Pity Party

I had myself a little pity party yesterday. I don't know what it was? The weather, PMS, or just that I am crazy but between the nasty comment the "friend" made and another innocent, yet related to nasty comment, jab from my Dad I spent my afternoon yesterday crying.

It could also have been the weight gain, which I have been pissed off at myself about. Or maybe it was the dinner that I burnt to a crisp. Could have been the tater tots and hot dogs that I wound up feeding us for dinner. All in all I was very glad to see the clock strike midnight last night.

My Dear Nathan has been working like crazy with all this cold weather. Even right now as I type this, at midnight, he is getting ready to go and thaw frozen pipes for someone. In the last 3 days he has seen our girls for about 20 minutes. It sucks. I just have to keep reminding myself that when he gets his pay cheque I will be able to do the fist pump and say "cha-ching!".

I kept Darian and Camryn home from school on Monday and Tuesday. It wasn't so much the weather as it was the road conditions. I drive them to and from school and if I had been stuck anywhere I think that I would have had to give Ryleigh a crash course in the fine art of steering and tried to push us out. It wouldn't have been pretty. Especially if Ryleigh was a better driver than I. I don't need another thing to have a complex about.

Today has been a much better day. The weather was nice (only -25 instead of -40! Woo Hoo!), I got back on plan for eating, I didn't burn dinner and I even went out for a walk tonight. My parents both were great today and made me feel good. My Mom told me the same thing as everyone else has about the "friend" but it always seems to be better when your Mom tells you. I have high hopes for another good day tomorrow. Maybe I will just stay up all night so as not to give anything bad the opportunity to spoil my good mood.

This Weather Sucks!

It is insanely freaking cold today. Like the world is my deep freeze kind of cold. In anticipation of this lovely winter weather we are having I went grocery shopping on the weekend when it was not so.....cold. Did I mention it is cold here?

I picked up the usual things and casually glanced down the cat food aisle. I thought to myself that Camryn had not mentioned that we needed cat food so I would not bother to buy any. I never know how much cat food we have because it is kept in the basement which I try to avoid because if I am down there it means I am doing laundry and well....that is just not very much fun.

This morning, my dear Nathan came upstairs after telling the kids to stay in bed because they were not going to school today. He informed me that the cats (I have 3...I know....I am dumb) had no food and that even though it is too cold for me to drive the kids to school, I would have to, at some point in the day, put on my big girl panties and go outside. To the grocery store. For nothing but cat food. Uggg.

Knowing that I had to go out anyway I decided that I would attend the morning Weight Watchers meeting. I have been going in the evening but hell, at this temperature I am only going out once. I bundled up in my warmest, and coincidentally ugliest, clothing and headed off to the Weight Watchers meeting. Uggg again. I should have stayed home.

Last week I was down 5.4 lbs. I was so happy with myself, I kicked ass, took names and even drank some beer on the weekend before weigh-in. Thinking that since I had gotten away with it last week, I could continue to drink beer on the weekend, and eat lasagna (but damn was it good!!!), and potstickers, and drink Strongbow and then drink more beer. I was wrong! I put on 2.something pounds.

I don't think that I was wearing 2.something pounds worth of warm, ugly clothes and I am fairly certain that I did not eat 2.something pounds worth of breakfast. I am blaming the beer, not the lasagna because it was too yummy to be mad at. The worst part is that I know this weekend will be another bad one as it is Superbowl weekend and I can't watch the Superbowl without drinking some sort of beer. I will just have to plan for it I guess. I will use all my points on beer and not eat that day. Sounds like a great plan!

I suppose that I could say that the extra poundage was my insulating layer due to the cold weather. Yeah, I think that I will go with that...makes me feel better.

High School Sucks!

This weekend was a semi-kid-free weekend. On Saturday my parents took our munchkins with them while they went to visit my grandparents. It was perfect! We made plans to go and have dinner and drinks with our friends. Dinner was great! Drinks were great!

The shitty part of the evening came near the end when our friend could not take any longer hiding a secret. He told us that some of our other "friends" had said some very nasty things about us. At the time I didn't let it bother me as I didn't want it to ruin a great night. Yesterday I had nothing to do but think about what this person had said about us.....it made my blood boil.

