't let him.. and I recall my parents thought it was fine.  They actually let me watch Aliens... and I'm pretty sure I didn't even ask to, I would simply do ANYTHING to stay awake at night.  In fact I was telling little bee a story about that yesterday and how my Dad got naturally tired of my fighting sleep and told me I wasn't allowed to sleep.  I had to stay on my bed with the light on, and be awake all night.  Then he woke me up if I passed out and reminded me I was not allowed to go to bed.  I see the logic in that as an adult and that I did feel lucky when eventually the point was made and I went to sleep, but upon telling the story I kind of rightfully confused the kid as it sounded especially cruel when you re-tell it.  I'm not sure what that parenting style is called, other than "I'll make you regret getting what you want" but I will say thank god I never tried smoking or something because I'm sure he'd make me smoke cigarettes until I puked.  Even if I was seven.

ALIENS though?  I have to question that one right now.

Girls Destroyed: 5

I shouldn't just assume everyone here knows what Facebook is, but it's creeped it's way into my daily radar and therefore I have to post this.

I saw an application invite to "Sorority Life"..clicked on it and laughed really, really hard. I am sorry if my friend ever finds out I totally outed her game name but I had to share a typical profile for this game.

My favourite was clearly.. # of Girls Destroyed. How great is that?! Oh how quickly sugar and spice and everything nice gets replaced with teen vengeance, expensive purses and mind games. Sorority Life totally has it.. and my inner competitor actually is telling me to go kick ass at this game, which is why I don't let her make most of our decisions.


I will just mention this is just one reason, upon reflection, I really would be happy to have all my children be boys. Well that and talking about periods. Now excuse me I'm off to write the speech where I warn my sons about these women later in life.

And here's... something else!

My grandma called me just now and mentioned she is doing my mother's laundry. Naturally I had to inquire, although I don't know why since the answer made perfect sense.

"She gave me 20 bags of laundry, so I've been doing that"
"20 bags?? Why?"
"Because she hasn't done laundry in 10 years"

I laughed quite a bit at that one. I'll fill in a few blanks for you, she is the definition of an ultra pack-rat and that most of those bags were probably not her personal clothing but

1. from people's abandoned apartments
2. my salvation army donation box from 6 years ago
3. is half made up of baby clothes she collected
   
4. full of cat hair

I'm glad my Dad listened to me and threatened her to clear that room out if she ever wants us to visit. Fun Fact: in her room once I saw a tin box full of assorted colourful pill medications and a suitcase full of dirt with plants growing in it.

Something else that happened today? As I was finishing the last sip of my second cup of tea in the same cup, I see the tea leaf that was floating at the bottom the whole time was actually a tiny fly. My first thought was literally.. oh yay, my first Fmylife! Exciting :)

Best idea

Does anyone realize that PC non-alcoholic beer has a unicorn on it?

It's like drinking beer in your dreams... or with She-ra.  Which is basically one in the same.

She-ra, you, Jem and Rainbow Brite are all totally invited to come drink beer with me in the castle of 80s imagination.  We have tarts here.

Blackaversary

Today was the anniversary of the 'great blackout' of 2003.  

It's fun to share where were you when stories of that day.  Me, I was terrified, house sitting totally alone while my grandparents were in Italy and looking after their dog.  Once I got over how annoying it was the internet went out, as per usual, I sat and called a bunch of people in my phone book for voice company.  I still had a phone book back then!  I fed the dog and gave her water.  Then I realized the lights were seriously not coming back and I'd rather die then fall asleep alone in a house with no electricity, I took a cab over to my cousin's Aunt's place where they were keeping an eye on their elderly grandmother.  She only spoke Italian and had dementia. 

Every 5 minutes she'd scream that her (now 50 year old daughter) was lost and she needed to find her and no one could calm her down.  She kept smacking my cheeks and making sure I promised to tell my parents she said hello, may she rest in peace.. she passed a year and so ago. We talked about how my cousin was going through a bad break up, which turned out ok in the end since they've been married 2 years now, and then we ate all the really soft ice cream in the freezer.

It was truly a shitty, shitty day and the perfect metaphor for that was going on in life at that moment and earmarking it all by blacking everything out and putting you in one of those timecapsule situations where if you really think about it you could nearly feel as if you could place yourself there again. Killing time sitting in that livingroom with candles all over the place thinking "oddly enough this isn't the worst thing that has happened lately".  All in all, even then, I knew 100% I was pretty lucky to have my cousins there because they make a lot of shitty things better, until it finally is better, which like the blackout seems like it could take the rest of your life. 


Uhhhhh so that wasn't a great story but hey, not everything is a big piece of sunshine pie now is it?

type: everything that can possibly go wrong

Hey it's awful Comic Friday! This week: Calling 911.

This actually happened at the cottage while my grandpa was out on the boat on the one really nice day we had. She was really going to call 911 .. because they police the lakes apparently. If she did I was totally going to make her listen to "I'm on a Boat".. he's on a boat Grandma, don't you ever forget!

Question: why when you're terrified about someone's safety and sit worried for a few hours are you a major icehole when you actually talk to them and therefore realize they're ok? Wow, thanks for caring!

Really 1,610,000 results? Depressing guys!

