SOLD OUT Saturdays

I told you all to buy the Olympic Vancouver 2010 stuff months ago. I can say that because it's true, I really did. People are now scrambling to find this stuff and much of it is plain sold out. Fantastic for the winter games (oh and hello, Canadian gold rush, it's nice to see you) but sucky for anyone who wants mittens or jackets or god forbid one of the two items I'll outline in a moment.


So even though we bought a bunch of Vancouver 2010 stuff, or got some as gifts, Sean and I wanted a few pricey items for ourselves not thinking they'd actually sell out completely, and now wish we bought them. Like the Olympic team quilted jacket. The kid from Glee even has one.. that hurts.

Doesn't he look pleased with himself!

Look at him with his bags full of Canadian Van2010 Olympic swag that I hope he paid for.


And if you have to ask which item I was robbed of then you and I are just never going to be friends. The wool Olympic sweater, naturally, is the only thing I'm interested in. If you have to even ask which one that is, according to me there is only one, it is the holy grail of hand knit wool Olympic sweaters..

Excuse me while I address the sweater directly.


Dear "O" Sweater,

I'll never feel the same way about another Olympic sweater. You answer pretty much all of my dream sweater needs, except it's set in the woods. Why can't we be together? We both want the same thing. Me to wear you. Oh that's right, it's because you sold out. Well I hope you're satisfied, because I refuse to pay 3 times your initial value in the store for some asshole on kijiji or craigslist to sell you to me USED UP. They might say you're in mint conditon, washed once, but let's face it.. you're used. Why must I pay this person, who obviously does not value you enough if they're just giving you away, to be the second person to wear you. What if they had ticks? Lice? Ticks with lice? No, I need you new. Yes I should have bought you when the opportunity came but the timing wasn't right.. I had a really good sweater at home. I suppose I will carry on knowing there is only one of me, while they can make more of you.

Until that day....

Love,
Ann-Marie






Before I go, don't forget to cheer loud tomorrow for Hockey Gold :)
GO CANADA!

What's my age again?

Thinking about how old we are is something we do unconsciously around birthdays and intermittently while passing milestones, achievements or crossing personal "age appropriate" boundaries like my husband.. getting a pair of glasses he never thought he'd need. His prescription is merely to see a little better because he has headaches, but you would think someone told him he has exactly 7 days to live. I know, me and my horrible eyes and 13 years of being an eyeglass wearer could have been more compassionate but I mostly found it cute.

I'd nearly forgotten how traumatizing it was to get glasses for myself... I'll admit I came home and suddenly I was totally less attractive than I thought (or so I thought, since that's IMPOSSIBLE) and life was just about over because nobody would ever think I was cool again.. boohoo. The reason this is funny for me is I wasn't actually ever worried about being cool, but I was positive if it were to happen, wearing glasses would be why. Squinting hard, as I realized later, probably made me look less cool than the glasses though. Let's just interject that once again I am somewhat relieved I do not have to raise a girl because as far as I'm aware teenage girls are all drama, expensive purses and mind games.

I really hadn't realized my birthday was so soon (unlike the throwback from last year - almost exactly at this time too) if it weren't for my friend Sharmy ..since it's also her birthday in March so she made a highschool album on facebook and tagged us. It was awesome so I'll share it, because that's what I do.





Why am I so fucking excited? Was I that excited all the time? Also I love how Joe and I are so matchy matchy with the sparkle black tie and dress. Formal win!

Her and I in the summer. I hope she comes to visit again so I can actually drink with everyone and we can chat about mommyhood and how epic these pics are. I might even do a recreation of how utterly asleep I look in one of the pics she has, when really I was just comically hammered. Totally made my day a lot more funny. Seeing as it also involved an OB/GYN exam earlier, I'd say I needed it! Tooooo muuuuuch infoooo.

On the dark side of it.. ah I forgot I'm turning 28. Crapballs. Amazing crapballs. I am thinking of planning something big for my longtime friends and I for our 30th. Hmmm. Yes I think it's a must.

Just the other day I realized 2010 is our reunion year, too.

