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.

Totally obsessed with Saturday...

Pet fireflies:

Prints by Blanca Gómez:
(shop)

Vintage Space stuff:

Hipster tattoos:  

FUN FAIL: SUPERHERO PARTY FREE PRINTABLE IDEAS and other google key words you're going to type

First of all I'm not here to tell you that our party was the best Superhero party evaaaa.. on the contrary it wasn't pretty like the picture I put up a few posts ago and in fact we barely even had time to TAKE any pictures of the party.  It had a few cool ideas I thought the kids would like because truthfully, kids just like playing whatever they want to play anyway, and let's not forget the snow outside.  So here's a list of stuff I either used, meant to use, and it's ALL FREE because that's how I roll for kids parties.  And it's also how I roll for helping anyone out who spent 40 hours searching stuff online like I did.


T-SHIRT PARTY FAVOUR:

• Instead of capes which a lot of parties have, I decided to make the kids t-shirts.  All the t-shirts I bought at Michaels including the iron on paper.  I designed the logos and stuff on Skitch.  I also wasted a huge amount of time (which is why I'm a poor party planner) on making sure each of the logos had a superhero that looked like the kid they were for, hair colour and everything.  Ethan's was the only one that was different.

If I were to do this again, I would put more planning thought into how to iron something on the front AND back of a shirt without ruining the other side.  




PRINTABLE FOOD STUFF:

Cupcake Toppers

I used a couple for the cake I made along with some candy pops I bought at Michaels.  Yes, everyone, hard to believe but I made this cake!  Why don't I have my own facebook group?

It looked slightly better than this in real life, somehow, but was there even one small slice left?  The Lego Star Wars cake from last year was barely eaten.  You decide what I know about cake.

Snack signs (I used blueberries, yogurt pretzels, grapes, bananas, veggie chips, carrots)

this was on the internet so I am pretty sure I won't go to jail if I share it

Lollipop mask and capes for the favour bags

CRAFTS AND DECORATIONS:

• Control panels the kids can make.  I replaced this cool idea with a Build your Supermobile table with Lego because I ran out of time to collect the supplies.
• Cards and sticker printables Justice League.. colour your own or not, so cute
• I made a BAT CAVE sign and filled a room full of cut out bats.  I didn't realize I was inviting the kids to kill the bats so maybe find some silly string for this.  
• I also wasted my time and made the sign with glow in the dark paint because at 11am I can totally block out the sun... fun fail

TEEPEE your basement in paper Spiderwebs!
if you want a laugh don't explain to the kids what they should do with them and watch a few try and avoid them like an obstacle course.. yet they destroyed the bats.. makes no sense

Colouring the City.. I was going to do a wall of this but didn't have the printer power.. so I cut out Superhero colouring pages instead, taped them together on the table with crayons, masks and stickers.

Happy Birthday Banner letters here, you paste them on pennants you make from cutting out triangles of real comic books.  I'm sure you can eyeball the banner flag size yourself so I won't go find a link for  you, and you just hole-punch the sides to string it up.  I had only Betty and Veronica comics though and therefore didn't do this one in time.  Looked really cool though!

Enjoy your parties! hope you got some good ideas.

Honk Honk Punch, gas gas gas

One of the things that bothers my hubbs about my driving is that I'm not 'agressive' enough.  In our relationship he is the Yin and I am, obviously, the other one who doesn't teach anyone any lessons via honking my horn or f-bombs that only people inside my car can hear.  I've had people nearly cause me to get in an accident more than a few times and still the most they get is a short honk to say "whats the matter with you, huh?"

However, I happen to be driving somewhere tonight and thinking on something that was bothering me when suddenly this car jets across two lanes to cut me off, but stops in front of me and puts their turn signal on as if we were in a turning lane.. which we were not.  It was a regular travelling lane and there was also no traffic coming so he could have turned at any time, literally.  I sat there in disbelief of course, and for some reason I just laid my fucking horn on until that asshole finally moved out of the lane/my way.  It was 30 seconds of AWESOME!

Do you know that honestly I felt so good afterward?  I don't know what it was but if I could only do that 100 more times I'm positive nothing at all would ever bother me about anything, ever again.

What a picky little nobody, that Fred

My son invited his imaginary friend Fred to his birthday. The next day he told me that Fred declined since he did not like our theme.  I asked if he explained that Superheros were really cool, and that the party would have fun games, he said he did tell him that but Fred wasn't having any of it.

I'm not talking about a wolverine

I don't know if your house has one of these things..  these dirty, wild things, which are loud, demanding and sneak all over the house leaving death and destruction behind them.  I think they're technically called an almost 6 year old boy.  If you have one then you don't even need to read anymore.. and frankly I wouldn't be on the internet at all if I were you.  I'm sure there's some pee on the wall somewhere you need to attend to anyhow.  You're excused.

For everyone else, my pet wolverine is having a 6th birthday party next week.  So my mind is currently trying to be 6, and a boy, and figure out some fun superhero themed activities to entertain... what, 10? of his friends for 3 hours.  10??  Yeah my kid apparently is ultra popular or just hates leaving anyone out of anything.  If you think 3 hours isn't a long time.. I'd like to show you what happened the first 10 minutes when we tried to take our family Christmas picture.

