Grocery Shocking

  I'm desperately trying to delay the inevitable but I know it all too well-it is time.  Our shelves are bare and I'm debating whether to make some rice with ketchup or pina colda mix since those are the only ingredients we have on hand.  It is time to do the chore I hate most-grocery shopping.  Being told to go grocery shopping is like when you're working and the manager tells you they just kicked a hobo out of the customer washroom and get your gloves because you better go check it out.  Yes grocery shopping, it seems like no matter how much food we buy we always end up eating it.  I'm seriously thinking we should pick up an eating disorder to cut back on the amount of times we have to do it.  Grocery shopping makes anything else seem enjoyable.  When I need to get a cavity filled, I think I will go grocery shopping first so I have something to look forward to afterwards.
     Back in the day when I was single, grocery shopping was so much simpler.  Well, since I'm being perfectly honest I lived at home until I was 25 so most of my grocery shopping was at my mom's pantry.  Actually scratch that, a bulk of my grocery shopping is STILL done at my mom's pantry (I have no idea why your Costco bill is so high mom and if you're reading this please disregard the above paragraph...).  However I still did some grocery shopping on my own, mostly because my mom didn't buy the foods a refined palate such as mine required-such as cookie crisp cereal, redbull and Doritos.  When I did go grocery shopping it was almost a novelty, it would take me under 10minutes to grab the fixings for mac and cheese and instant noodles.  I would laugh at the worn down looking mom pushing a mammoth cart with a screaming toddler hanging from her ankle as I skipped down to the cashier and paid for my diet cola and cookie dough.   
  Those days are long gone.  Grocery shopping has now mutated into a biweekly (if I can help it) ritual of torture.  Now we're feeding 3 people and I'm head of the feed-everyone-make-everyone-happy committee. I not only have to cook the meals that are different and exciting but make sure that my family is not surviving off ketchup packages.  Let me explain the process...  
    Before I can even step into the store I have to do the list.  The premise is quite simple, when you're running low on an item, you add it to the list conveniently located on the fridge.  The list is a great way to remain organized and it ensures you're never standing in the frozen food section muttering "need more frozen pizza".  In theory it works wonders, in theory.  In practice it  is a complete work of fiction made up of items you wish you had in your fridge during the midnight snack hour.  I never keep it updated and if I run out of something I end up promising myself I'll remember to add it to the list later (which is never conveniently on the fridge like it is suppose to be care of Lily).  As you can guess the items never make it to the list and I end up winging it which is why there are currently 10 bottles of BBQ sauce in our fridge.  For some unexplainable reason I think we are forever out of BBQ sauce. Dave also has a bad habit of taking the last of something and leaving the empty container in the pantry.  Which means that unless I open the box and do a count I never know for sure if we're out or running low.  Sometimes I do practice what I preach and compile a beautiful supply list.  However this list is almost always forgotten and I end up scribbling what I can remember on a crumpled up napkin on my way to the grocery store to buy some more BBQ sauce since surely we must be out.  On weeks I'm feeling really energized I compile a dinner meal plan.  The meal plan consists of me trying to get Dave to suggest meals he wants other than the standard "something good" and "whatever" fare (which he demands every week).  It also is suppose to help cut the grocery bill because you're only buying what you need, avoiding waste.  However it doesn't take in account the nights we say "screw this" and order pizza letting our good intentions go moldy at the bottom of the vegetable crisper.
  Next step is actually getting to the store.  Preferably on a Sunday (the busiest time), at night and when the kids are the most cranky or tired.  If you can't make it for Sunday our second choice appears to be Wedensday, the day before restocking so the produce is nice and spongy and the store looks like it was hit by a hurricane and then backed over by a B.A.T for good measure.  I have tried very hard to find the sweet spot to go grocery shopping.  Seriously it is a formula more complex then a quadraic equation.  It goes something like this:

• 2 Kids (wellfed+good mood) + grocery shop (quiet+sales/anyday but Sunday or Wednesday)+daytime=stress free experience

Now because I am bad at math we end up following this formula:

•  2 kids (tired+cranky*hyper)+just before bedtime+ Sunday (store busy+produce rotten+out of stock)-sanity-patience=Typical shopping experience

Regardless of how much planning I do, it always seems like we're back at the shop on Sunday trying to decide which stock of celery is less brown and if we can subsitue our usual brand of yogurt with sourcream and add chocolate quick mix to flavor it.
    Now grocery shopping is a family event.  Mostly because Dave has to be there to use his discount card and he also is the driver.  I tag along because if he went alone he'd return with ice cream, a loaf of bread and BBQ sauce because surely this time we must be out.  The kids come along because the government looks down at leaving them at the apartment under the watchful eye of the cat with a bowl of water on the ground and the TV on.  The problem with Dave coming along is he increases the price of our grocery bill.  I'm cheap, I'll buy just the basics, but Dave will go all crazy and buy things like strawberries.  Seriously I have to audit what goes in our cart.  Strawberries?  I hope you're working overtime this week!  Now you didn't forget about the children did you?  Don't think they're little cherubs sitting in the cart with their hands in their lap.  Lily is watching everything going into the cart and demanding a bite then freaking out when you try to explain the criminal code and why we can't just eat something without paying for it.  When she's not trying to open a package she's dumping items out of the cart making this whole exercise counterproductive.  She also likes to try to launch herself out of the cart or grab things as we pass by laughing hysteically as she toppels a row of canned tomatos.  Joe is will usually sleep through most of the trip only to snap away when we get to the cashir and demand to be fed resulting in me bagging my groceries with one hand.  If you don't submit to Joe's first cry he will start yelling in a pitch only heard by the CPS.  By the time the whole ordeal is over with, we are so exhausted and fed up.  I'll never forget the time we were done bagging up everything and just about to leave and Lily tossed a container of cottage cheese on the ground and it exploded everywhere.
   Because we avoid grocery shopping like the plague and only do it when the only things left are a moldy apple and BBQ sauce, we usually have a ton of groceries.  We'll fill an entire cart up and the bucket of our stroller.  When it's time to pay it will be above $200.  I am always shocked and demand Dave to explain what he bought that was so expensive because surely there is an unauthorized purchase in there somewhere...We take our cart which looks like we're stocking up for the rapture and cram it into our BAT which for once in its life is too small to fit everything,  I end up having to sit in the middle of the front seat redneck style all the way home with a stack of frozen pizza in my lap.  Now for the worst part-getting it upstairs.  Yes we have to carry everything across the parkcade, up the elevator down the hallway-with two now ballistic children singing "are we there yet" in scream-minor.  Two trips you say?  While the smart thing to do.  We end up loading our stroller and trying to carry as much as we can possible lift and pleading with Lily to please hurry up and not push the elevator help buttons.  We then get through the door only to realize that we forgot to by milk, the main reason why we went to begin with.
  As you can see I'm sitting here trying to think of all the many excuses not to go today.  I think I need to phone the dentist, I may have some teeth he needs to drill out....

  

Because its good for you....

