Week 1

I'm doing a yoga challenge. I have to take 40 classes in 50 days and every week there is an added bonus challenge. This week is a sugar-free week and also I have to have one vegetarian meal a day.

So far I have gone to yoga five days in a row and not eaten any sweets even though my mom made the most yummiest chocolate chip cookies in the world. The kind that we used to beg her to make when we were young. The first recipe I ever tried so as not to have to wait for her to make them. I call them "Page 64 of the Wild Rose Cookbook cookies." They are currently sitting in my freezer (hidden from the kids) until next Monday when I can eat sugar again, which is probably not the point of the challenge, but just because I'm eating Page 64s doesn't mean I'll just suddenly start pigging out on every sugary thing ever invented. Geesh you guys, have some faith.

As far as the vegetarian meal thing. I don't eat a whole lot of meat anyway; I certainly don't eat meat three times a day. This one is not really that hard. I did try something new though: quinoa. It's pretty good. I'd even have it again. So to recap: yoga every day, no sugar, one veggie meal. Done, done, and done!

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Braggity-brag-brag

I am obnoxiously braggy about my kids. It's just that they are sooooo great. They're smart and funny and athletic and good-looking and they deserve so much better than what they have.

They deserve a perfect family, not one parent who can't manage to stay out of the loony-bin because of drug-related mental problems and another parent who flounders through life hoping one day, against all odds, to be successful. They deserve to have every opportunity that is open to them: to play every sport that they show the slightest interest in, to take every class they have any curiosity about, to travel the world and never hear the words "we can't afford it."

But even though they can't take advantage of all those opportunities, and even though they hear "we can't afford it," more often than any of us would like, they are happy and polite and fun to be around. They are amazing and totally worth bragging about.

If you get annoyed with me because I think my kids are the best kids that ever lived ever in the whole history of the world then I'm sorry. Still, I'm not going to stop...

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Things I like

1. The day after Spring Break.


2. Good mail days - one day last week I got three magazines, a paycheque, and an invitation to a wedding. That's it. No bills or postcards from my dentist or anything. It was awesome.


3. The sun - and even though I spent the lunch hour at an elementary school going hoarse yelling: "Stay out of the puddles," "I said stay away from the water," and "I don't want to have to tell you again or I'll make you hold my hand and walk around with me and you won't get to play with any of your friends, go find something to do over there where there is no water," I still love that it's finally melting and that we just might see spring sometime relatively soon.


4. Random sentences that I've actually said - Me: Well, sure, who hasn't opened an origami store to get out of housecleaning?


5. Open windows - when my windows are open and I'm doing laundry, I can smell the vanilla-scented dryer sheets. Plus with two teenage boys around, it's nice to have a house that smells fresh every once in a while.

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Birds

When I was younger, teenage years, I had a friend who owned a parrot. His name was Fred. He was mean. He didn't have a cage; he just sat on a perch in their tv room. He had his wings clipped so they had little fear that he would get very far (which totally backfired on them because a few years later, he totally flew away). Anyway, he used to dive bomb at your head while you were sitting there watching The Young and the Restless after school while eating potato chips. And that is why I'm afraid of birds.

Side story: This one time when I was a very dramatic teenager, my friend was not at school and another friend and I tried calling her numerous times but we kept getting a busy signal. (This was obviously before voicemail was invented. Yes I'm old. Get off my lawn!) We decided to go over there after school to see if everything was ok. We rang the doorbell...knocked on the door...after minutes of no answer we tried the doorknob. It was open. We walked in. All the blinds had been pulled and it was really dark and spooky in there. We went into the kitchen and found the phone off the hook (this was obviously before cordless phones were invented. Yes I'm old. Where are my teeth?). We were getting more and more worried as this seemed to be familiar of every horror movie we'd ever seen. We started tip-toeing up the stairs and suddenly heard a blood curdling scream, we also screamed and tripped over ourselves trying to get the hell out of there. Luckily all the noise woke up my sleeping, sick friend and she came down to check it out. Apparently, her mom was at work but had left the phone off the hook so it didn't keep ringing and waking up my friend. And the blood curdling scream? That was thanks to Fred.

Stupid Fred left a lifetime of scars. I hate to be one of those people that talks about their dreams because I'm well aware of how dreams are really only interesting to the people that actually have them, but I dreamt of birds last night. Lots of birds in lots of different dreams. They were flying around my house, crashing into my window (but not dying, lest you give me the "omen of death" explanation), dive bombing at my head. And when I woke with a start and little scream this morning, I could not get back to sleep.