"And I definitely would have gone to my reunion, but the boat I was educated on sank"

- 30 Rock

Monday Blizzarding

Today I have been watching my backyard turn into this.  You can't really see the fluffiness in this picture I just took, likely due to it still blizzarding, but it looks like a cake exploded out there. 

Another PRO about Slow Cookers?  I'm not so pissed when Sean gets his train delayed for snow since it doesn't ruin dinner.  Tonight:  seasoned pot roast, red potatoes w/ shallots. 



Somewhat related I'll just say I was almost considering selling my Nikon D40 (body, lens & equipment), plus my Olympus Stylus so that I could buy this.  It's the Samsung WB1000 and I just so happened to be given a great opportunity to buy one at a great price.  I just couldn't do it though.  It was a great lesson in the kind of ridiculousness online classifieds have become when I put up my camera to see what someone would offer me while I considered it.  Someone ACTUALLY offered me $150 and thought that was really fair.  I mean obviously I wasn't in real need to get rid of it so I just ignored them but it just solidifies that little hard spot in my heart that would rather smash something in the street than sell it to someone who obviously wants to f me in the a.

This is apparently a family website now so that is the level of cursing I'll use to spare your sensibilities, unless we're talking about the Canadian loss yesterday.  FFFFFFuuuuu..... anyways, yeah so that pissed me off.  I seriously think they should rename kijiji FIRE SALE!  The next Saw movie has probably run out of ideas by now so I think they should have a game where it's just me in a room with a laptop and I'm told to sell all my stuff for at least half it's value or else I'll be buried alive in a tidal wave of centipedes.  I don't know that I'd succeed. 

79, which is Gold

Like most of my fellow Canadians home and abroad, we're having some beers watching the Canada vs USA game. We even made some Olympic Gold chocolate chip cookies and I happen to be sporting my "Canadians like it on top" sweat shirt. Every little bit helps!

My hubbs let me in on some Hockey math, which is too funny not to post!

GO CANADA GO!!

Update 10:09pm: ...........fuck.

Kevin Bacon and Zellers Girl

We won't even go into why I was watching daytime tv.. we won't.  But if we did all I have to say is that I like Kevin Bacon.   He was on the Racheal Ray show today, and even though you didn't ask, yes her ability to annoy the ever-loving shit out of me is amazing for someone not an Italian blood relative of mine.

That said, I spent 3 hours cooking the Curry Chicken and Mushroom Soup from the show even though I only had 90% of the ingredients in the fridge and pantry.  It can still be called Curry Chicken and Mushroom because those were all in it.  What I ended up with was more of a risotto though, and it was pretty yummy.  The real story here though is how did she keep me watching in the gap between Kevin Bacon and her cooking?

One word...
PajamaJeans! 

For fun I wish I was the marketer on this product.  Oh how I love to read a book in jeans, but never could, due to some reason I can't think of right now.  BUY PAJAMA JEANS!

While I have no idea what the attraction would be to sleeping in jeans.... I shudder at the thought.  I do want a pair of these to walk around in to the store or whatever since

1. My goal in life is to be more comfortable than everyone around me at all times.
and
2. Pants without buttons and zippers are the only thing I can wear at the moment due to my 6 inch scar healing around where pants go.  You do not want things shifting around there.

In reality normal people would probably need these to go to the store in the middle of the night and buy snacks or whatever.  Like that chick in Zellers I saw a few months ago buying one lunchable in her real pajamas.  She needs to know about this.

I'm not as bad as Zellers girl but I'll confess that going out to do my hair with Brooke yesterday I got excited when I found my "good yoga pants" which are grey just so I wouldn't have to leave the house with bright hot pink ones.  The world doesn't need to know that I think I'm hot shit when I'm lounging at home.  Or maybe they do? 

Yeah I need like 9 pairs of pajama jeans right away.

A Car Story

My Dad cracks me up sometimes.  He came to visit me last week and on the way home the timing belt on his car crapped out, which basically means his car is dead and needs a new engine.  He is as unhappy about it as you can imagine, since it was in excellent shape otherwise and fixing it is worth about as much as the car at this point.  We ended up knowing someone who specifically looks for car parts so I told him to send me an email with the info on it and I'll pass it along, hoping to get lucky and find an engine for him.  He drives a Saab by the way.  When he sent me the email the subject line was "a sad Saab story". 