     So this may very well be my last blog entry.  I have my first trail run tomorrow so I'm pretty sure I might like, die.  My sister asked me if I had viewed the altitude information for this race.  Altitude? What does that mean? Altitude is a measurement of height (or at least that's what the guess that I pulled out of my butt said), so I think she's subtly trying to tell me that there's hills or better yet, one big hill.  Oh my....I'm seriously questioning my sanity and even more so questioning my husband's who has done no training whatsoever.  I guess after I'm done writing this I'll u-tube some videos about blood dopping.  Even thought my sister is in way better shape then I am, I'm still somewhat competitive so I either need to get my hands on some performance enhancing drugs or hire someone to break her knee caps.  What?  I got her a nice birthday gift....
    So what have I been up to lately?  Well mom stuff.  Remember when you mom made you do stuff that you didn't particularly want to do but she told you it was "for your own good"?  Well that's payback for all the stuff she had to do for your own good when you were little.  Seriously, at the moment I'm taking Lily to a whole bunch of activities outside my comfort and sanity zone just because I know it might make her a little less of a thug in her future.
    I started Strong Start last month or as I refer to it in our case Weak Crawl.  There are two programs: morning or afternoon.  The afternoon one in my opinion is mislabeled. It starts at 11:30 which technically is still morning, or at least in my world it is.  11:30? who wants to run after kids when you can still taste the toothpaste in your mouth.  Then there is morning Strong Start that begins at 8:30.  That's 8:30 AM, AM as it opens before the bank even does.  I have yet to make it on time.  We beat our record this morning by getting there at 9:30-apparently we only get up at 6am for afternoon Strong Start.  Usually we stroll in around 10am just in time for Lily to beat some poor kid over the head with a plastic baby.  Strong Start is another one of these programs that is so good for the kids and Lily loves it.  The downside is basically I'm spending the whole time playing referee with a below acceptable level of caffeine in my system.  There is something about another child playing with a toy that transforms it into the most desirable toy in the whole entire universe.  A kid could be holding a ball of lint and Lily would think it was the best thing since sliced bread or something straight out of Mordor.  The other day we were on the playground during outside time and Lily made a breakaway while I was trying to put JoJo in his stroller.  She ran into a classroom that had left the door open to let in air and attempted to knock over one of the kids who was using an exercise ball as a chair.  At least Lily has inherited my feelings towards hippies.  But seriously?  we don't use chairs anymore? We sit on bouncy balls?  Can one truly concentrate when you're bouncing? Okay kids...boing...open to page 2....boing.....for history...BOING! Anyways we made quite a ruckus when I had to remove her from the classroom with her kicking and screaming while holding Joe who was also screaming in solidarity.  Today Lily really embarrassed me.  She has this tendency to go into my closet and wear my underwear as a necklace.  Anyways I was rushing as usual, trying not to be too late and I shoved her in her stroller without doing my last minute inspection.  I get there and let her out and one of the moms goes to me "your thong".  Instinctively I pull up my pants and she's like "no, around your toddler" and sure enough there was Lily parading around the room with my underwear on display.  Already however I have noticed that Lily is getting better around children so I can suck it up.  It's better to have her socialized then to sit at home in my PJ's watching realtity TV....I guess.    
    I also went to this free program called "Mother Goose".  Basically you sing a whole bunch of songs and dance around and pray for death that never comes to rescue you.  I joke, I joke, the kidlets love it and the people who run it are wonderful, however if I wasn't a bit snarky about it you wouldn't be reading this blog.  I'm just amazed that the songs haven't changed that much since I was a kid.  As I've commented many times, the wheels on the bus are still going 'round and 'round.  Also at the Kentucky fair the senorita with flowers in her hair is still shaking it like a milkshake which makes me ponder just how old that lady is now. It's been over 25years and that itsy bitsy spider is still crawling up the water spout except they have a new version of the song dealing with a humongous spider which is creepy on all sort of levels.  It's bad enough when we sing the song Lily barks so apparently it's a barking spider that has mutated into the size of a adult female.  So how did Lily like it?  It's hard to tell.  She basically stood in the middle of the singing circle lifting up her top yelling boobies.
  Anyways, when I'm old and grey I'll make sure Lily escorts me to all the activities the senior center offers to help keep my brain sharp.  When she groans and rolls her eyes at me I'll remind her that she has to take me because once upon the time I did the same thing...and besides it's good for me and might make me stop accidentally putting the remote away...in the fridge. 
  That being said, I'm off to rest before my race, I'm sure when I'm running up that hill inbetween swearing and crying I'll be humming Mary had a little lamb wondering why she hasn't made that thing into lamb chops.  Maybe she's vegan, like my crazy sister who got me into this mess (running that is).

Here comes the blog...

So I haven't blogged since Joe was born. I'd love to say it's because I've been just too gosh darn busy but in reality it's because I've been too tired to put on pants let alone string together 2 sentences that are coherent or amusing.
Also I find it hard to blog during the day-I turn around for one second and Lily has already undressed Joe (who has now peed on the floor), emptied the contents of all drawers and is debating politics on the phone with some lucky person in China. To write a blog entry? She would have the place redecorated before I had the chance to type my second paragraph.
Having another child so soon is like having another tequila shot-oh it's a great idea at the moment but good luck not ending up in a puddle of pee at the end of it... Seriously, i think I've covered it in my last blog-There is no margin of error when it comes to a boy's diaper. It's been almost 5months now and Joe is still not sleeping through the night. You know that feeling you get when that woman with the perfect body tells you how no matter what she eats she can't gain weight? That's the same feeling I get when my husband tells me how tired he is because he only got 6hours of sleep. Seriously, my husband does his best impression of playing dead at 4am.
At the moment my career is a stay-at-home mom and wife-the career path often not showcased at career day in university because it's just too glamourous and everyone would be dropping out to pursue it. Some say it's a pretty important job raising up this nation's youth. To be honest I haven't set the bar that high-I'm just trying not to raise a serial killer or even worse....a hipster! But don't worry citizens of Canada, I treat this job with the same gusto that I treat all my jobs. I sort of half ass it. It's not how well you can do a job, it's how much you can pretend you know what you're doing while taking multiple coffee breaks and skipping out early Friday for a liquid lunch. I've heard of super moms, women who can do it all and have it all. If I was a super hero I'd be mediocre mom. My super power? Being able to tune out whining while updating my status on Facebook.
All kidding aside, parenting is actually tough work with very little instruction. Seriously at the hospital they hand you a few pamphlets with your newborn as you're leaving exclaiming "hopefully you won't be back when you get your hand jammed in the stroller while folding it up!". My telus tv came with more instruction! It's also one of those things you don't know if you're doing right until years later when you're either attending their med-school graduation or attending a support group on how to remove your 38 year old from your basement (hint: hire a locksmith).
I recently signed up for a parenting course called Nobody's perfect. Quite honestly it could be have been the history of indoor plumbing for all I cared, they snagged me with promises of free lunch and child care. Free child care is the holy grail, I'd even let the dentist drill more holes on my head if he offered a bouncy castle and some crackers for the lil ones. The key word is free. Hey it could be the hobo that constructed the shopping cart city behind the mall teaching the kids how to shotgun a beer then return the empties for cash, it's still an hour of not having to pretend that you care that the wheels on the bus are still going 'round and round. I also started to attend our local "Strong Start" which starts at the ungodly hour of 8:30am. Anyways, by the time the kids and I are showered, fed and out of the house it's closer to 10am. I just don't think we're strong start material...maybe weak crawl instead? The whole point of it is to socialize your children. The fact that Lily spends most of it eating rocks or trying to plow down the other kids with toy strollers must mean we need it...
Anyways I have a few half written blogs on scrapes of paper so let's see if I can get the blog going again....

What you know Joe?

and then there were 3.....

So I haven't posted in a long while...why?  because I finally had my baby! Yes! We welcomed a baby boy on April 28th and pretty much any downtime has gone to trying to grasp a few winks in-between tandem screaming, puking and jousting for attention by both kids.  So how has life been being knee deep in babies?  and diapers?  It's been pretty busy, hectic, stressful and tiring.  At this point I'd stomp through a field of kittens to get a solid 3 hours of sleep, I'm so sleep deprived that the other day I left the house without my top-just my nursing bra.  Luckily this is Maple Ridge and no one noticed.  However, having two kids under 2 I figure is a lot like prison:  You have to survive the first month or two and if you make it then you're gold.  I'm going to make this quick because I have very little time before one of my two demanding bosses wake up from their nap and demand a little more of my soul...I kid I kid, I love Joe and having two kids around, it's just an adjustment while we figure out each other.

Lily and Joseph:
Lily liked Joseph when he was at the hospital, however once she realized that we were bring him home the story changed.  Let's just say we gained a baby boy and a little green monster.  Seriously my reflexes have gotten so much sharper and quicker in the last 3 weeks.  I've been deflecting plastic projectiles that have been launched at his head-why why why are all toddler's toys made with heavy plastic?  What toddler has a placid temper??  Just this morning Lily tried to kiss Joe with her plastic "little people" bus.  I prevented it but since I was breastfeeding I almost lost a nipple in the process.  Her newest thing is she makes motions that she wants to be picked up when you're holding Joe but when you put Joe down to pick her up she refuses.  She actually doesn't want up, she just wants you to put Joe down...at least she's creative about her methods.  The last week she has been making progress into big sisterhood and out of thughood.  However as much as she tries to help she's a little rough.  She'll walk up to Joe's bassinet (which rocks) and tries to rock it but in the process almost launches him out and into the wall (really we need a seat belt in that thing).