It is always a slap in the face when you find out what sorts of things people are saying behind your backs, especially when they are totally untrue and uncalled for. This is not the first time that these "friends" have pissed me off (see my Been There, Done That! rant...same person). I have decided that this comment is the straw that broke the camel's back though. I have had enough. I don't need "friends" that say rude things about me to other people, that think they are better than me and that, honestly, I have next to nothing in common with.

I would love nothing more than to call this person up or confront her face to face. To call her out and tell her that she cannot continue to treat her "friends" this way and expect to still have their friendship at the end of the day. I would love to tear a strip off of her and knock her ass back down to earth were us lowly people live.....but I can't. I can't because it would cause much grief for the person who told us what she said in the first place. I don't want that to happen.

From now on I will be perpetually busy when invited to do anything with them. I will no longer take shit from someone who has put themselves up on a mile high pedestal. Fuck them! I just want to know when my life reverted back to high school cuz I hated it the first time around and it appears as though it hasn't changed!

Random Stuff

First of all, things are good in the world of work. We are officially on the go list for our trip to Florida!! Yay!! Happy, happy!! Meeting this morning went well. They have now implemented a seniority policy in regards to vacation but we are grandfathered in....good stuff. Let the count down begin!!!

This past Tuesday I went to my first Weight Watchers weigh in meeting (well it was my second but first after being on the program). I lost 5.4 lbs this week....even with all the bad beer drinking that I did over the weekend. I have managed to eat breakfast every morning, which for me, is a huge deal! I am motivated and I want to stay that way. I don't want to have to hope and pray that the seatbelt on the airplane will fit around my huge ass.

Last friday, Darian had her first ever basketball game. She is part of the Junior team at her school. The girls that they played against had obviously played as a team on previous occasions and you could tell that our girls were a tad bit intimidated but by the end of the game they had found some confidence and even managed to make a basket. Congrats to Darian and her team. I was a proud Mamma that day. I watched my daughter become part of a team, try her hardest and most important, have fun! I can't wait for their next home game!

Camryn is spending the day today skiing. She was very excited this morning as I dropped her off for school. I am sure that it is all about spending a day on the slopes but it certainly doesn't hurt that she will not have any homework tonight. At lunchtime she will be able to enjoy a nice warm hot chocolate because today Mommy didn't forget to give her some spending money. Another reason for her to rejoice!

This week both my older daughters surprised me as they are excited for Nathan and I to go on our trip. They know that they are not coming with us but that does not get in the way of them seeing that we need some time to be Nathan and Nancy and not just Mommy and Daddy. It is not all total selflessness though, they are already compiling a list of things that we are to bring back for them.

Ryleigh. She is 18 months old and refuses to talk. She knows that we can all figure out what she needs through different grunts and noises. She is also a very good pointer. I figure that I should enjoy that she has yet to talk back and just go with the flow. She will talk when she needs money as there is never any of that just laying around for her to point and grunt at.

Today things are good. Things are calm, although somewhat disorganized. I think that I will go and work on that while I have a little quiet time. Besides my parents are coming this weekend, I have to make it look like I do something other than surf the net all day.

Fallout

Further to the post I made yesterday....

I called Nathan today all excited as I have received our airline tickets in the mail today. He advised me that Big Boss Man has called a meeting for tomorrow morning before work starts. Think "going on vacation because work was kind enough to give Nathan the time off" thoughts for us tomorrow..... :(

Spoiled Brat

This May we will celebrate our 10th anniversary. We have never really done anything for our anniversary. On our first we did rent a room at the Fantasyland hotel, but it was only for one night and we were only 5 minutes away from home. Not really a momentous trip.

This year, being that it is our 10th, I want to go away. I want a real anniversary trip. Did I mention that I also did not get a honeymoon? It sucked. I have decided that we are going to go back to Florida. I want to go to Disney without the kids (I know, I know....I am a horrible Mother), I want to have my husband all to myself for more than the 5 minutes we get on any given day (sleeping together does not count) and I want to because I want to dammit!!!

I have already booked our trip. We will be gone for 5 glorious days. Nathan wanted me to wait to make sure that he could get the time off of work but I said that with there being 4 months notice that it should be OK. Well, turns out I may have been wrong. There are only 6 guys in total at the company that Nathan works at. One of them will be in school in May, which means that he cannot work. The other one, I found out, takes an annual bike ride on the weekend that we are going. Big Boss Man is going on a vacation at that same time as well. All in all, it means that there will only be 2 guys to cover work for 3 days if Nathan is not there.