My actual post today is the fact I just have to admit at this point that much like you I've totally relied way too much on the internet for answers. My husband, Dr. Google, will laugh at this but my appointment yesterday my (kinda slow) doctor was reading over general test results and medical papers on the computer in silence and of course I am looking and I see a big red line. I'm like WHATS THAT BIG RED LINE??? And the word POSITIVE right next to Rubella. He explains that means I am immune to Rubella and for a good few moments I really thought I should just Google that because that didn't sound right. Positive means POSITIVE icehole! I was pretty sure he was just finding a nice way to tell me I had Rubella.

Then I started becoming concerned when I came home after he told me I missed the time frame to order this other blood test he wanted and I typed up "signs of _____ " as if it was an acceptable alternative to the actual test. I might as well just type "everything that could possibly go wrong" along with "any minor symptoms I might have it" .. and I freaking know there are more of you simply because of the auto-fill searches I get. I mean you'd think I'd have ANY confidence at all in the medical system but my experience thus far has been something like the funny tombstone from the other day. Oh I feel a made up word coming.. it's here.. it's hypogoogliac.

 "I need a pony. I go to the store after lunch and buy him.......... sorry"

I can't even pick my favourite part of that statement. The pony or the fact that he was really sorry if I didn't approve of him buying one at the store with his imaginary money.

Something Lives, it's Green!

I picked this cucumber from our vegetable garden before we left for the cottage, mostly so it wasn't eaten by animals before we got back.  It was a nice little snack on the way but this photo is proof something grew in the backyard!  Hooray!

There are actually 2 more cucumbers growing at the moment, and bunches of tomatoes just about ready to turn red and possibly be canned into sauce if I can manage it.  Actually there are some wild grapes too but we haven't actually taken care of them they're just growing. 

Could my curse of murdering living plants be limited to household things?

I'll update later on more of my garden greenery!

The OTHER Lake House, the one we reference but nobody goes to

While on vacation I had the pleasure of actually finishing Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neil, a book I started many many months ago and stored in the basement boxes for when I had more time. I tend to do that. Thanks to my Goodreads, I am embarrassed to see it says I actually started it 8 months ago. Wow... truly horrible. Have I really put my quiet private reading time on that low of a priority?

Needless to say then, I guess, it was a real treat seeing as I never have time to myself to read and I tend to like to sit for a long while and read as much as I like at a time. I don't like being interrupted/have to go to bed/etc. It was a great book too, very fun to read, which is my favorite kind, sad and fantastically descriptive. The author notes in the back about herself, the book, and her own recommendations of books she liked was also a treat.

Our cottage's local coffee house The Red Brick Cafe (aka the Starbucks of Sundridge) has a bookcase full of "take one leave one" novels so on the way home I stopped in and exchanged my fantasitc and colourful Lullabies for The Lake House by James Patterson in hardcover. I thought it was a great idea. It was owned by someone named Connie, and I know my Dad and Brooke read tons of James Patterson books and like him so I was pretty excited to read it on the drive back. That is until I realized I assumed it was the book version of the movie with the same name, and assumed totally wrong. I waited about an hour for a book about genetically altered bird children and a crazy plan by a doctor to create eternal life, to turn into a time traveling mailbox before realizing it just wasn't going to happen. Nomatter what. As in I am almost finished the book and no one has even visited the Lake House yet, I've given up. Turns out there is no book version of the movie, just another movie in Japanese it was based off of called Il Mare.

Doesn't it just seem like there should have been a book though? That's a real question, for anyone who has seen or not seen the movie (I have not).

Anyway, Brooke and I went out for dinner at Milestones last night to celebrate her birthday while I was away and I had the opportunity to talk to her about this book situation and apparently there were 4 previous books explaining this crazy bird child storyline which I suppose would make this book less crazy. She insists his other books were good, and if anyone out there knows what I am talking about... doesn't it just seem like the FBI agent isn't good at his job?

I am still not a fan of The Lake House and have not enjoyed reading it as much as Lullabies, even though they are completely different. Maybe I was the one to "pay it forward" in this situation. Darn it maybe next time!

Back!

After a very relaxing week at the cottage we've come home, to a spotless house I might add (stellar idea on my part to do a little extra) and an extremely dead fish.  That's right, our obese goldfish Oscar has finally bit the big one or however you want to say it.  I'd actually describe it more literally as explody, but you probably didn't need that mental image.

We'll know more after CSI finishes their report but I'm fairly sure he either ate all his weekly food at once, and if so he died doing what he loved best, or it was because I set him in the kitchen in front of the sunlight to give him a view and he overheated.. and if so I am a monster because that is literally I think the worst way to die.

Oscar 2007-2009

One of my fave "tombstone" funnies, seems appropriate.

He managed to surprise me every morning by not dying under the tremendous effort of trying to swim at his size, surviving from two overzealous toddler feedings, and also recovering from some fish disease at some point too.  Just when I got used to the idea of him living so long, he dies.


We had a very nice trip to PetSmart this morning to acquire our new fish, and I suppose I will introduce you all to him later.  As for the vacation it was really great, the last two days was awesome weather.. got a little burned, did some kayaking and nearly tipped it in the creek after backing into a branch with a big mother'fing spider crawling beside my EYE. 

I miss eating breakfast here.

Sea-u-later!