Below the diaper:
Having a boy is a very different experience.  When I had Lily I knew the equipment so it was never a problem.  Let's just say guy parts?  I'm in the dark on this one.  All I can say is after 3 weeks of dealing with them,  I'll have to give guys some credit, they're tricky for sure, honestly I'm not sure how men do it.  I've yet to figure out how to put a diaper on without it leaking.  Seriously over the course of the night I'll change 2 sleepers covered in pee and multiple cribsheets.  Did you know that you have to position the umm..guy hose the proper way otherwise the pee will shoot up the diaper or out the side?  Yeah, neither did I, let's say I've been doing at least a load of laundry a day with all the objects he's peed on.  And between you and me, cleaning dried poo off a nutsack is a bit...traumatic.  Dave had to do the first few changes since I was scared to touch it, in other news apparently I'm a prude.  I'm also a bit nervous how to deal with guy issues later in life.  Like puberty!  I guess that will be Daddy's domain.  Dave says just get a lock for his door and knock before entering.  Okay now I'm really scared!!  I'll take Lily screaming "I hate you!!" over self discovery any day thankyouverymuch.

Breastfeeding:
Yes I've been trying to breastfeed.  Well actually, I've been trying to find a reason not to breastfeed but despite my best efforts Joe is actually doing well at the breast.  I know breast is best, however breastfeeding feels like I'm jabbing my boobs with two hot irons.  I don't get why making one of the most sensitive body parts a food vehicle seemed like a good choice when we were created, seriously, why can't we breastfeed through our elbows? The on-demand is a bit hard to, because if Joe could have his way he'd eat every moment of the day.  He's earned his nickname the human tapeworm, I'm seriously blown away by how much this kid eats.  I'll nurse him for over an hour and he'll still want to feed.  People have complained how I haven't taken many photos of Joseph, but it's not my fault! He's either breastfeeding or crying to be breastfeed.  So all my photos would be of Joe, my boobs and of course my feet because that's where my boobs currently reside.  Either they're lonely and want company or they're trying to migrate somewhere safer.  At first I thought I was feeding "on-demand" properly but then the public nurse informed me that on demand doesn't mean I feed him for 20mins then demand him to wait an hour because I don't feel like feeding him longer.  FYI the public health nurses answers for any breastfeeding question is "nurse more often".  It is funny watching Lily walk around pinching her nipples though..the other day I saw her lift up her shirt and try to feed one of her "little people" toys.  Sponges at this age I say!  Anyways I'm sticky and covered with milk all the time so now we'll see if my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard...

The apartment
We've been on lock down.  With two kids it's almost impossible to get out of the house in a timely matter.  I'm getting a bit of cabin fever in my veal pen along with a side order of Stockholm syndrome.  Not to mention that we can't have the doors open since Lily can't be on the patio and I don't open the windows since I don't want to be on channel 5 news when she falls out of our apartment so it becomes a little sweat box in here.  I seriously wonder if our downstairs neighbor has a grow-op.  We turned all the heat off in March (even the pilot light on the fireplace) when the weather was still cold and our apartment was still a balmy 25 degrees.  Now with the hot weather, lets just say it's gotten a lot more balmy.  Keep in mind we also have a diaper genie that is pushed to capacity and is stored beside a window so with the heat and sun beating down on it, it's also getting a little bit smelly in here.  My goal everyday is to get out for at least a walk, which sounds easy but when one is fed the other one is hungry and when one is up the other is napping. The overall summary? cramming 4 people and a cat into 900 square feet is like playing human tetris.

Dave:
Dave's been pretty good with the kids and dealing with hormone central.  He did do his weird computer thing when Joseph was born-he gets obsessed with fixing the computers and focuses only on that.  The good news is that all our computers are fixed and up to date, the bad news is the man almost got a macbook to the head in the process.  Luckily worked picked up so he's been working lots, which in a way is tough because I'm stuck in kiddie hell with no backup all week, luckily my parent's are good sports.  Dave got a work truck, and its the exact same as our BAT, so now instead of one BAT we have two BATs.  Why are trades work vehicles always trucks? Why not a work Fiat or work Yaris, you know, something I can drive! Oh well.  Dave is excited about having a boy, he's no longer outnumbered here.


Post Baby body
I can't complain, I'm back to my pre-pregger body weight.  Only difference is everything is an inch lower. I do have a post baby belly composed mostly of skin and a bit of McDonalds overindulgence and since I'm petite its more noticeable. I went to Waves Coffee the other day and the barista who couldn't see Joseph (he was hidden behind the stroller) asked me if I had my baby yet.  When I showed her him she touched my stomach and went "but you still have a tummy!".  Well excuse me for having the nerve to walk out of the house a few days after giving birth without donning a pair of spanx.  I've been going to Starbucks where the baristas don't know me instead now...I don't want a barista giving me a side eye when I order whipped cream on my mocha!

So anyways I hop to be blogging again real soon, or at least keep my picture blog a bit more current.  You can see more pictures of Joe here

Home Alone

After being gone for nearly a week, Dave is still on the island working. He finally comes home tomorrow afternoon which is great, well for me not for him-for the next few days he's going to be my bitch. I'm almost 39weeks pregnant and between not having a car and running after Lily I need a break before baby decides to make its appearance. Actually I think it's more my parents' who need the break-they have been running after both Lily and I for the past week and we're both pretty demanding...and messy. To be honest I'm surprised the baby didn't come while he was away. I was expecting as soon as that ferry pulled away from the terminal my water would break but surprisingly everything has worked out. Is everything finally coming up Kali?
So how has my week been? Besides the creepy noises that seem to appear at night and all the shadows that look like axe murders but are really just chairs I've actually enjoyed myself. I've never lived by myself before I got married so its been a bit of a novelty. I've been able to slack off more than usual. I don't have to spend the day trying to look busy because I know that no one is going to come home and ask the most irritating question known to housewives everywhere: "so what did you do today?". Also I haven't had to make a lunch or dinner (been eating at my parents). Sure I'm going to be out of practice when it comes to crafting my special peanut butter and jam sandwiches and nuking leftovers, but not having to worry about dinner? bliss! Also as soon as Dave packed his bags, my house already started to look cleaner (read: he took his pile of clean jeans which he stores on the dresser instead of putting in the drawer with him) AND I don't have to clean the house after he comes home and leaves a trail of Dave piles. Plus don't get me started at peeing with the door open and walking around in my underwear....maybe men are onto something? In the words of Homer Simpson "Don't you hate pants?"
Now you're probably wondering what exactly I got up to. I mean really I could be going out and living the exciting life, however when you feel like the Michelin Man's obese sister you don't really want to slap on a pair of hot pants and party it up, plus that and toddler...so I've been housebound. I spent a lot of time with my secret lover-my new PVR. Yes, I love it so much it has replaced McDonalds as my side piece. I filled my PVR full of girly shows that Dave would scoff at. I've been rotting my mind with a steady diet of wedding reality shows, housewives from different cities and of course Star Trek TNG so I could drool over Will Riker in peace and without ridicule (that beard!). I've also been enjoying my mom's food and candy and free childcare. Here is a brief recap:

• DAY 1: Cleaned my house top to bottom including vacuuming. I then promptly left my house and went to my parents. Better to dirty up their house then mine. If I play my cards right I won't have to clean for at least another week or two. Shhh don't tell Dave, as far as he's concerned I cleaned every day all week!
• DAY 2: Crap! Dave usually takes care of the cat...no wonder why he tried to gnaw on my arm last night. Promptly watered and fed the cat. Cat still plotting my death. Hold me.
• DAY 3: I blew $50 on a dollhouse for Lily. Thought it would soften the blow that we're seriously going to mess up her world in 2weeks. "you're no longer the center of existence but ooh lookie here!". I'm sure Dave Loves how he works his butt off all week and I spend it in an afternoon.
• DAY 4: Took Lily to kinder cafe. That place is scary, like "Lord of the Flies" scary. I also collected more stuff to purge and take to the Salvation Army. Seriously, it's easier to get rid of Dave's stuff when he's not here.
• DAY 5: Took Lily to the park because all she wants to do at home is crawl all over me or hit me with the remote while I try to nap on the couch (or comb her hair with the toilet brush). My dad bought her a playhouse which BTW is nicer than the dump we currently live in (see photos here). I have a feeling after this week Lily and I will be kicked out of my parent's house and banished to the new "guest house" (at least they can hose off that plastic floor at the end of our visit).

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't miss Dave. However during his normal 8 day work week it's not like I see him that often. It will be nice to have him back even for that one or two hours a day to open jars and move heavy furniture.