I love my Dad specifically for reasons like that.  Just thought I'd mention it.


I could also mention our Valentines was great but I really don't want to rub it in.  What's not to love about spending time alone with your other no matter what day it is, am I right? 

My valentines gift to you

Play that casio song!  Fist pump!


from Sean Hazlett on Vimeo.

I know it's a marketing holiday but..

How flippin' cute is this??

Le Creuset cast-ironed heart casserole.  Ah, cooking sweetness meets parting with wads of money.  Love!  You have to enjoy the 101 year warranty though.  They couldn't just say lifetime!

C-U Next Tuesday

My brain is proven to be one big mass, or blob, of pop culture information. If you are looking for the name of so-and-so from a random movie from 1999, I can tell you. I get texts, calls, etc to "settle a bet" quite a lot. In fact the other day Sean asked me what's the chick, you know, the one I hate, from that hair colour commercial. Oh you mean Elizabeth Banks? At that moment I became so disgusted with my brain I wanted to yell at it... we could be really smart if you just let us! I have enough shit up there to learn several languages, but no, no... Elizabeth Banks, that's IMPORTANT.

What is the point? Oh, right. So Brooke and I headed out for lunch the other day. We made an appointment to go out and I'd get my hair done next Tuesday, so, without thinking I was saying goodbye and went "Ok see you next Tuesday" and then laughed at my reference. Brooke had no idea what that was about and probably wondered if I ate undercooked bacon at lunch and parasites were now eating away at my sanity. I tried to explain "see you next tuesday" .. and then asked Sean later if HE knew what I was talking about. He didn't. In fact I couldn't even remember where it was even from. We googled. Anyone out there know what C U Next Tuesday is?

Apparently I picked up something from Sex in the City.. a show I never watch(ed) more than 5 times, without knowing it. Extra weird since Brooke is actually a big fan of the show! Really brain... you're such a C U next tuesday. We could be a rocket scientist with this useless information retention!

Off the main topic but semi-related.. does anyone think teaching a 4 year old verb tenses and the concept of acronyms is too soon? I feel like maybe I'm being a little demanding but hey, shoot high right. Thoughts?

Slow Cookery

For anyone who does not know what a Slow Cooker is, or own one, the rest of this entry is going to suck very badly. You might as well just go check your Farmville again.

Ok so my mother in law got us a Slow Cooker a while ago and I mentioned before that I did not know what to cook in it etc etc. Well I've had some recent success and thought I would share it, my recipe for freaking awesome good for you Chilli. I suppose you could cook it in a regular pot, for a long time, but that is totally up to you since I think that is CRAZY. But if you want to be crazy you go ahead and be crazy. Behold the joy of Slow Cookery.

• package of ground chicken or turkey
• 1 can of dark red kidney beans
• 2 cans of Almyers diced tomatoes *you can get it with chilli seasoning inside*
• 1 pack of powder Chilli seasoning IF the diced tomatoes don't have it
• 1 chopped green pepper
• 1/2 chopped onion (if you like, sometimes it's nice)
• 1 large chopped carrot
• 1 can of your choice tomato sauce (I like classico sweet basil)

That's totally IT and you put it all in a pot, turn it on low and just leave. It's great. If you like spicy Chilli you can obviously add your own hot sauce or whatever, I don't pretend to even have a clue what that would entail since my English taste buds give me no cause to ever learn how to make something spicy. If someone even tried to tell me I'd have no choice but to interrupt them with "no it's ok, we're good here". So there you go, it couldn't be more straightforward.. I didn't say it was a SECRET recipe, only that it was freaking awesome (and healthy) Chilli. And it only took me 2 other failed Chilli recipes to get here.

I also recommend buying a slow cooker obviously, if not because most of everything you can make is crazy delicious and done when you get home from work (and your house smells great, if you like food smells) but if only to give you more time to do things like squish your baby.

