Minden missed me so much. While I was vacationing way out on my father in law’s farm near Montreal, he hid under the couch. My mother had to call the cat sitter who herself was nervous about his whereabouts. He was under the couch, or in the cupboard, while his sister, the uncharacteristically spry MARGE, gallivanted about the halls — soaking up the bliss of an empty, kidless house.
It’s a pretty farm. I’d say “pretty little farm,” but it’s far from little. Acres and acres of land on all sides. It’s beautiful — quite stunning, really, especially at my favourite time of day, dusk, when the sun is going down and brushing its pink, purple, orange strokes across the sky and along the hay-bale-dotted horizon. Ahhh…. Air. Country air. Enough to make you insane after a week of total isolation and no nanny.
Anyway…. C’mon, I’ll show you around….
The swimming pool…. We spent most of our time at the pool, and we have the sunburns to prove it. By the end of the trip, my dives were PERFECTION. We’re talking Chinese-Olympian PERFECTION.
The kiddie pool, aka the HOT TUB. Farmer Zaide has hot water in his hose, and we made good use of it.
You don’t need other peeps in the HOT TUB to have a HOT TUB PARTY!
FROG! TOAD!
TREE FROG! AT THE DOOR. I wanted to feed him but no one would let me. I love feeding the animals, but it’s not always recommended — especially in the country where there are more than just SQUIRRELS (Howard the Squirrel, since YOU ASKED, is thriving here in the city — I love him, too).
Tub o’ Fish. Happy, big-arse goldfish.
Inukshuk.
Tomatoes.
Romaine lettuce.
Zucchini! Did you know zucchini is a FLOWER?
Beans.
Rascal. Not farming. Just fondling the UR-UR on his new shoes….
Potatoes from the farm — so many from one single bush! Made up for the carrot fail.
ME! On the FARM. In my now officially SIGNATURE hat. Glowingish (but bitchy) from FULL-ON detox — more on that later.
Windowsill.
Josh surprised me with a day trip to beautiful OTTAWA (an hour away)….
I wasn’t prepared for the trip AT ALL. I arrived in the big city wearing crocs and no makeup — total farmer. HENCE I insisted we hide from Chantal, Annie, and Loukia deep in the downtown market, which was fascinating, by the way….
The next day, we went to our beloved Montreal (1.5 hours away), where we found a water park….
Monkey loves her some water park….
So does Rascal. Those are shorts, by the way. 10th percentile, BABY!
Oh yeah….
When we got home Sunday evening, Minden came running to the door and jumped me like Dino when Fred Flintstone walks in the door. And he hasn’t really shut up since. I missed the little fluffball….
I can’t come to the blog right now. Washing my hair. Eating corn. Swimming. Lounging in hammock. Buying forgotten diapers and sippy cups. Drinking behr. Watching Ratatouille again, Big Brother. Tweeting. Being a bitch Fighting major Starbucks Withdrawal (capital S, capital W). Reading ma book, and flirty gossip magazines — OMG, Heidi Montag posed for Playboy and, wait, why, pray tell, does that surprise me? Listening to crickets, loons, cows…, crickets. Spritzing the kids every five seconds with sunscreen. Begging Monkey to eat anything other than APPOH JUICE (cursed apple juice). Schvitzing. Swimming. Schvitzing. Swimming.
I can’t come to the blog right now because I am IN THE COUNTRY. Back soon!
Sitting in the lobby here. JUST arrived in BERMUDA. THERE ARE FREE COMPUTERS. So, while I wait for the nice people here to ready my room, I figured I’d sip a colada and say hi to all of you. Have you missed me? I have a lot of thinking to do over this trip. And a lot of not thinking.
My first thought upon arriving here in Bermuda (and getting LOVERLY tour from extra-awesome cab driver) was how much LIFE there is here. So much green and blue. So much EARTH. Amazing how much we get lost in the grey, concrete cold of our own Northern jungle…. I feel very blessed to be here….
I think I may need to live here….