Right now I am feeling kind of bad about it. I know that we should have asked first but I also know my husband....he wouldn't fight for the time off even though he says that he wants to go as bad as I do. He would just roll over and accept defeat. This is why I deal with any kind of confrontation. I don't want to have to put off my vacation, my one and only 10th anniversary that I am going to get.

I feel like a big spoiled brat....I want what I want, when I want it. And dammit, I am going to get it. The trip is booked and I am not going to cancel. They can hire my kids to work for them while we are gone since they are not coming. Sheesh, not only am I a spoiled brat but a horrible parent too. This day sucks.

Odd Americans

Yesterday afternoon, Darian, Ryleigh and I made a trip to Costco. It was an uneventful trip but one that got me thinking. While we were there I had to use to the restroom due to the copious amounts of water that weight loss requires. When I walked into the nice, clean bathroom stall I noticed that there was a toilet seat cover dispenser and it actually had covers in it. Toilet seat covers are not something that I usually give much thought to. I have come across very few public restrooms that have the dispensers bolted to the back wall and even fewer that provide the actual cover.

On our recent trip to Florida I noticed that the United States abounds with toilet seat covers. I first observed this in the Denver International Airport. There they were, staring me in the face, toilet seat covers aplenty. I didn't think much of it as we were in a busy airport, where millions of asses from all over the world converge. I kind of just chocked it up to an airport thing. When we arrived in Orlando there were more toilet seat covers. Again, thoughts went to it being an airport thing.

Throughout our 2 week vacation I noticed that not one public restroom that I visited was without toilet seat covers, all being of the paper variety. Americans are very concerned with the state of cleanliness of their asses, they don't want someone else's ass germs and god forbid, their precious asses touch the plastic that may have been exposed to the general public's asses.

On our way home, I thought about all the numerous times that I chuckled to myself about ass hygiene. Canadians are not as worried about it as evidenced by a distinct lack of toilet seat covers. Then I entered the restroom in Chicago O'Hare International. The newly dubbed mecca of toilet seat covers. In the O'Hare restrooms they have mechanical toilet seat covers, not made of paper but of plastic. You don't even have to work for a new cover, all you have to do is wave your hand in front of the magic box and a fresh, clean, sanitary cover appears for you out of the computerized toilet seat cover dispenser attached to the toilet. It was a little odd sitting on a plastic covered toilet seat. I felt like I was in some sort of grandparent-induced nightmare, where all the furniture is covered in plastic, including the toilet.

Another thing that I noticed is that Americans do not feel the need to remove their footwear at the entrance of a home. Our vacation home had the nastiest carpets that I have ever seen! I have been in many a carpeted restaurant here whose carpets looked clean enough to eat off of, even in the midst of the slushiest winters day. This fact astounds me. Why is it more important to have a clean ass than it is to have clean feet. Maybe Americans should take off their pants and skooch around on their clean asses so as not to have to put their dirty feet on the carpet. The other option could be disposable booties. Or there is always the ever popular Canadian idea....take your damn shoes off at the door!

All in all, my trip was a glorious one. I came home with sore, dirty feet but my ass was sparkling clean. I am sure had someone looked, they might even have been able to see their reflection in it.

It's Time

So my Mom called me today to let me know that my brother finally activated our Disney Photopass. She gave me the information needed to go online and look at the pictures we had taken by a Disney photographer. FUCK ME!!!!! I can't believe how awful I look. :( I am standing amongst 8 other people and I am the only one that you see all thanks to the extra 100 or so pounds that I am carrying around, and I can't even blame it on a baby....

So now it is time. I really need to do something about this as I am utterly disgusted with the sight of myself. I know that this is going to be really hard as I am positive that the main culprit of my weight gain is beer. Yes, that is right, the Nectar of the Gods, my favorite beverage in the whole entire world....beer. Nathan and I have been saying that we need to cut down on drinking, especially now as I want to go back to Disney. I have another reason to cut back and that is so that my ass can fit into a plane seat because if I keep going the way I am, it won't!