On first impression it looks like she's being bad by shredding Dave's magazines but she's actually doing me a favor-now I have no choice but to toss them.

Real Housewife of Maple Ridge

   Did anyone else watch "Real Housewives of Vancouver"?   It was bad.  Really bad.  Not in a sinfully delicious chocolate brownie kind of bad but in a boring 100 calorie Vitamuffin kinda bad.  I ended up switching it halfway so I could watch "Duck Dynasty"-which BTW is golden.  I'll take red necks making duck calls over spoiled women making duck faces any day.  My biggest laugh about the show is the pure excess of these women's lifestyles.  I mean this takes place in the city that just hosted "Occupy Vancouver" movement. Somewhere a hippy's head just blew up.  So I guess the producers do have my respect for that.
  Why would I waste my time with such a show?  Well I sorta hoped I'd recognize someone.  I mean I don't live in Vancouver but I live in the Vancouver area.  Surely someone I know would be shining one of these ladies' shoes or dodging their Ferrari as they plow through a crosswalk.  Turns out disappointingly I didn't recognize anyone, however if I ever decide to take the bus out west I know what restaurant windows to walk back and forth in front of.
  My first impression of the show was that rich people all look the same.  Seriously I really had trouble telling all the ladies apart from each other.  The other thought that popped in my mind was that Vancouver lacks talented plastic surgeons.  Seriously I couldn't stop looking at the bad cheek fillers and botox jobs on all of them.  I think I'd rather take my chances with one of those bargain Mexico resort and plastic surgery packages before I go locally.  They all looked like they got punched in the face-not a good look.  There was a 30 year old who seriously looked like a 50 year old trying to pass off as a 30 year old.  Don't get me started on Jody's busted up hair weave...it made Britney Spears' weave look well groomed and maintained!  Whenever she showed up on the screen I would yell "brush your damn hair! a hairbrush costs $5.00!".  Vancouver, Vancouver, what the hell happened?  I thought you were Hollywood North?  I'm from red neck Maple Ridge and I'm laughing at you.  Seriously  I left the house in jeggings with a hole in the butt, my favorite stained shirt and runners and honestly I felt more put together.
  My daily life is nothing compared to what I saw on T.V.  The biggest cat-fight I've had lately was with my actual cat Shadow.  Seriously, if that cat steals my pillow after defiling his litter box one more time he's going to spend the night on the patio.  I have a stretch vehicle with a driver but I share it with 40 other people and it's called the 701 and is technically owned by Translink.  My luggage is not Louis Vuitton but the plastic bags you get from Save-On-Foods.  I went to my bank to deposit some money rolls but it was literally rolls of pennies-$45 worth-a major step in our saving plan for Lily's university fund.  My clothes are picked out by Joe but he's not my personal shopper but rather the clothing line from Superstore.  For a treat Dave and I went to an actual restaurant that didn't feature a play place and a hamburger selling clown but Pizza hut (which has pictures of their food on their menu which according to Gordon Ramsey is a sure sign of a bad restaurant).  You know what?  I'm perfectly okay with that. 
   You see, I'm a real housewife from Maple Ridge.  We don't have that pressure to look good and act high class.  If I want to go out in public in my rugby jogging pants (that look like it says ruby when I walk) and a pair of crocs that's totally okay.  If I run into someone I know dressed up like that I don't have to worry about hearing it in the high society pages.  I love that I can serve pizza for dinner and claim it counts as a vegetable because of the tomato sauce and have nobody question or raise an eyebrow.  Since I don't wear designer clothes I don't have to worry about maintaining a size zero.  Most importantly I love how I can sit at home in my PJs and not worry about hitting the new club and if I miss going out I will be replaced by someone who is younger and hungrier (literally because all they eat is lettuce) taking my place in my social circle.  My friends don't care that I fit better in a trailer park then Park avenue and it's very refreshing.  Sure it's not as glamorous and I'm pretty sure there won't be a camera crew banging on my door to tape it-well unless it's the channel six news wanting me to comment about the meth lab explosion across the street.
     Now if you excuse me I have to pretend to push a broom around the house and shuffle the dirt around.  

For your photo/Lily Fix

I have a photo blog  for anyone who needs a daily photo of the MC family.  Just in case my facebook people miss their daily Lily fix.

Plus I can follow my sister's blog about her cats.

Check me out here:
The Daily MC Family

Much to-do about clutter

  As usual I'm engaged in the never ending task of de-cluttering our apartment.  It's basically a ritual now in our house.  When I buy a box of diapers (which happens often because Lily is a pooping machine), I empty the cardboard box and put it on our kitchen table.  This signals right away to Dave, the cat and Lily that stuff will go missing-it's time for a Salvation Army/Dump run. Sometimes they fight it and I will make my own choices on what stays or goes but if they humor me and sacrifice a few items on the altar of cleanliness I generally will leave their stuff alone.
      It is all about the input/output.  A house is like an  person: you can eat all you want but if you don't *ehem* evacuate your bowels once in a while you're going to get pretty backed up and things are going to get messy.  So I guess I'm giving our house a cleanse because there is a clog in the pipe.  Okay, I'm going to stop it right here before this blog entry goes any more downhill and turns into a bunch of poop jokes (to the delight of my husband).  Like a person, a house has problem areas-certain areas that seem to attract junk and remain messy no matter how many dust bunnies you attempt to slay.  They are just attractors of bulk.  Clutter is like fat cells and I'm like "Trimspa baby!".  Yes it's hard work now but our dwelling will be thanking me at swimsuit season when its not bulging at the seams.
I've identified my house's problem areas that tend to attract the extra "junk".  Sort of like its hips and thighs area:

1. Dave:  Between him and Lily, he is the main source of our clutter issue.  Lily didn't make this list-yes she has a lot of toys and trashes the house daily but at least she doesn't bring anything new into the house and when it's time to get rid of some of her toys she doesn't complain (read: realize).  Dave on the other hand will bring junk into the house and sometimes remove things from the Salvation army box.  While I'm trying to trim down the house, Dave is force feeding it doughnuts!  Dave thinks every piece of garbage is sentimental or worth something and hence won't give it up.  He'll be that 70 year old who has a can collection insisting they are antiques and worth money (yes I've been watching Canadian Pickers on TV).  I've made a little bit of progress with him lately:  I got him to put two baseball hats in our Salvation Army pile without having to nag him within an inch of his life.  This is the most he's gotten rid of in a while!  So what does a girl do?  Obviously I can't throw him out or kick him to the curb-I'd need a bigger box at the very least if I were to attempt to take him to the Salvation Army.  On the plus side he keeps my need to throw out everything in check.  Without him and left to my own devices we'd be sitting on the floor or eating over the sink because I've decided that furniture is a waste of space and dishes take up precious cabinet space.
2. Mount. Recycling:  All our recycling gets put into the laundry room and is quickly forgotten-well until I need to do laundry or get something out of our deep freeze.  Half the problem is that you have to take it down to the parkcade and I don't pass that area often since I don't have a car and don't break into cars looking for loose change (a favorite pastime for residents in this building).  Don't look at Dave to take it down, he hasn't (not without me force feeding it to him first) since we've been married.  Usually I let the recycling pile up until I can barely open the laundry room door.  Quite often I will have to carry 6 or more bags down at once and it often involves having to use the stroller as a garbage barge.  I also have become slightly immune to neighbors' snide comments or dirty looks.  No I am not moving, doing spring cleaning or featured on hoarders! It was funny the first 5 times you asked me that....and BTW I'm not over my bag limit, I have 6 bags of junk yes, but it's six weeks worth thankyouverymuch!
3. Tupperware Drawer:  No matter how many times I organize or throw out random pieces, this cupboard never seems to remain clean.  I'm always finding random lids or pieces that don't fit together.  I'll empty out the cupboard and the next day I'll find that all the Tupperware has multiplied! I have no idea what's going on when I close THAT door.  It doesn't help that children are naturally attracted to Tupperware.  Usually I'll hear crashing and Lily will be destroying the nice piles I have grouped everything in and our kitchen floor will be littered with Tupperware.
4. Shredding Pile:  Until two days ago we had a huge garbage bag of bills and documents that needed to be shredded.  In the last 2.5 years, we've only tackled the pile three times.  Usually we won't bother until the bag starts overflowing.  Even then we shred enough to get rid of the overfill and then promptly deny its existence.  6months ago I took an honest stab at trying to shred our pile and after the second garbage bag of paper our shredder promptly committed suicide.  It tried to take me down with it by trying to set me on fire by overheating.  I felt bad for the poor little thing, it was only a mini.  I started dividing the pile into smaller bags and shredding it at my parent's house.  I ended up shredding 7 bags worth of paper but I finally did it! Our pile is gone.  Let me say Dave and I will be having a discussion about what counts as shredable-the guy is way to paranoid about identify theft, half the stuff I shredded can be found on my Facebook page.  Also I was shredding phone bills from 2001.  I have promised never to let things get that bad but I have just started a new shredding bag...oh dear....
5. Friends list on Facebook:  Everything is going cyber.  Even clutter.  Clutter has a cyber footprint.  I mean my hotmail inbox is jamed full with emails and I have to clean that up daily otherwise I have 600 notifications and trust me I'm not that popular.  The other day I started going through my friends list on Facebook.  I had 250 friends which is weird because I spent Saturday night watching the original Batman in my PJs and went to bed at 9-you'd think with 250 friends I'd out and socializing.  Anyways when I actually looked at my list I had people I haven't talked to in over a year, people I met just once or people who never commented or contributed any juicy gossip to my newsfeed.  I finally got rid of "Mrs. It's mmmooonnndddaay"..trust me I have Rebecca Black if I need help remembering the days of the week.  I'm always worried about the backlash thought.  99% of people won't notice but there is always one person who acts like defriending is a form of is a huge insult.  It's like you peed in their coffee, but then again if you remove someone from Facebook they no longer exist in real life....
6. Dave's Desk:  Here there be dragons.  Seriously, I can't even go there.  I think the only way to clean that mess up is to dump lighter fluid and take a match to it.  Even then I'd have to vacuum the mess it left behind.  Come to think about it, I do have lighter fluid, it's in the bathroom under the sink cabinet right next to the 2 10 gallon jugs of u-brew wine (mental note: baby proof that cabinet..)
7. Hall Closet:  What's even worse is the closet door doesn't close so all our shame is out in the open for everyone to see. Both Dave and I wear the same DC shoes everyday (well different pairs each) but for some reason our closet is full of shoes.  They're not even *nice* shoes.  I mean they were at some point but a lot of them are worn out or half broken.  It's more of a shoe graveyard.