I’ll bring as much of it back with me as I can in pictures.
Wish you were here to share this beautiful adventure. But, I do plan to party it up at ERRRNA’S wedding. To sip a lotta coladas….
On some of my darker days, I’ve woken up in the morning to the sad notion that “I have nothing to look forward to.” As one of the grandfathers at Monkey’s preschool says, “Parenting young ones is like Groundhog Day: the same dang thing every day.” (I added in the “dang” part). I love this guy, by the way. Love it when he picks up Monkey’s friend from school. He looks just like James Cromwell of Babe fame….
Yeah, Grandpa totally looks like him. Only without the pig — which is too bad because LOVE PIGS (as you know), so if he had one, I’d be all over it.
Where were we? IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
So, so, SO! I have something very exciting coming up. FOR ME. FOR MEEEEEE! (And extra “E”s are WARRANTEDDDDD!!!)
By the grace of the UNIVERSE and some very GIVING loved ones, I am….
I’M GOING TO BERMUDA!!!!!
And that’s not ALL….
BY MYSELF!!!!!
Yes, I’m going to Bermuda. Hold on a second. Can we get a little bling here, please?
OHH YEEEAAAAHHHH!
Gorgeouses, I’m going to Bermuda for four days (three nights) at the end of the month to see one of my BEST FRIENDS OF ALL TIME — “Erna” — and her awesome fiance Matthew get married. I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it. With the economy the way it is right now, who’s traveling? But, (and I can’t get into it here) MIRACLE stepped in. And MAMA’S GOING TO BERMUDA!
By myself….
I’m not sure how I’ll handle being without my kids, in all seriousness. I haven’t been sans kids for THREE AND A HALF YEARS. And, all of a sudden, I’m going FAR AWAY for three nights? Four mornings without Rascal’s morning snuggles? I don’t know how I’ll deal.
Oh, but I’ll deal….
In the meantime, we are officially in OPERATION: BERMUDA mode. The diet dial is on full BLAST so I can MAYBE get into a bathing suit when I go walking along the beach ALONE with iPOD.
Gorgeouses, I’m going to Bermuda. I’m going ALONE. I’m going to PARTAY. I’m going to see Erna get married….
I can’t seem to write ANYTHING. So much to say, and I just can’t get it together! So much to say — and, oh! It’s my cousin from NYC. I’m telling you: procrastination city over here…. Oh, and, look. Try typing with THIS staring at you:
Actually, I’m still getting over my FLU SHOT, which has rendered me DROWSY, IN PAIN, NAUSEOUS and DID I MENTION DROWSY? How ’bout EXHAUSTED? It was a little unfortunate because I was sick in New York, and we had to go home early from the Museum of Natural History….
Ooops! Sorry, wrong picture — that was Toys R’ Us (LOVE!)…. Here’s the museum….
Yeah, we’d been walking for a while, and then, all of a sudden, my feet felt like they were going to FALL OFF. And, I got f-f-f-reezing and achy everywhere. We had a wedding event that evening, and I totally didn’t think I’d be able to go. And, I was willing to sacrifice the WRATH of Josh-O’s family to FREEZE alone in my hotel bed. But, I ended up popping two advils (which I never do), and I MADE IT!
Speaking of wedding…. I promised I’d share my uggers dress with you! I only managed to get one pinkberry picture — which I took to send to my family back in Toronto. WARNING: it’s frightening. WARNING #2: my breasts are actually THE SAME SIZE; one is NOT impossibly bigger than the other….
I’m really not sure which boob is the actual size…. Anyway, I wish to thank DRESSMAKER FROM HELL for the lovely job on the PLEATS that made me look TRAY fat. I’ve always wanted to be the FAT BRIDESMAID. And, SHE (helped) make it happen. LOVE. Also, if I look like I was punched in the eye? It’s ‘cuz I’m pretty sure I WAS punched in the eye. My left eye was THROBBING with pain all day. Monkey slept in our hotel bed, so it’s very likely I was thwacked in the eye by either a foot, a fist or an elbow. Probably an elbow. Or, a knee. Because, if I remember correctly, Doc didn’t inject the flu shot in my eye….