Another thing that I need to remedy are my eating habits. I am not a breakfast person, or a lunch person. I like to eat at night, which has to change. I already know the importance of eating in the morning so today I actually had breakfast and it was healthy. This morning I also joined Weight Watchers on-line. I am not going to commit myself to meetings just yet. If I find that I am not being as accountable to the internet as I should be then I will start attending traditional meetings.

I have also contemplated joining Spa Lady for some time now but I am hesitant as I am very much the kind of person who needs someone to drag me to a gym. If I could find someone else that was attending on a regular basis and could be my buddy then I might just join. I have been wanting to go swimming with the kids but right now the closest pool to us is closed for another week. I will look at when public swimming is and would like to enroll myself and Ryleigh in a Parent-Tot class if one is available.

These are my grand plans for the time being. I always start out all gung-ho with weight loss and quickly settle back into my old and fattening ways. As a way to try not to let that happen this time I am going to start blogging about my journey with the hopes that it will help keep me on the right path. This sucks. I can't believe that I have done this to myself. I want to be able to look at myself and know that I worked hard to get the body I have not that I have hardly worked and wound up with more body than I want.

To my 2 readers....please ride my large ass if you do not see that I am holding up to at the very least the blogging part of this mission. I need all the help that I can get. :(

Just a Quickie....

It is January. It is cold. It is still winter and there are still at least 3 more months of it. It sucks. It especially sucks when only a week ago I was enjoying +30 weather in Sunny Florida. I want to go back....here are some reasons why.....

- it was +30 in December
- the Molson Canadian was only $6.00 a six-pack
- the Wal-Mart sold Molson Canadian
- the Wal-Mart was open 24 hours a day
- you can buy beer 24 hours a day
- there is beer at the 7-11
- the 7-11 is open 24 hours a day
- groceries are cheap
- Disney World is there
- it was warm
- there are pools in the back yards
- there were no mosquitoes (if there are mosquitoes during the summer I bet they aren't so big that they could carry your children off like they are here)
- it was sunny
- the humidity felt good
- there is football there....real football, not the CFL
- you can drink beer in the parking lot at the football game
- there is no labour shortage
- there is no snow
- Floridians say "y'all"
- they think our money is "cute"
- you can buy a cell phone for $20.00

Fairies

Tis the season to be all believin' in things. A giant fat man in a red suit with an army of little green elves, flying reindeer, goodwill towards men and peace on earth. I would like you to stretch your imagination and perhaps believe, just for a second, in a very special fairy.

The story goes like this (I am sure that I will miss some details but you will get the picture)......one fine sunny day, many years ago, a hardworking Man dragged his tired ass home from another long day at the beer warehouse. It had been a particularly hard day being that he was hungover and worked in a gigantic building full of empty beer bottles and cans, you can imagine the smell.

At the end of the long day and with thoughts of dinner and bed, the tired Man pulled into his driveway and noticed something in his way. Being that he was a curious man, he stepped out of his car and walked over to the object standing between him and his dinner. What he found was a video cassette. There was no box, the title sticker had been ripped off but it looked to be in otherwise good condition. Not thinking of anything more than what awaited him inside the Man parked his car and crawled into the house. Without a thought, he dropped the video on the stairs and carried on with his business.

The next day, while cleaning, the Man's wife came across this mysterious video tape which was decidedly out of place. The wife wondered what was on the tape and why it was on her stair. She made a mental note to ask her weary husband what he knew of this tape and continued with her day.

Later that evening, after the Man was fed and watered, the Wife inquired about the strange video. The Man explained to her that he had found it laying in the driveway, picked it up and brought it in the house with nary a second thought. At this point both the Man and his Wife were intrigued as to what was on the tape. They both agreed that they needed to know and without wasting another second they popped the tape into their VCR.

What happened next was enough to knock them off their couch. They stared at the television in disbelief! How could it be? How could they be so fortunate? They knew that they had been visited and rewarded by a very special fairy. This fairy is not very well known and many people dismiss this fairy as purely myth but to this day the Man and his Wife will vigorously attest to her existence.

What they discovered that day is that the Porn Fairy had visited and delivered the most special kind of porn.....driveway porn! That's right!!! Driveway porn!!! The Man and his Wife must have been on their very best behaviour that year to have been blessed with a visit from the Porn Fairy.