All I keep coming across in my research of superhero parties is that you do not love your kids whatsoever (and they will KNOW IT) if their party doesn't resemble this...

9 hours of prep &  20 mins of enjoyment

I'm clearly not organized enough in my ideas to ever be a party planner.. or really anything with the word planner in the title.  Let's be serious, or hire someone to do it for me.  In the time that it's taken me to type this my 2 year old has sauntered downstairs from playing in the loft with his brother, wearing nothing but a diaper and carrying my yoga mat.  Before I can wonder where his clothes went to, my almost 6 year old is whispering in my ear that he needs to know where I hid the Lego jar-jar-binx RIGHT NOW.. oh and also where are we going today and also when is it going to stop raining and also look at me build R2D2's brother named R211.. oh and hey.. explain black holes to me.  This is normal.

I now forget any ideas I just had... but it whatever it is it will be a mess, have sugar, and be fun.  Pretty much the motto of my whole life.

5 douchey things to douche

There are not a whole lot of things that can make you an instant douchebag.  Over time, sure, but that's a hard judgement to put across in the mere seconds you meet someone.

Some exceptions:

1. Your wifi network is ALL CAPS and it's just YOU AND YOUR GIRLFRIENDS NAMES UNDERSCORE NETWORK.  It would almost be less douchy if they were slightly imaginative..
2. Twirling your car keys when you get out of the car.. double douchery if you're wearing a leather jacket!
3. Paying for hundreds of dollars worth of wine out of your $300 Coach wallet and actually decline to add a dollar to your purchase to donate to some Christmas charity, likely for kids.  Douche excuse?  Oh I'm here buying liquor and shit all the time, because I run out so fast, so I've already donated or whatever.. 
4. Telling someone (me), in the bitchiest way possible right off the bat, to wait until you push a button before they (me) are allowed to come up to the counter and pay for something extremely heavy that they (me) had been waiting to put down.  I know, this has literally happened to no one other than (me).
5. Stalking someone in your car to confront them in person about their driving.  Then agreeing with them.  If you're going to go that far into being a douchebag, at least stick to whatever irrational ideas you had in the first place.

Just saying!  Sometimes there is no grey area.. it's just black or asshole.

None were Danny Glover

If 2012 has been much of anything so far, it's only been a reminder of all the things I should give up.. including this very blog which I've mentioned being on my 30th birthday.  How great that is coming up real soon, huh?  My reasoning at the time was that something which started when I was 19 should really be over by the time I'm 30.. and I'd have blogged about nothing for my entire twenties.  Kinda neat I thought. Pretty appropriate, too.

How did I ring in the new year?  Says the nearly 30 year old.. drinking spiced rum and cokes and playing Hedbanz with my friends!!!  Not ironically either, Kim searched for it and we had a shit tonne of fun playing for like 3 hours mostly because it does not get easier since you forget all the clues from your last turn.  For others I mean; I was still strangely good at it.  I guessed I was potato skin for gods sakes.. and poor Paul guessed he was Danny Glover every time it was his turn, and it was Danny Glover zero of the times haha.

Me and Kimmah

Kim: I'm a historical figure, am I a male? do I make people sad? ......................................I'M JESUS! 

Overheard in the Car aka Happy New Year

parked in front of the beer store playing 'eye spy'

Ethan - I spy with my liiiiittle eye, something that is yellow!

Me - Hmm.. 

Ethan - I will give you three clues

1. it has bubbles
2. you and Daddy like it
3. Gabey doesn't like it

Me - is it beer?

Ethan - YES!!

Have a great night everyone!

Like fire and powder

As a former English major (I try not to remind people of that constantly, like buy them dictionaries and scoff at their texting and shit, but I did once have tonnes of time to read!) and a secret obsessive lover of many things Shakespeare, you can imagine that having a favourite passage is kinda nerdy to confess.. but for whatever reason this has always been mine.  I thought I would share it, going into a new year.. I am reminded you can read a passage so many times and each year we change, it gains a different meaning.

These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss consume: The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousnessAnd in the taste confounds the appetite: Therefore love moderately
Read more: William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI 

Oh and just to set things straight, as a rule, you should always listen to what Friar Lawrence says.. except when he tells you to pretend to kill yourself.

Live well, love moderately, 2012.

Merry Christmas

Differences from this year and last year:

• if you think your child won't notice that the Santa at the mall and the Santa in his special Christmas video are different, he will
• if you think your child won't stumble into your open closet and see his gift from Santa, which you then have to return and buy a different one, he will
• if you think your child won't burst into tears because he confesses he hasn't been good at all this year and is very sure he won't get anything for Christmas, he will
• if you think your child won't point out a minor bulge in his stocking early and discover there is stuff in it, he most definitely will

So the only difference really is I need to be exponentially smarter every year.  Fantastic.  Have a great Christmas everyone, I have 3 hours of wrapping to complete and a bunch of wine that will not drink itself.  Good night!

"Well, there are candles.. a lot of them.. and you get presents, so, it's like birthday party everyday!"
- Ethan, age 5, on his understanding of Hanukah