So there you have it.  I'm almost done cleaning out those problem areas but still have a lot of work to do.  Plus now I got to get Dave and the BAT to haul our junk away...before December...

Oh Marge, you get it don't you?

Tome Raider

     So I haven't posted on my blog for almost a week.  You can blame that on two things: Cable and Lily.  First of all I keep running into marathons of brain junk food.  Stark Trek TNG, Four Weddings, Storage Wars, Parking War-I'm beating my brain into a nice gooey submission so I can drown out any individual thought (sometimes a plus when your life revolves around toddler's bowel movements and dishwasher cycles).  Right now as we speak I am watching a Police Academy movie marathon.  I'm ODing on cable because it's such a novelty at the moment.  It reminds me of that time I discovered the Fillet-o-Fish at McDonalds and loved it so much I ate 6 of them and then proceeded to puke all over the restaurant floor...true story. I'm not at the point of puking up cheesy reality TV shows but I'm getting close, well until Duck Hunters premiers-seriously how can you not resist millionaire red necks?  BTW is anyone else disturbed that A&E which stands for Arts and Entertainment and TLC-The Learning Channel only play reality shows now?  I guess I'm entertained but I certainly haven't learned anything.  The second reason for my lack of cyber participation? Lily.  She's teething again which means she's no longer sleeping through the night, which means I'm not sleeping.  Seriously have you ever wanted to know what my apartment looks like at 1AM?  Spoiler:  It looks the exact same as 2AM, 4AM, 6AM and 8AM...
     I'm a house wife, that's my job right now, and like every other job you got to sneak in a nap once in a while, especially when the nights are a write off.  Instead of most people sleeping on the job, it isn't because I was partying and possibly hungover, the reason is a screaming toddler who can't handle two teeth.  So how do you sneak in a nap when your boss is a little tyrant who will hit you with a remote control or eat cat litter or destroy your stuff as soon as you close your eyes?  Seriously, Lily will trash the house (even thought our living room has been taken over by her toys) and right now I'm at the point where I'm sacrificing my stuff to get a few minutes of sleep.  So what is the latest causality this time around?  My books.  Yes I own books.  Before my breeder days I was somewhat educated.  Yes I was a university student who knew everything-but back in our day the only occupy movement we had was occupy the pub.  My books are my last evidence of my degree.  I have since forgotten every single thing I learned.  I majored in Archaeology but at the moment I don't think I can even spell Archeology without the help of spell check.  Seriously if it wasn't for spell check I wouldn't know that learnt isn't grammatically correct.  When I first moved in my books were a source of pride and resistance.  Our place was already set up and filled with Dave's stuff (read: crap) and there was nothing that spoke of my personality in sight.  I decided I wanted the bookcase with my books as a way to make my mark without, you know, peeing all over the place.   
  Lily has a fascination for books.  Please note that I said fascination not respect-she mostly likes turning the pages and teething on them.  In Lily's world books are good for eating and throwing at the cat.  She also has a fascination with the book shelf and will often pull my books down and inspect them ignoring all her baby friendly cardboard page books of her own.  I don't blame her, have you read those Baby Einstein books?  They're not so much as story books as adjectives describing nouns.  I doubt they really make your kids smarter, they just make them more annoying because it takes them 10mins to describe the color orange.  Besides, why do we want our kids to be like Einstein? He was a bit of a weirdo who just happened to work at a patent office.  If we want our kids to be successful this day and age we just need to make sure they can sing to autotune and we can afford them a nose and boob job.  I'm holding up for a "Baby Kardashin" book series..but that's a rant for another day....
  Anyways I was so desperate for 5minutes of sleep, I just wanted to lay down and close my eyes.  Lily, who soon become tired of pelting me with "Little People" figurines decided to inspect the bookcase.  Grateful for some peace, I let Lily gleefully rip the pages out of my academic books.  Just like her viking forefathers who burned down the Roman Libraries setting civilization back 300years, Lily was destroying my own personal library of knowledge.  She pulled book after book out in a state of carnage that would make any book burning/destroying movement proud.  As I slept Archaeology Methods because Anarchy Methods,  Jane Eyre became Jane Error,  Primates in Nature became Primarily in Slobber and Human Pathology became.....well scrap paper.  When I finally decided to scope out the damage, our bedroom was scattered with books, they never had a chance against hurricane Lily.
  I ended up taking half of my books to the Salvation Army or recycling because at this point in my life I can't really see myself needed Archaeology Methods, of course it maybe good at examining the fossilized food I dig up under Lily's highchair.  Plus Lily has given them such a beating that even if I wanted to read them, I would have to madd libb them since so many pages are missing.  So not only are my books at the mercy of a toddler with no respect for the written word but some hobo is probably using my Charlotte Bronte collection as toilet paper.
  I need to find another way of dealing with my Tome Raider before all my archaeology books become lost arks... Some people say put them a shelf higher but I think child services would frown if my kid was flattened like a pancake by a text book.

Lily's Temple of Doom: We just shove everything she pulls out back onto the shelves, it's becoming quite a hazard...

Our own little paper shredder.