Fortunately FOR ALL, the kids looked great at the wedding…. Monkey was a beautiful flower girl, and I was TRAY fahklempt walking down the aisle with her while she meticulously and with great seriousness scattered the rose petals….
Awww! I KNOW! And, look at my little ringbearer…. RAAAASCAAAAL! IN A TUXEDO (check the shoes!)!
Josh-O looked really spiffy himself…. Here we are at Rockefeller Center….
(That’s my bad angle. The photographer at the wedding, you should know, made sure I was photo’d at this angle, but with a little less nostril, of course, in all the photos. Which makes me SO happy. Because those are, like, FOREVER.)
We loved being in New York. It’s a fascinating city. We stayed at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in the heart of Times Square….
This picture was taken at FOUR in the afternoon. 4pm!!! It was SO DARK. Eerie almost. Surreal…. Sublime….
Check out that orb! Do you see that orb up there? Ghost?!?!?
Central Park, of course, was my favourite….
Also…. ALSO, the American Girl doll store. We went there to get Monkey the PERFECT gift for being such a great flower girl. EVERY girl who is ANY girl in NYC has an American Girl doll. They. Were. EVERYWHERE. Have you BEEN to this place? It’s insanity. LOOK:
No. They are not kidding.
Dolls. EVERYWHERE. Little girls. EVERYWHERE. And, it’s very serious…. There’s even a freaking cafe (“freak” being the operative word here)….
The monkey came out with this doll….
…whom she named SHIELA (don’t ask because I have NO IDEA where she got that name from…), middle name PEELA. Of course, we got monkey and the doll matching pajamas and slippers — because that’s…what you do….
We TRIED SO HARD to get Rascal a gift, but he wouldn’t take anything! Everything we gave him was THROWN out of the stroller…. See how hard we tried? See?!
Nothing. You know how hard it is to NOT be able to give your kid a gift? I bought him a little toy phone today, though, and he loves it. So, s’all good.
Hey, by the way, check it! I met my first bloggers ever! I’ve never met any bloggers that I didn’t know in real life EVER (oh, except for Toronto private-blogger Lisa B, whom I met in the parking lot at Loblaws). And, I survived. I met the lovely Steph, who quit blogging (wah!), and AmyD, who’s as gorj and fabulous as she appears on her blog. It was AWESOME meeting them. Who knows? Maybe I CAN go to one of the Toronto blogger events? Maybe I CAN go to a Blogher conference after all? Maybe I CAN meet other bloggers in real life? Maybe it’s NOT scary! (Granted, these were TWO bloggers…. not TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLION….)
Highlight of the trip?: Monkey in the airplane. We’re all waiting to get out of the airplane. It’s late. Everyone’s quiet. All of a sudden, monkey’s little voice blurts out loud and clear:
“MAMA, I MADE A STINKY THART!”
Mmm hmm. That’s ma girl. Of course, everyone on the plane was laughing. And, one day she’ll get her “f”‘s right….
*Yes, I’m aware there’s something going on with the title of this post…. I tried to upgrade my blog software by myself. BRILLERS. And, our whole night went down the tube because of it. Down the tube? Is that right? Sounds weird. Anyway. Working on that…. Bear with…. xoxo.
[WORKING TITLE:] TO BE DECIDED…; AND, STUFF I NEED TO DO BEFORE GOING TO NYC
UPDATE: fixed! finally! GOOD NIGHT! mwah!
***
It’s Tuesday afternoon. I’m trying to write something small today, which will probably end up being BIG because that’s how things are with me. I can be a little unpredictable. Even to myself. I’m just kind of never sure about things. Never totally sure about what I want. As I get to know myself better (with age), I notice this has been a flaw of mine for a long time.
I can’t make decisions.
Can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t.