It is at this time of year, while we all await a visit from the Big Red Man, who comes bearing gifts that I ask you to extend your belief in a little known fairy. Who knows? Maybe if you believe hard enough and are always nice you too will be rewarded with a special treat in your driveway......you might even be good enough for a dvd!

8 Days and Counting

So we are down to single digits. Counting down the days until we fly away to sunny Florida for 2 weeks. I can't wait. It will be so exciting to see my girls when they find out where we are going to be for Christmas holidays. I have known about this trip since the summer so it is killing me that I have not been able to tell them. Especially on days when they are driving me crazy because I figure that "If you do not behave yourself you are not going to Disney" would probably be way more effective than the "If you do not behave yourself you are not going to get your dessert" that I have been using since they were born!

There are only 8 more days until we board our flight. I haven't even started to pack yet. Do you think that is a bad thing? The way I look at it is that I have 7 more days to procrastinate about packing and cleaning and then 1 day-totally under pressure-to do everything that I should have been doing since this summer.

Hustle and Bustle

Alas, good ole' December has arrived. Month of over-spending, over-eating and, my personal favorite, over-drinking.

This time of December is always a tad bit more stressful than anything after December 9. This is because Darian has her birthday on December 9, so not only do I have to worry about remortgaging my home for Christmas gifts, I also have to worry about what kind of cool thing a soon-to-be 12 year old would like to have.

There is the ever cool ipod....wait....she has one of those. Ok, well there is a computer....wait....she has one of those.....hmmmmm.....clothes.....clothes are good but that just means more laundry! What do you buy for a girl that wants for absolutely nothing and treats it all as though it is disposable anyway? I have only 3 more days to decide.

After the 9th usually I would be running around like a mad woman, fighting crowds to do Christmas shopping that I swear every year I am going to start earlier. It never happens. This year I will have a different hustle and bustle to deal with though.

Out of the kindness of their hearts (and wallets) my parents are taking our whole family for a glorious 2 week vacation to Disney World!!! I cannot wait. No presents to buy (at least not before I leave because suitcases can only weigh so much....), no tree to decorate, no cookies to bake, no Awesome-Father-In-Law for Christmas!!! Oh joyous day!!!!

Instead of all those nasty things I have to do every stitch of laundry in the house in an effort to make sure that we don't have to spend days 5- 14 naked, I have to arrange a cat-sitter, something I never though I would have to do or would require so much effort. I also have to pay someone to shovel snow while we are gone which could be either the best money spent or the easiest money a person could make given Alberta's ever unpredicatable weather.

I did have to fight a crowded Wal-Mart the other night to buy cat food. I bought enough to feed an army. The lady at the till though I had about 20 cats. I explained that I did not wish to have to return for cat food before our trip as it is just too much of a pain in the ass. I have to return anyway....I forgot the litter!

Hmmmmm.....kitty litter.....Darian doesn't have any of that! Do you think would make a good birthday present?

Feeling Bad

With my dear Nathan out of town for work the last 2 nights I have been sitting and catching up on some blog reading. What I should have been doing is catching up on some blogging but I just can't seem to find my blog mojo. I did post the other day (more of a rant than a real post...but it's there) and then after proof reading it (after publishing it...only a little backwards) I decided to review what I have written. I was surprised. Sometimes I don't think that it was me who actually wrote some of the things on here.

After getting over myself, which didn't take too long, I am shocked and amazed that I am still linked to any other blogs....all of which are very good and entertaining, basically the complete opposite of what mine has become. I guess right now I just want to say thanks to those of you who have been so kind to take a peek into my life. I promise that it will get more interesting. Soon.

Been There, Done That!

There is something that has been bugging the shit out of me all week. I am not sure why is it bothering me so much so I am hoping that by unloading it onto the internet that I will feel better.

I have 3 daughters, the oldest of which is going to be 12 in a month. If you do the math, that means that I have been a mother for almost 12 years. In those 12 years I have had to get out of bed for early morning and midnight feedings, midnight puke clean up and midnight "Mommy sleeping...she won't know I ate all the popsicles" refridgerator raids. I have spent sleepless nights with a chicken-pocked baby, driven countless late night kilometres with a cranky teether and paced a hole in my floor with a cold-stricken bundle of phlegm in my arms. I have done all the things that I can't remember about right now that were not a vision of perfection in Motherhood.

