30 before 30: my temperamental memory

This 30 before 30 list will be also my count to my last blog post here.  I have no idea what my perspective in life would have ever been like without that 'spot' to have written things out, done nothing at all with, felt pressured when I've done nothing at all with it to write when I had nothing good to write, regretted writing things out that I shouldn't have written out at all, not written things I wanted to write out because I was afraid at what would happen if they were read, been grateful that whatever I've written because (good or bad) they had actually become a physical, readable, part of my own memory, and been totally embarrassed I had written whatever I wrote because it was LIKE YANNO a dumb or overly dramatic 20 year old thing to say etc.

Oh and in case nobody has noticed, I've known since University that although an English major I have quite the problem changing tenses when I write.  You're welcome for all of that horrible reading!

All of these reasons are why I think asgoodasitgets has lived up to the name I gave it; it's as good as this will ever get, as good as I could expect to make it, and that is usually when you should say goodbye.

I am ready for March 1st!*





*If I don't happen to meet my deadline, aka. the "before" in 30 before 30, I will still update until the list is completed.  I won't turn into a pumpkin.

Instafun

My dad, who is a 'real' photographer, makes fun of me for my instant-photography but I take no offense.. it's a FUN thing.  If I can be creative for 18 seconds a day, great!   So even though I do not normally do this I'm just going to redirect you to the blog eighteen25 that lists some of the cooler things you can do.   The list is pretty current so why improve on a good thing (when I don't have time)?  Right.

click and enjoy!

If you think that this is where I should put my fave-sta-gram pic of the week, I totally would, but I'm way too excited about this.....

Please ignore me and my giant disappointed sigh in the beginning.. it's caused by trying to videotape this for Dad 80 times, and 79 times he stops the minute I start!

My 40 dollar story

When I was in Grade 8 we had spent a weekend at a summer camp with our class and the Grade 7s.  It was actually a 'spiritual retreat' but most of the activities were just regular camp stuff.  We did airbands to "Jump Around" in our rubber boots, tie dyed our shirts, played soccer games, went on canoe rides, told riddles at dinner, did a midnight hike etc.

Riddle of the Day:  Mary went to the store and she bought 3 for $10.  she went back and bought 67 for $20.  she went back a third time and bought 840 for $30.  What was it that she bought?*


So if you read the post a few days ago it will sound very normal when I tell you that I discovered in about 5 minutes that I was a little better at archery than everyone else, and therefore decided to take it REALLY FUCKING SERIOUSLY and archer everyone in my class into the ground.  You know for fun.  On our spiritual retreat.  So, it was going well, and the geography teacher Mr. Luciani happened to notice my utter lack of subtlety in being awesome.  He decided we'd have a pop the balloons in the bullseye contest.  It was between me and this kid named Cameron, who had freckles and was even more nervous than I was; in fact he seemed flat out scared.  Oh and just for posterity you should know I was wearing a t-shirt and jean overalls.. the really cool kind.  I had to take my windbreaker off the competition was getting so intense! Hahaha.

When I won the contest my teacher BETS ME $20 dollars I couldn't do it again in a very serious "I just took out my money" kind of way.  On a spiritual retreat.  So I did it, and took his $20 dollars, but did he not double or nothing me? he did.  I had no choice but to accept.  Imagine the attention this was getting at this point from all the kids not even just in my grade.. all because our teacher just started betting me real money.  Mr. Luciani started heckling me of course, I couldn't handle the pressure, and the bastard blew up the balloon way too much so the tension made it shift.  There went the $40 along with all my credibility.  Hilariously enough for the rest of the year this one kid in the hall would yell out "40 dollars!" whenever he saw me just to remind me of my failure.   If this was a lifetime movie I imagine this story would be written where I'm a total a-hole kid, my teacher is teaching me some life lessons, and then I get bullied at school.  Lol.  I swear it was all in fun though, I did not mind losing or getting called "40 dollars" for a year.  I actually love that story.


For some reason though that amount of money keeps reoccurring in my life.   Last year Kim gave me a totally street Kijiji nickname of "40 dollaz" due to some of the deals I get, without knowing the story I just told of course.  I am pretty good at it though.  Things I've bought for $40 include, but aren't limited to:

1. a bunk bed
2. a high chair
3. a jumperoo, if you know what those are
4. a car seat that matched the colour stroller I bought
5. two vintage refinished Viscol dressers  <-- that's my favourite one if you can't tell

I just picked up the dressers last night and they are the coolest vintage dressers ever.  I'm decorating the boys attic bedroom in a sort of 1963 World's Fair theme and the dressers were a pretty important part.  I didn't even talk the guy down to $40 dollars.. I would have paid more but that was his asking price.  He also happen to be a really nice guy and we got on chatting about him selling his childhood house because his mother couldn't live alone anymore, which is why I was getting these dressers at all. That house also happened to be incredibly interesting in a time-stopped-passing sort of way.  There was an orange towel neatly hanging in the bathroom that I swear I've used before in the 80s.  My favourite part was when he asked me if I was a freelance writer because of my email address and I had a really good laugh because the only thing I write is this blog.. and I just can't cut out the swears enough.  I'm nothing if I don't have integrity in all the swearing I do online.  Ironically though I am writing about it right now, huh? 