Cereal or toast for breakfast? Chicken fingers for the monkeys tonight? Or, pizza? Starbucks soy tazo chai latte WITH or WITHOUT water? Apple or banana? The black lululemons or the brown lululemons? The black running shoes or the white ones? Post about THIS? Or, post about THAT?
I never have ANY IDEA. I just can’t DECIDE!
Part of my problem is that I usually DO KINDA know what I want. I just get caught up in the effects of my choices. How will this affect so-and-so, or so-and-so. And, as a parent, I’m CONSTANTLY making choices that affect others.
It would be easy if I had a book with all the answers about motherhood, life, what clothes to wear, or how to satisfy the vegan palate in a houseful of meat eaters and milk guzzlers….
It would be easy if I had a routine to follow — perhaps one from a book — so that the decisions would be made for me and no amount of “MAMA, c’I watch TV” could coerce me out of it.
But, no. I’m an intuitive girl. I RELY on my intuition every single day, every single decision, in parenting my children.
So, I’ve been forced to develop that intuitive muscle. And, I like it. I’m starting — STARTING — to trust myself.
I AM getting more assertive. Yes. I. Can.
So, today, when it’sgrandma asked me, “Hale, I know you’re going to say no, but can I please treat you to a manicure and pedicure tomorrow — you’ll get your feet massaged, sit in a massage chair, get pampered, you’ll be able to read a book, and you don’t HAVE to get nail polish.” I SAID YES. An unwavering, unhesitating YES. And, PLEASE. And, then, ARE YOU SURE?
I love it’sgrandma.
I also love my cousin Miles (and my fancay segues) who KICKED ARSE when he danced for his life last week. CHECK IT (and ignore the captions. Dude doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Miles is a technical KING of the pop. “Snake” MY ARSE!)
Awesome, right? His partner Lara went home, unfortunately. Not sure that was deserved. Her solo was excellent. PLUS, she was probably the most gracious eliminated dancer ever. Too bad she doesn’t get to go on the tour. She and Miles made awesome partners in the end….
Monkey’s sitting with me now. Sucking her thumb and pinching the skin of my throat. Ahh, the self-soothe…. She’s been doing this FOREVER. I’m going to have a premature throat wattle, fashizzle, thanks to this. Mine is the only throat she fondles — which, of course, makes me feel beyond special. Who needs breastfeeding when you can have the throat-fondle to feel close and connected to your three-year-old? SOMETIMES she does fondle Minden’s throat, though, if I’m not available (and THAT is hilarious)….
Okay, so tomorrow I have to run around the city preparing for our trip to New York. I might as well just do this quickly, here…. Need to figure this stuff out.
1. Pick up bridesmaid dress that I had to REMAKE in 10 days (don’t ask me how much the dressmaker made me pay or I might have to kill you);
4. MAYBE pick up one of their eye shadows, too…. By the way, if you’ve seen me lately, I AM AWARE that I’ve been wearing a ton of makeup (for me). I’ve been practicing with different colours and shades for the wedding…. I’m doing my own makeup and hair (eek!). You wouldn’t believe the confused looks I got at my very earthy yoga studio when I walked in at 9am with a full face of makeup…. Picture GOLD EYE SHADOW….
5. MANI-PEDI. THANK YOU, IT’SGRANDMA!
6. Vegan snacks. I need nuts and stuff to carry around. It’s one thing to be vegetarian when traveling, but a WHOLE other thing to be vegan…. No wonder I’m losing A TON OF WEIGHT lately.
7. Knee highs. I need knee highs to wear with my Spanx….
I think that’s it! Not bad. I can do all that tomorrow, right?
We leave Thursday. It’s my sister in law’s wedding, by the way. TRAY exciting. I’ll take lots of pics, of course.
And, that, my dear Gorgeouses, is what you call a DECISIVE and FOCUSED blog post. Go me. Kelly Clarkson may be Miss Independent, but I. I am MISS INDECISIVE. And, you know? I’m KINDA okay with that. Or, not.