Parenting is a battlefield

  I have to admit that last night was one of those brutal nights, and no not because of the time change, I'm pretty sure that will be tonight's fun adventure.  Lily kept waking up every other hour for no apparent reason, so I'm going to assume it was just to annoy me because really at this age they are still like Tamagotchis and I did the feed, change, hug routine.  At 5am Dave went to deal with her, as I had already been up multiple times and decided that the best plan at the moment was to play dead.  After 10 minutes I realized that it was quiet and Dave hadn't returned.  I got up to check on him to make sure Lily hadn't, you know, killed him and was discreetly disposing of the body.  I now know why I'm not the family favorite.  Dave was sitting there cuddling Lily in his lap looking half dead while Lily laid there looking smug and victorious.  He told me "She doesn't want to be alone".  Now usually I'm not totally immune to cuteness, but I'm fighting off a cold and Dave has to be somewhere at 8am and by looking at her there is nothing the matter.  I walk into the room like a raging battle axe shoved her a bottle and some gripe water and then tucked her in and turned off the baby monitor.  It dawns on me that I would make a wonderful war-time president.
  You see, parenting is a war with many battles, it truly is the 100 years war (I'm pretty sure if you live to see your child to be 100 you'd still be fighting them over something-probably the last pudding cup).  With this in mind I choose to run my household with an iron fist dictatorship and when the masses rebel it's time for action.  Dave is busy peacefully protesting the war like a hippie sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya and waving a "give peace a chance" sign.  Poor guy is going to get crushed, especially in an all female  household when hormone season hits.  I mean do you want to risk the chance of getting schooled by your kids or even worse turning them into HIPPIES?  Yeah you can give toddlers choices and try to use their creative spirits to nurture them but you might as well tie dye them a shirt, hand them a beanie and give them a recipe for hemp seed cookies.  I know for a fact that it is possible for some parents to be lovely-dovey and still raise kids who are not thugs or tree-huggers but given the genetic makeup of our children, I'm not going to risk it.  My sister is a vegan hipster who just started a blog about her cats, oh mom, mom mom mom-I'm glad you waited 2 years before having me, you were able to perfect your parenting game (BTW check it out http://milo-panda.tumblr.com).

Your kid deserves better than to be a hippy

  See kids are like pets, they need to know their place in the pack.  Parents need to remain the alpha dogs.  I've seen what Dave has done to the cat.  The cat tries to dominate us now because Dave has shown weakness and love.  I've tried reading parenting books and they are perfectly acceptable-that is if you don't mind a two year old making all of your major life decisions.  I'm sure once they are done telling you that they want juice in a red cup they can help you re-mortgage your house and hey if that doesn't work I'm sure there's a hippy commune you can go live at.  I agree-the first 5 years are critical in a kid's life.  They are going to test every single boundary you attempt to put up.  Don't get me wrong I believe in free choice-my rules or you can choose to move out.
They say that kids need freedom and room in order to turn into functioning adults.  However I know given the choice Lily would just as easily eat cat food or stick her tongue in an electric socket over healthy food or playing with her baby Einstein toys.  The same goes for society, yes it sucks that "the man" gives us laws but could you imagine if we left people to their own devices?  We'd have a shortage of cat food and a lot of burnt tongues.  So go ahead, call me a dictator, a war lord but when my daughter is at the Harvard graduation ceremony-supporting her soon to be rich Harvard graduate lawyer husband and your kid is shelling seashells by the seashore we'll just see who gets the last laugh.

My special little POW

Cable Fable

   So the magical day has finally arrived-we now have cable.  We also got internet re-installed but that is as much of a luxury as indoor plumbing-nobody boasts about having it, even fewer admit they don't have it and nobody confesses that they go down to the McDonalds across the street to use it for free.  Before we had cable, in a period I'd like to call the stoneage, we were using an "over the air antenna".  It's basically the rabbit ears of the 21st century.  They worked decent enough, provided you didn't want to watch cable while it was raining, windy, slightly overcast or wanted to run the dishwasher.  Also most of the 5 channels we got were chopped and messed so half the time you were playing charades trying to guess what was going on.  The only channel we got reliably was KVOS (METV) which is fine and dandy providing you're 80 and like Andy Griffith and the best the 50s,60s and 70s could offer.  There were days were I'd wish for a good cave art painting instead.   
      Right now we are transitioning.  Trying to ease into being "cable people"-it's almost like jumping a tax bracket.  We are also trying to figure out where and how to arrange all the extra equipment that having cable comes with.  We are trying to arrange the PVR box so it is out of reach of little hands and that the newly assembled wire nest is unavailable to craft a make-shift toddler noose.  On a side note: What's with toddlers and trying to hang themselves?  Lily's newest thing is playing with the window blind cord.  Can't she see the strangulation warning?  I'm not sure what comes next after cable.  I think we have reached the red neck pinnacle.  It's sort of like when city people buy an electric car.  The installer asked us if we had more than one TV to hook up, I told him no. If we want to watch TV from our bedroom we tilt the hallway closet door (which is a full length mirror) so it reflects to the bed.  We may be moving up in the world but we're not living 2 TV large just yet. 
  The Telus installer gave us a crash course on how to work everything and handed us a remote but I'm pretty sure they gave us the wrong one-our remote looks more like something that would launch the US missile defense system.  Seriously, when I hit power I don't know if I'm turning on the TV or waging war on England.  I don't really have to worry about the remote just yet, Dave has it in a death like grip and he shows no signs of relenting that power.  We have a PVR which I think is a VCR without needing the tape.  However, to record series, shows or movies you have to memorize a Morse code-like pattern for each one.  I told Dave to make sure that before he leaves for work he leaves the TV on KVOS because there is no way I will be able to figure this out.
    I'm very interested in what cable in the 2010's is like.  We are so use to the TV of the 1950-70's.  My week night line up is usually the Mary Tyler Moore show, Dick Van Dyke show, Bob Newhart and That Girl.  I have a vague memory of TV of the 90s but that is as far as my pop culture knowledge goes.  I wonder if Marlon Brando is still big these days...  We opted out of the high definition package because having color TV shows AND high definition might be a little too over stimulating.  I've also learned that cable packages are like our BAS-they sell you the frame and then charge you for all the add-ons and high definition is double the price.  I'm not really sure what package we got (read: Dave did the ordering), however if it's 300 channels of sports I wouldn't be surprised and if that is true don't be surprised if you see Dave in the paper-obituaries that is.  I know that we swapped all our kids stations with other ones such as HGTV, TLC and DIY.  Sure Lily won't know how to count and spell but she'll be able to drywall and spackle like no other.  Besides, who needs the cookie monster when she could be learning from cake bosses.  Pawn Stars?  way more life skills than learning shapes and colors.  19 Kids and Counting? Teaches her that getting one baby brother (or sister) is not the worse that could happen.  We are still trying to figure out what cableland has to offer us showwise:  I couldn't find the the housewife version of DIY which is DIN (do it while nagging) so at least I can watch DIY and know what to nag Dave about. Actually being a housewife is a lot of DIY, especially when it comes to laundry, dishes and cooking.
     So far we have learned two things about cable.  First is that sometimes even with 100 channels there is just as much on as with 5 channels.  The second is cable is a great way to eliminate communication between spouses (except for the phrase "really? we're going to watch THIS?").  The only thing we have watched so far is hockey and UFC and Dave has mastered the act of drinking beer, eating pizza and ignoring me so not only have I become a cable widow but apparently the place has become a sports bar as well.  I'm just glad I have 4-6weeks before the X-box arrives (free gift for signing up) because I know as soon as he gets Call of Duty, the last words I'll hear from him is "I'm only going to play for 5minutes honey"..... 