  

*House Numbers

a favourite

Being the job

I used to work at an art gallery for a semester in school booking tours, mailing flyers, amongst a bunch of misc. other things.  It was pretty cool because when I went there I knew nothing about art whatsoever (it was an educational asst. position, no knowledge required) and when I left, I did.  When I was told how to do my job the very first thing I did was spend an entire day in my office recording the outgoing message on my phone, that part was suuuuper important, totally required a day of work.

After about a week of the ins and outs of all the technical stuff on how to input things and merging documents for printing our mailing lists, I asked my boss if she'd like me to write up a manual on how to do my job for my predecessors.   I didn't mean it as a douchey thing it's just I figured it would really save a lot of time.  So I did that.. and I put a clipart on the front that was the guy reaching for the stars!  A little ironic because my entire list of responsibilities took me about 30 mins to complete and either nobody wanted to point that out before or enjoyed having a black hole of time in the middle of the day.  Thankfully my boss found some other projects for me to complete which was nice.  I was able to contribute a couple papers on some history of their outdoor installations since Hamilton has lots of stuff like that to learn about and I get curious about those things.  I spent a lot of time getting to explore the exhibits.. one of which was the Hitchcock exhibit which included playing the movie Psycho on a continuous 8 hour loop.  Neat right?  I remember I designed some activities for the kids who visit the gallery and prepared a slide show presentation for some reason, too.  Maybe she ran out of tasks during my semester there but it kept me interested and that was pretty great as far as work goes.

Maybe I do sound douchey, I don't really know, but the truth is I've never been good at "being the job".  I definitely wouldn't call myself any sort of overachiever, uhh.. more like a consumer of interests who is competitive about random things.  I don't get it it's just my personality and there is not a thing I can change about that as much as someone who loves the opposite could change that, if they even wanted to.  That person would at least be extremely efficient!  I'm not entitled to a life doing only things that interest me and I know that, I'm a grown up, but I still have to say... Self, if I have to do these dishes I am going to DO THE SHIT OUT OF THEM.  The dishes have to really need me.  Kinda like my vague interest in Pintrest vs Wanelo. I don't even know how to count the many things I've been suckered into doing based solely on the nagging idea that I don't see anyone doing it as awesome as I would be doing it, if I cared.  Ah crap, NOW I CARE.  And there you go, I just explained the story of my life right there.

I thought of this as a post when I made the valentines for Ethan's class yesterday.  The already good and simple idea of hershey kisses in a bag (printable link) just wasn't good enough when I went to print them out because "you know, it'd be cuter to put blue Cookies & Cream hershey kisses instead of red to match the label, so I am going to spend an hour in photoshop changing the colours because now it just doesn't look right."  As if the candy will taste different.. I mean, the colours just don't make sense how can I eat this??  

If you're questioning why it took me an hour to do this it is because I couldn't find the right blue colours to match, so I took a picture of the actual candy I had and needed to carefully colour match from the pixels.   Waste. of. time.  If you don't count my personal sense of satisfaction obviously, which most jobs don't.

Aren't they so cute in blue though???

I suppose I am either lucky, or it was flat out necessary that I have a job where "being the job".. the one I both get paid for and being a regular Mom to my boys is a) pretty fun b) my personal satisfaction does count and c) wasting time is fine because I create all the tasks.

Oh and I win at class valentines these were totally the best :)  

Thank goodness I'm done this post because this wasn't one of my tasks today, of course.

Fucking where?

I enjoy Kijiji based on the horrible spelling alone.  Ads that boast something is "shappy chic" or that they have a "couch with adman" for sale just make me smile, what can I say.. it's the little things.  As you can imagine I can't spend all day on there so I was pretty excited to have an excuse to browse since I need a little couch for the playroom.. 

...well, Kijiji (or jeej) once again did not fail me.

Oh yeah I know that area, right next to the Costco?  I can just imagine putting this address into my GPS and it telling me to drive into the middle of the Atlantic ocean.  Hey, I would guy, but that's at least $60 worth of gas right there.

My Interests

I ended up looking at Wanelo for a bit and was so close to creating a Pintrest account... because as far as I can tell everyone is doing it wrong.

:: Etsy bag :: Buy book ::

What a year looks like

When you have a piece of your DNA living in the world, aging, running around scaring the shit out of you if they ever get hurt, learning things, having their own birthdays.. let me know if you figure out how to describe that because I still can't.  What I do know is my baby Kierbear is the fucking sweetest little thing, in the words of Ethan, "he's so cute I just want to puke"  This will be my last birthday post before mine, I suppose, which isn't that far away.  SO AWESOME I keep getting reminded of that every day.

I used to be so much better at describing my feelings when I had time to think about them maybe.  Uhh I like stuff, do you like stuff too? Haha.

Happy Groundhog Day!

My baby's first birthday is on Sunday, and (wow, right?) and I really couldn't have three more different children.  Children who will continue to be even more different if just for having each other to grow up with.  I note their accomplishments and uniqueness every single day in my invisible mommy notebook, and try and give them the attention at times as they were my only boy in the world.  As only a mother who is an only child would need to do, I'm sure.

As you know though, I have an unmarketable talent for noticing things that look like other things.. and what else is Groundhog Day good for other than a day of unimportant news stories as well as celebrating things that stay the same.  So I will share a picture I made of smiles of my boys that I caught just before all three had their first birthdays.

Have a great day!

Snow, why you be so pretty for?

I don't remember a Winter where it has snowed less.  On this day we were in the car on our way to Sunday dinner and I said it looked more like Christmas than Christmas did this year.

Get with it, Winter, I need you to do what you're supposed to do.