No I really can't go a day without mentioning him! I'm totally exploiting my baby but really now.. look at how CUTE HE IS! Squishhhh.

It's like hugging an armful of sunshine and warm laundry <3

Let's play a little game

I have had the most odd dreams lately. Odd in the fact they aren't scary or complicated or funny to recount but they are just stupid. It all started during my last night in the hospital when I had a lucid nightmare. In my dream I was totally aware something horrible was about to happen and furiously tried to wake myself up thinking "holy shit this CANNOT happen here of all places" It's like accidentally napping in a graveyard and then having a nightmare. Alright just as I typed that I realized my comparison is a little harsh. I partially blame my old lady hospital roommate, Rose, for all of it since I overheard some extremely vocal sex dreams from her side of the curtain. I said at the time it would haunt my dreams and I think it fulfilled that prediction.

By the way her name isn't really Rose, it's just what we call her since she looks exactly like the old lady from Titanic. Mature? Why yes I am.

Moving on.. so after that day I've been having the dumbest dreams ever pretty much every night. It was so dumb I can't remember what any of them were specifically about other than getting let down by different people. Imagine winning the lottery but instead reading the numbers wrong and being told you actually didn't win the lottery. And then the entire dream is just you riding home in the car from the lottery winning ticket place recounting how you misread the number and listening to bad radio. You know, like the parts of life where it super-sucks, but in dream form. So I am completely confused as to why my brain would do that to me. I must have poked it with a q-tip just a little too hard.

Watch, my dream tonight will consist of coming up with a million dollar idea to patent warnings on boxes of q-tips, developing the idea for 2 years and then realizing that you can't patent warning labels. FMsleepL.

Since I'm lacking on the general goings on, I joined in on a game from the blog Notes from the Toothfairy. It's supposed to be a monthly thing where you just share a slice of life on what's happening right now, basically. I like saying slice of life, by the way.

I like: the colourful flowers I got yesterday. my darker hair.

I don't like: constantly having the same conversation with my grandmother:


"Feeling any better today?"
"About the same as yesterday"
"Are you ok, I have a sense that something is wrong"

"I'm fine"
"I'm sure you are but is everything OK?"
"I'M OK"

I want you to know: I'm waiting for some new experiences with the outside babyless world so I don't turn you into diabetics with all the hardcore sweetness.

I've planned: to getaway with the hubby somewhere soon. attending a birthday party on Sunday.

I want to say to someone special: Not sure what this means. Maybe my grandma.. dammit I'll let you know if I'm not OK.

Flower child

Little Peepers, originally uploaded by anna potatoes.

oh how I love this little dude. he's turning us all into jibbering Ned Flanders' !

Happy Anniversa-surgery Day

It's officially one week since my cyst, ovary and I have parted ways.

Yesterday I cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, washed the floors, did baby laundry, took 1000 pictures of said baby, got the mail, took up trash, dyed my hair, had a shower and made the beds.

My abdomen is, if you want to be politely British, very cross with me. Therefore to celebrate my anniversa-surgery

I woke up early and that's all that's going to happen. I wouldn't even have done that if Gabriel wasn't so fond of his vibrating chair that was all the way downstairs, and wouldn't go back to sleep without it.

By the way thanks to Kevin for finding that. Everyone should print it off and hand it to someone tomorrow if they ask you where something is "sorry I'm not doing shit today, it's Friday".

Treehouse Dreamhouse

Coolest room?  Maybe!

Closure on that anecdote

I have eaten.  It was everything I remembered it to be!

Actually before I went home the nice night nurse found a sandwich and offered it to me.  It was the worst sandwich in existence but that did not matter.. I might as well have been Frodo and it was my ham and stale bread precious.  In the morning I asked if breakfast came by while I was asleep and apparently the two orange juices were breakfast.  The irony is not lost of my professing to love hospital food before I went in, and them not feeding me anything at all the entire time I was there!

I should also add to this update that while I've eaten since I got home, I have also had the pleasure of throwing up said food.  When you have staples.. it is wrong, try to avoid it if you can.  That is all I will say about that.

The end.