Not reality, our cable guy wasn't like this at all

Photo a no go

     For the longest time our house lacked a personalized touch.  It was a mish-mash collection of random stuff, mostly a throw-back to Dave's bachelor days.  See I've never been good at decorating, for me most of the time decorations translate into junk or clutter.  Sure a nice vase is a good conversation piece but it's also taking up space on my coffee table.  Flowers and plants are just something for Dave to kill or the cat to eat and puke up and table clothes are just something for Lily to pull down.  I'd love to have a new picture above the fireplace however artwork is expensive unless you want a piece that is most featured on the wall of Red Robin's.  If you step into Red Robin's and you recognize a painting from your house on its walls, you know it's time to chuck it, that is usually the threshold for passe.
     The wall pictures we do have consists of:  a badly self framed Justin Bua picture above the mantel (doesn't really suit us but better than what Dave had originally which was the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a favorite among Red Robin walls), store bought photos (some hung upside down or the wrong way to fit the frame), a tiger picture (which I liked until I recognized that it looked familiar to an Ed Hardy design), Dave's school certificates and a fertility fish painting (which is promptly coming down and being stuffed in the closet away from my ovaries).  We had no photos of us hung anywhere. 
     A lot has happened since I moved into Fort McRoberts 2 years ago.  We got married, had 2 kids and have another on the way.  However no where was this reflected in our house, unless you count the toys that I always seem to be stepping on.  It's not that we don't have pictures.  We have over 1000 wedding photos, 2 professional photoshoots of Lily, Gigabytes of vacation photos and enough personally taken photos of Lily to even bore my parents.  Usually I just look through them, take the ones I like, post them on Facebook then promptly forget about them.  Photo Albums? Yes I have tons of them.  They are all empty. 
    The lack of photos has bugged me for a while now, but I'm afflicted by the lazy gene-not having photos on the wall doesn't really effect my quality of life, and I can pretend I don't actually live in this dump, I'm just doing community service for this poor family with bad taste.  However enough is enough, I decided in 2012 I would remedy this situation (I was kinda planning on the world ending before I had to actually do the grunt work, but its now March, so here I am).  For Christmas this year I wanted one thing:  a photo collage of my family.  I got one from my mom and it came with four different frames, each frame had six photo slots.  The frames could either be used alone or interlocked.  It was beautifully done-the family in it looked so happy and put together.  As lovely as it was, I decided that maybe I should have pictures of my own family in it instead of the sample shots of "random perfect family whom probably drive a smart car and not a BAT".  Sensing that putting this together would be work and me being me-unless I'm tripping over it I tend not to deal with it-the frames sat in my parent's office until February.  I kept coming up with excuses like: I was waiting for Lily's 1year photoshoot, I'm still in the planning phase and "the sample family sorta resembles us" (minus the white trash part).  Anyways my mom finally put her foot down and made me order the photos of Lily and Elijah I wanted and then physically put them in the frame for me.  We were down 2/4 frames.  New baby of course was getting the third frame and the fourth one was going to our wedding photos or as Dave wanted:  the cat (I know we "adopted" him but do I really have to pretend to be his mom?).
        So now, bring in the husband.  So far I had left Dave out of this process because I knew what I could do in an afternoon, team McRoberts could do in a month.  For some reason Dave tends to complicate things, I think it's because he wants everything perfect-as it is he has already detected my shoddy craftsmanship cropping and cutting of the frames already done.  However, I do not know how to hang a photo and anything involving me taking a hammer to our cheap apartment's wall doesn't sound like a good idea.  I'd either crack the drywall or put a large hole in the wall and if either happen I'd just keep going until our 2 bedroom place was a one bedroom.  Dave wanted to put all four up at once because then we could interlock it and only do the job once.  He spent 5 hours-one and a half of them included going to Canadian Tire for brackets to connect the frames (and probably to get away from me and our late night arts and crafts project).  Our four frames is now one big heavy one and a potential earthquake hazard.
        Now since I cannot look at our half completed job I then made Dave look through all 1000 of our wedding shots.  Culling 1000 photos to only 6 is hard enough, getting 6 that you actually agree on is near impossible.  We survived but if it took another hour we would be putting up crime scene photos instead. All I needed was his input so I could order them and get the frame done as much as possible before the end of the next week, otherwise knowing us it would never be completed.
  The wedding photos finally came today, so I decided to add them to the frame while Dave was at work.  It was probably a better idea waiting, but as I mentioned above, adding Dave sometimes complicates the matter.  Plus I didn't want to be debating with him how I cut crooked or how I should have zoomed in the photo and edited it before ordering it.  Seriously he is such a perfectionist and I really don't want to be up until 3am with a slide ruler to make sure everything's even.
  So when I got home I lifted the massive frame down, careful not to drop it.  The whole thing is held together with a few brackets so one wrong move and it would snap making us have to repeat the whole process again.   I threw our wedding photos, ignoring every good rule of scrapbooking.  Really? It's on the wall, you wouldn't notice any issues unless you put your nose right up to the frame.  One of Dave's brackets was covering the insert to get the backing off one of the frames.  Since Lily is asleep and all of Dave's tools were in her bedroom closet, the logical thing would ahve been to wait until morning.  However I was in it too deep.  I pulled and tried to get the backing out with a knife.  You can probaly guess what happened. Yup, I put an inch crack in one of the glass tiles.  I'm not going to say which one because I'm hopping that Dave won't notice and I don't really want to rat myself out if he ever reads the blog.  These frames are from costco, so I could technically back over them with the BAT and they wouldn't even blink an eye and replace it, however that would take so much time to disassemble, take back, get a new one, start over and con Dave into putting it back together again.  I may go pick up a cheap 4x6 frame and steal the glass from that.  I also decided to add baby #3's ultrasound photos since now it was a side by side comparison of the sample photo family and us, and the samples were winning both on functionality, cuteness and perfection.  Anyways I will have to get a screw driver and remove that bracket so I can add the last two photos, but I think I'll have to wait until Dave is at work again before I'll attempt it.... 
    So now my collage is done-well so close to being done.  I just have to repeat the hellish task of taking it down and putting baby #3's pictures in once it is born.  The only thing it needs is a clock or some inscription like Family,  or a clock to fill the space in the middle.  It's the gift that keeps on giving.  So I really hope I hung it back on the hanger correctly and it doesn't impale the cat during the night tonight.
  Did I mention that progress encourages more progress?  We also hung up some photos to replace the upside down store stock ones.  We put up three couple pictures of us while I was pregnant with each child.  I call it balloon art because you can compare how big my ass ballooned up with each pregnancy.

The finished product of hours of frustrated and attempted creativity

What's in a man-cave?

  Often when Dave and I are talking, our conversation will turn to real-estate.  We both would love to upgrade from our small apartment to something a little bigger....like a cardboard box, or maybe a veal pen or if we're lucky a subway bike locker.  While I would be happy with a three bedroom place, Dave has bigger ambitions:  a house,  a yard, a basement, a garage a place to turn into a man-cave.
   Ohhhh the man-cave.  For those unfamiliar with the term, I looked up a definition for you on urbandictionary.com, which has become the source for most of my information these days.  It has also become the sole way to translate half the things teenagers say.  This is what their definition is

"A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interruption. This area is usually decorated by the male that uses it without interference from any female influence."

   This term use to be non-existent, it only entered the English language a few years ago.  Then it was something men talked about in hush whispers-it was a way for men to enjoy the perks of marriage but still preserve a sliver of their bachelor lifestyle, frozen in time.  It was a dream, a bold rogue thought.  Only a select few had one and they were the envy of their peers.  Now it seems like instead of a luxury, it has become something that a man is entitled to, a man needs one to cope with daily life.  It's like cryogenic freezing, at first the rich and insane people like Walt Disney did it, now everyone can freeze their heads.  The man-cave phenomenon has become an epidemic, if there is a spare room that is not taken by a bed or a toilet or a kitchen appliance, it should automatically become the designated man-cave.  A man without his cave is truly living in poverty.  Back in my dad's day they had another version of the man-cave:  the bathroom.  Ladies? what have we allowed to happen? 
  I blame the garage or what I call the prototype-man cave.  Ask my mom.  In the whole house, the one spot she doesn't reign control over is their garage.  That is where dad puts all his tools and broken appliances (with the hope of one day fixing them). My mom only enters to dump more of my dad's crap that he has left laying around.  It just seems like the men from my generation took it to a whole new level and added PlayStations, big screen TVs and musical instruments.
     Apparently men need a space their own, away from the stresses of work, commitment and of course responsibilities of family life.  I'm thinking the real reason is they got tired of doilies, and napkins and having to wear pants all the time.  We made our house feminine, and by that I mean we cleaned it. 
     Maybe us wives allow the man-cave to exist for our own peace of mind (read:sanity).  Maybe it's a way us woman have cleverly found to deal with the man in our life.  I'm not sure about your man, but mine comes with a lot of stuff, or more correctly junk.  Stuff that doesn't belong that I would love to arrange "accidents" for.  A man-cave is a great way to cram all the stuff I don't want to trip over or look at but I know my husband would never throw away.  Currently our whole apartment feels like a man-cave.  Our fireplace ledge has a dragon snow globe on it for pete's sake (one of those tacky fantasy ones you'd find in comic book stores or in the room of a 40yr old that still lives with his parents).  No matter how many times I try to knock the ugly thing over with the vacumm, it never breaks!  If I could contain hurricane Dave to one area of the house..paradise!  In fact, I could get rid of so much man stuff from the house I'd have more room for important things, such as doilies!
  So why isn't there a such a thing as a woman-cave (the term exists but don't look it up, it means something completely different involving lady parts)?  Before you say it, the kitchen does not count. Men, I know you were thinking it. Ladies, it's time to get on to that, give me some ideas.  I'm too busy living like a 1950s house wife to come up with my own.  I say we should strike back and infiltrate our husband's man-caves, with doilies!  But then again that means we'd actually have to spend our spare time with our husbands-forget that!
        So I think I will allow Dave to have his man-cave if we ever get out of this apartment...providing it comes with a door with a lock-that locks from the outside!  Until we get a bigger place Dave will have to be content with the BAT being his man-cave.