And then after all that, I added another to the mix. At this point Darian was ready to start school. I did almost all of the above mentioned over again, this time having to do it on more of a schedule. Just when life settled into a nice rut, with nearly self-sufficient children.....I did it again! Enter Ryleigh.

I have also contiued to live life while having children. I stayed up way too late drinking but still got up in the morning to tend to my kids. I am a human being who also gets sick with colds, flus and other various illnesses. I still got up and took care of my kids. Bad things happen in life but I always managed to make sure that if I wasn't caring for my kids, then someone was, but usually I was close by.

You are probably wondering by now where the hell I am going with this. Lately there has been someone in my life, that I spend a fair bit of time with, that likes to lament about how she never gets a break from the kids, she never gets to sleep in and so on and so on. She continues with how it must be nice that I get to sleep in on Sundays or that I have Darian and Camryn to help me with and to watch our baby, Ryleigh, when I want some time or a nap.

I have listened to these comments for sometime now and lately it has reached a point where I am ready to fire back at her. All the things that she complains about, the having to get up in the morning after a late night or working hard the day before, the trying to watch 2 kids while trying to keep house, or work, or study, all of it.....I have done it! I have done it for nearly 9 years longer than she has.

It is nice that I have 2 older daughters that help out with Ryleigh. It is nice that my husband knows how important Sundays are for me and that he and my kids treat me to a morning to sleep in and a day of minimal "Mom" work. It hasn't always been this way. I did not have a "Darian" when Darian was a baby. I did the work. I did not have a "Darian and Camryn" to help me when Camryn was a baby. I did the work. Nathan has not always had a Monday-Friday job. We have done the working weekends at all hours. We had a baby and lived 7 hours apart from each other!! I did the work!!

Now don't get me wrong. I love my kids and feel like the work that I have done is totally worth the effort as they are really great kids! I am just not impressed by hearing how much easier it is for me to be a Mother as opposed to my friend. I've had a get into everything 1 year old, a terrible 2 year old and an even worse than two 3 year old......twice before already!! You are not breaking new ground.....millions of us have done it before you and millions of us will do it after we are long done. My life as a Mother has not always been what it is today and for all I know it could change in the next hour. I refuse to feel bad for how things happen here. I don't feel sorry for you when you have had to get up early with kids and truthfully I probably never will.

I know that I have it good. I am thankful that I have it good. I will continue to be thankful that I have it good and the next time that this person reminds me of such perhaps I will thank her for reminding me!

Lacking

I haven't been doing very well with this whole blog thing. It seems that the only time that I think of anything worthwhile to write about is when I am lying in bed at some godawful time of the night when normal people are sleeping. I guess I could get up and actually come to the computer, all of maybe 20 ft. away from my bed, but that would take too much effort. That and it is about 10 degrees colder in this room than it is in say....the Arctic. That makes it very hard to want to get out of bed....even for something as entertaining as posts like this.

I think that right now my life is just not as exciting as it previously has been. I have 3 cats with all 4 legs, a functioning kitchen, Awesome Father-In-Law hasn't been around much and over all things have been running smoothly here.

Although I guess I could blog about my neighbor who yelled at me for smoking on my own front step or the halfway house for all of Edmonton's teenage population across the street or maybe even about Nathan's hair, or lack thereof. The possibilities really are endless.

Now if I could only get some heat to this room we could be cooking.

Thanksgiving

It must just be the time of year I guess. I cannot believe that as I sit here typing this I can admire my baby and truly say that I don't think that I have ever been this happy. I don't have to work. My baby is acting silly and making me laugh, my pies both turned out and my basement is almost clean.

This (and for the next 3) weekend I will be giving thanks for the opportunity that I have. I get to stay at home and take care of my family. I am sure that there are a million women out there that would gladly turn in their 9 to 5 job to have mine.

This is getting way too touchy feely for me but just know that I am happy....and thankful.

When does it end?