I hate birds.

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I'm boooooored

It's Spring Break!

Unfortunately, with all the outside-the-house work I've been doing lately, I've fallen a bit behind on my writing work. I have a few different projects due in the next month and so instead of spending Spring Break in my bed with a stack of books, I have to think and stuff. My life is so hard.

But the boys, oh the boys. While their break from school should be filled with fun and frivolity and watching tv in their pajamas and throwing lacrosse balls around in my living room, they've instead been banished to the basement where I can't hear them and most importantly, the people I'm interviewing over the phone can't hear them.

And instead of jaunting off to Jasper or even spending every day doing something fun around town, they're forced to make their own fun wherever they are and whatever they're doing.

I've read so many strategies over the years on what to do when your child says "I'm bored." I remember saying and feeling that every Spring Break and summer vacation when I was young. I have ideas and procedures to put into motion as soon as I hear those words. I am ready!

But, in the entire 14 years of existence, I don't think I've ever heard either one of them claim to be bored. Somehow I managed to have the kind of resourceful kids that find something to do. Maybe it's because they have each other, maybe it's because we have 320 different video game consoles, maybe it's because no matter where they are there's always a ball or a piece of paper to make an airplane out of or cardboard box or a piece of string...there's always something to play with.

So, while I sit here with the guilt of not being able to take them to a distant place, while I work on projects that should have been done before now and ignore those boys completely, they play in the basement like happy little puppies not knowing how devistatingly bored they should be.

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UPDATED: It'll Provide Anecdotes

I start a new job today. I'll be working as an educational assistant. My first job is this afternoon.

Update: I followed a teenager around all day. He was not so much interested in getting to know me so he walked about 10 feet ahead of me whenever we moved classes. I watched him play badminton, then sat in Science (learned about Yazoo mud in Mississippi and why they can't have basements), and then sat in Math (learned nothing because it all just goes over my head).
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I also supervised some little kids at recess. One boy comes running up to me: "I keep asking Nathan to play a game nicely with me and he just keeps yelling 'Potty'." Leaving me to wonder, is it that potty humour is something Nathan has heard of but doesn't understand what it is? I picture Nathan as an fat, bald middle-age man hanging out around the water cooler at the insurance office he works at yelling "Potty" every time someone asks him a question. Poor Nathan; it's going to be a hard life.

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Tales of a Weekend

I'm home. I had a good weekend. Quiet and relaxing with food, lots and lots of food. It's a good thing bff and I see each other so rarely; I'm not sure my stomach could handle the amounts of food that we always seem to indulge in on a more regular basis.
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Some people are really good at packing. My mom, for instance, starts making a list of things she'll need three weeks ahead of time. She checks it daily to make sure she hasn't forgotten anything and makes a point of writing down, at the very moment she thinks of it, anything that is not on the list. When she goes on vacation, or even away for a couple of days, she is assured that she has everything she needs. I tend to pack a couple of hours before I leave and just open every drawer and cupboard in my room and grab things willy-nilly. I've forgotten my toothbrush, my hairdryer, an exercise bra, estrogen...this time I forgot to pack more than one shirt. It turned out ok, because, besides going out to eat every four seconds, we didn't do much. Still it would have been nice to have a little more variety.
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For dinner on Saturday, we went for sushi. The place was packed with most of the patrons being Japanese. I happened to glance over at this one man and noticed that his hands were really small. And that made me look around and mentally add this sushi restaurant to places where I appear to be an overly large person. Other locations include: any dance class from my youth, all Abercrombie and Fitch locations, and the mirror after this weekend.
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I have this horrible habit of getting lost. Well, not lost exactly, but I often miss my turn and have spent many hours of my life trying to get back on the right road. I left bff's around noon on Sunday, followed directions on how to get out of there, but somehow missed my turn (which would be less pathetic if it wasn't such a huge intersection including five lanes of traffic going each way). Anyway, no problem, I'll just turn around at the next intersection, get back on the road I'm on going the other way and then turn onto the road I need to be on from there. You know where a bad place to turn around on Sunday at noon is? In front of a church. I'm now up to many hours and 20 minutes.
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Still, totally worth it--the overeating, the underpacking, and the extra time--I'd go through it again and again if it meant I got to see bff more.

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