Expectation:  This is what men think of when they hear the word "man-cave"

Reality: Dave's current "man-cave"-The computer hutch, its the one area I dare not clean, just shut the doors.  I tried to find a picture of a ugly man-cave but really they all look ugly to me.

8days On, 6 Days off

Today is our Monday. Dave just started night one of eight 10hour night shifts. For 8days we are on opposite schedules-when I'm up he's sleeping and when he's up I'm sleeping. The plus side is that after he is done his 80 hours, he then gets 6 days off. I call it missing each other for eight days, driving each other crazy for six. In some way I feel sorry for him, he works his butt off at work and when he comes home he's my bitch for the next six days. I think he was honestly relieved to go to work tonight just to avoid another domestic errand. We lose the first day and the last day due to re-syncing. Him his sleep schedule and me my nagging and complaining schedule.
Here's a few examples how Dave "relaxes" on his days off:

• Day one: Since Dave was re-syncing his sleep cycle for days he didn't go to bed after getting home. I waited until he was up for over 20 hours and then I dragged him to Baby's world to get our new stroller. I know resorting to sleep deprivation to get the expensive stroller (with all the add-ons) I want is a form of duress and taking advantage of the guy but...I won, I Won, I WON!!
• Drive to Surrey for a special rain cover for the new stroller. Baby's world had the cover on back order and it would take 4-6weeks to get here. I thought that would be okay. For some reason it didn't occur to me that we live in Vancouver and it's the rainy season.
• Made him go grocery shopping. First Save-on-Foods but then Superstore after I realized that Save-on didn't have "birthday cake flavored Oreos". They are limited addition, I don't want to go through the rest of my life with regret because I never tried them!
• Made him hang a whole bunch of pictures, take them down and then rehang them until they were perfect. I then made him go through all 1000 of our wedding photos so that we could print out 6 of them for our family college.

Did I mention his days off also required him driving me to Tim Horton's multiple times so I could play "roll up the rim to win". In case you are wondering I still haven't won, I'm now down 0/10!! But seriously, we were a Maple Ridge version of Driving Miss Daisy. Guess that's the price you pay when you buy a vehicle your wife can't drive. He's now back to work and of course the rain has started on again and is suppose to continue for the whole week. Which means getting drenched trying to get from point A to B or risk cabin fever.

For all I annoyed Dave with my constant nagging and dragging around town, he was equally demanding-and I don't mean in the *wink wink* *nudge nudge* way. If you are a married woman you know what I mean. Man at home=double the work load. I actually had to cook-not just pull some frozen leftovers out of the freezer for him to reheat. I was required to provide him with at least 2 hot meals and not the leftovers and lunches of lovely crafted PB and Jelly sandwiches (I make enough for the week and freeze). The dishwasher was ran at least once, sometimes twice a day-and those dishes don't crawl back into the cupboards themselves plus they don't even make it to the dishwasher themselves-I always find a collection on the coffee table. I actually had to do housework so that Dave is still under the impression that I do stuff while I'm at home. Oh and showering and being dressed before noon. At least I have 8days to catch up on my daytime TV now.

Husband at Home=more housework

So today, just like anybody's Monday, started off painfully. Around midnight we heard a thumping and crashing sound coming from the baby monitor. At first we dismissed it and then it happened again and we realized that we haven't seen the cat all night. We peered inside the bedroom and called him softly as to not wake the baby. We then realized he was in the closet. Dave was getting his tools earlier (the closet in Lily's room is actually the man closet-filled with Dave's tools, music stuff and sports crap) and I guess the cat snuck in while we weren't looking. We carefully opened the door only to have half its contents come crashing down on us. Lily bolted up for a second and then laid back down, something the cat should be thanking her for since if he woke her up completely he would have been a patio cat for the night. Lily started screaming like a banshee at 3am for no apparent reason, I guess it was just a test of the emergency broadcast system. Luckily because Dave was up all night re-syncing his sleep schedule he actually had to deal with her. We took Lily for her baby rabies shot (or whatever they vaccinate for these days). It required 5 separate needles. I almost felt bad until I remembered that she woke me up at 3am today and the feeling was short lived. Did I mention that the nurse thinks I'm a total a-hole because I laughed while they were jabbing her? (it's a nervous habit I swear). After she was done they informed me that I was due for two of my own shots-the laughing stopped. When I got them done however they didn't hurt, I don't understand why she was acting like such a baby. Seriously she was screeching so loud then when we walked back into the reception area everyone was staring at us.
Anyways I have 8 days to compose my next "honey-do list". Until the next 6 days McRoberts.....I'll be waiting.

Finally let the poor guy relax and watch some TV, until next week McRoberts....

B.A.S meet S.A.A.

      As I last blogged, Dave and I were in the process of buying a Big ass stroller or B.A.S.  Okay fine, we were in the process of debating what B.A.S we were getting.  OKAY FINE, I was dictating what stroller we'd better be getting if he wanted to make it to 40 with all his original teeth.  Naturally, I won.  We got the deluxe model Phil and Ted in the color I wanted (which lucky for Dave was Candy Apple Green).  Seriously, this is a lesson for all those men out there.  If you are going to marry a woman with all the bells and whistles, expect all her accessories to require bells and whistles as well.  Our new stroller is now sitting beside our BOB in what was formally the dinning room area and now is affectionately re-named the "stroller heap".  Yes, we have two B.A.S. in our Small Ass Apartment (S.A.A.).

Our dining room AKA the stroller heap. 

        I have briefly touched on our apartment in former blogs.  Our apartment is a beautiful, newer, open plan dwelling and the least white trash thing about us.  The problem is, it is small at 900square feet.  Seriously, if you want to have a tour of it you just need to walk through the door, take two steps forward and turn 360 degrees and you have pretty much seen the whole thing.  It was small two people ago, so with two grown-ups, a toddler, a baby and a cat it is now tiny.  There is as much room in our apartment as there is room in my uterus. Actually scratch that, those buggers can really stretch.  There is as much room in our apartment as there is room in my jeggings- stretched to the max.  One more object in the apartment and the whole infrastructure will collapse and spill into the hallway.  At one time it almost housed four people.  It was back when Dave and I were dating.  He had a roommate who also had a girlfriend.  It was pure hell, you couldn't move two steps without bumping into something or someone.  Privacy? Forget about it!  Now we are approaching that number once again.  With three people, we'd each get 300sq feet.  However as you can imagine it is not fairly divided that way.  Dave and Lily take up at least 500square feet each-made possible through the magic of boxes and stacking and cramming (ie the spanx of the storage world).  With New Baby on its way, we will each have to give up 75square feet.  I have a feeling that by the end of this I will have a quarter closet to my name (or a shoe box labeled "sucker").  Not to mention I'm steadily getting bigger.  The other day all of us ended up in the kitchen at the same time and it was as much as a traffic jam as New York City in rush hour.
    So not only are we a potential candidate for "People Hoarders", we also have promise for the actual show "Hoarders".  We have a ton of stuff so our house seems to always be in a constant state of messiness.  Not only that but every thing we own is ill-fit for an apartment.  We have black leather couches that are massive- they are home sized and not apartment sized.  They came with the husband and are those ones from the Brick that every bachelor under the age of 25 seems to own. Because we lost our second room to Lily, we had to buy a huge computer cabinet that serves as a makeshift office.  Not only does that take up a chunk of our living room but also gives a cave like feel whenever you are at the computer, it's like you're in a corner during time out.  Did I mention Lily's room still has a piano taking up half of it?  I pretty much have to hold my breath and do the side way shuffle to get from one end of the apartment to the other.  My toes are bruised and dislocated from the combination of not being able to see them and a surplus of furniture that sticks out at weird angles.  
       I was watching "Selling New York" and they were looking at 800square feet apartments that were over 1.83millon dollars.  I couldn't believe that something that small would have such a hefty price tag, at least our apartment was cheap(ish).  Sure you're paying for location, I mean not many people would pick Maple Ridge over New York but it made me wonder....how on earth do you fit into an apartment that size?  No wonder why all the ladies on "Sex and the City" were so tiny.  If they put on 5lbs they wouldn't be able to squeeze into their skinny jeans OR their apartments.

Living room, you have to step OVER the couch to get to the TV or take your chances stubbing your toes on the coffee table.