So I was feeling kind of gung-ho this week and as a result I now have hardwood in my living room and dining room. Now don't go and get the wrong idea, the hard wood has been there longer than I have been alive but it was covered with cheap, ugly laminate. The laminate is apparently very near and dear to the hearts of the people who used to live here. My neighbor is friends with them and told them that we were going to rip it up and the lady nearly had a coronary and extolled my neighbor with the story of how difficult and how much work it was to lay it down (over disgusting pools of dog urine I might add.....gross!!!!!).

Today my two oldest daughters decided that they were going to be helpful and try to force me to stay in bed all day long while they cleaned, cooked and looked after their baby sister. I think that my children were kidnapped by aliens and replaced with clones but they assure me that they are the originals. They were cleaning the floor when I finally said that we were going to finish ripping up the laminate. It only took us about half hour to do that and now the floor is nice and clean and my front yard is littered with cheap, ugly laminate. Maybe if I leave it there someone will come and take it away during the night. It could happen.....

So now all we have left to do is paint the entire upstairs, ceiling included, lay new tile from front door down the hall, refinish the hardwood, buy and install new baseboards, decide what kind of flooring to replace the cheap, ugly laminate with in the bedrooms, redo the bathroom.......the list goes on and on. When we are finally finished with the upstairs then my basement needs to be gutted and redone. Sigh.....I hope these clone children get to stay for awhile because they have lots of work to do!!!!

Camping Trip

This past weekend we went on a kid-free camping trip. IT RULED!!!!!!

I cannot believe how much fun it can be to just sit around a fire, drink beer, talk, laugh, smoke, eat and relax. The weather was alright but considering that it is still August, it could have been much better. It was in the low 20s, high teens, which is great weather if it was October.

We played a few games of bocce ball, which I am not that great at. I am sure that if I could kick the ball I would do much better but I am pretty sure that I would break my ankle.

Although I am finding it difficult to put into words just how great it was just know that I cannot wait for it to happen again next year and hopefully for many years to come.

Getting Back On The Wagon

I guess I took a summer hiatus. I was not intended but it happened.

There are only 2 more (actually 1.5) weeks left of summer holidays. The girls will be heading back to school and I will be.....at home....with Ryleigh.....wishing that the girls were home. I will only be like that for the first little while I am sure. After that I will be too busy with junior high, this activity or that activity, homework, first words, baking and all the other things that, as a teenager, I swore I would never do or be as an adult.

This year I will try my hardest to blog more. I have been thinking about it and have come to the conclusion that blogs only get done when you sit at the computer and type and not so much when you only think about what you are going to type. Here I am........getting back on the wagon.

Slacking

Ok so I have not been the best blogger as of late but in my defence....well there is none. I have just been slacking.

Currently I am not at home. I have been playing cowgirl (ok not really) at the Calgary Stampede. Actually I have been playing "I have money" which I don't. We took the girls the other day and spent $300.00!!! It really didn't take that long, especially when you consider that we spent $25.00 to park. Parking at the Stampede requires financing. We paid $30.00 to park for the parade...yep $30.00 for 3 hours of parking. Welcome to downtown Calgary!!! YAHOO....

Darian, Camryn and I went to the Stampede by ourselves last night. I took them to see Good Charlotte and then go on some more rides. We did not get back to my parents until 1 am. I am so done Stampedin' for the year. It is always fun but very tiring. We didn't even go do all the things that we normally do. I only went to one Stampede breakfast, we didn't have any free lunches and I only ate bannock once!!

You will notice that my Stampede experience is generally related to food. That is because I am a huge wimp and do not go on rides. I watched with awe and fear last night as my children went on ride after ride that flip them, twirl them, soak them and generally make them giddy. The smiles that they had on their face make me smile just thinking about them. Camryn is so happy that this is the year that she grew big enough to go on most of the rides that she wanted to. I think that Darian really enjoyed being the big sister taking her little sister on all the "big" rides.

The thought of my kids going on some of these rides just about had me in tears last night. I was doing my best to keep a happy face on though. I don't want my kids to have any fear of amusement park rides because let me tell you how boring it is stand around with all the bags while you watch everyone else scream with fear and joy.

Anyway...there is more to this story but I have to tend to the kids for the moment. We are spending our last few hours together before I head home on the bus and they stay with Grandma and Poppa for the weekend. I can't wait.....sleep will be so sweet without having to worry about getting up with the baby. Maybe I will recover from being so exhausted in time for Capital Ex.