Thankful Thursday - Music

Well, it's that time again!  It's Thursday.  Thursday is the day to think about things that I'm thankful exist.

(I know, I'm not always as good at allitteration as I would like.  I think my favourite-ever allitterate thing is the character V's introductory speech to Evey in V For Vendetta:

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
  
 The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
  
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. 

Brilliant. And SUPER not-on-topic...)

So there are SOME things I've specifically avoided including in previous Thankful Thursdays because, they're just too OBVIOUS, you know, but then how do you sum up everything you're thankful about in that one thing in a blog post about five things? Like, how do you write one-bullet-point-worth on your family or something.  So I skip those.  For now, anyway.  O:-)


Today, I want to write about one of those things I've been holding back on. I want to write about music .  And so, without futher ado, or tangenting onto fantastical, lengthy movie quotes, I give you:

Thankful Thursday

The Music Edition

Let me just preface my list with a reminder that I AM a Kin grad, and do NOT have oodles and oodles of formal music training, so this is a VERY VERY amateur list/opinion/whatever. I love, dabble in and appreciate music, but leave the being-amazing-at-it stuff to other people.  Who, you know, know what they're doing.

1) My Stereo & The iPod dock

(from: http://www.oaktreevintage.com/Sony_Stereo_Parts_Unit.htm)

When it's quiet in my house, like, there is no noise, and I'm NOT reading a book, I get twitchy.  Or at least, I FEEL twitchy. It just feels wrong.  My days rotate between Little Miss' movies or specific, Little-Miss friendly music options from my iPod as far as background noise.  Sometimes if she's watching a movie in the livingroom and I'm cleaning in the kitchen I can keep both the tv and the tunes turned down low enough that the sounds don't overlap each other and make me overloaded-with-aural-stimulation twitchy.   

I can't NOT turn on music.  

Anything and everything. 

Though, on Little-Miss-free days the music is different, and definitely louder - she doesn't care for Josh Groban yet - horrors, I know - and I save cranking Amy Lee's insane vocals for kid-free time - I dunno if she's ready to appreciate the hardish-alternative-rock genre yet.  She (Little Miss) loves Michael Buble, anything by "Finn & Rachel" (thank goodness Glee keeps putting out albums or Don't Stop Believing may have become the death of me...just have to skip the odd song so I don't have to worry about my kid busting out into "do you want to touch me, there, where!?!" in the middle of church), the "green baby" (Wicked soundtrack. She LOVES how in the beginning there's a baby and it's GREEN -makes her laugh every time.).... anyway, we have a pretty good playlist, I'd say. 

That wasn't the point. Wasn't I going for a tangent-free Thankful Thursday post? Oy! 

If I didn't have my stereo, we wouldn't have our constant tunes.  And you know what?  IT'S BROKEN. My stereo isn't working.  One of those things you don't realize how important it is until it's gone. It's a great stereo, great sound, cd player iPod dock that CHARGES the iPod so when I take it off to go for a run or something my battery is all ready to go.... 

and it's BROKEN! 

You know what, though?  We have a backup! OH am I grateful for our backup! Because, you know, my stereo's broken, and in this house that means we'll get around to getting it looked at or replacing it in like, a year or two (we really have to figure out what makes us tick and tap into that... hahaha we'll function much better...) and I would have been dying going music-free. Or putting cds into the DVD player and listening via the tv - have you ever tried that? Ugh. Even if you have a great-sounding tv usually it's just not the SAME.  

Anyway, the backup doesn't play cds, and doesn't charge my iPod, but it PLAYS my iPod, and it sounds decent, and it's a lifesaver. 

2) My Piano

This picture is old, from our last house, like, the day after we got the piano, or something. I was pretty dang excited. It even made our Christmas letter that year. I'm a nerd, I know.

I don't get to play it as often as I would like - there's so much to do, and SOMETIMES when I sit to play Little Miss hollers "STOP PLAYING!" hahaha, and it's not the fantastic, best-piano-ever I grew up with and learned on, but it has a nice rich sound, not one of these horrid tinny pianos, it's pretty, we spent a whopping like, $200 or something on it....I think?? Don't remember, but it was a steal.  And I LOVE being able, occasionally to sit and flood the house with music.  

Thanks for my lessons.  Thanks for whatever the heck it was you did to get me through the every-kid-wants-to-quit part of music lessons and getting me to a point where now, as a 'grown up' I'm proficient enough to be able to enjoy myself.  

3) Singing

Last year's production of "Saviour of the World" - singing "Alleluia" with the women's chorus behind us. Such an amazing experience. Though I hope none of these ladies kill me for posting this...I think I look the scariest with all that ridiculous stage makeup on!

I LOVE to sing. LOVE it.  And I can carry a tune, which in some circles makes me a fantastical singer.  hahaha Which idea cracks me up, honestly.  I'm a sporty gal who learned to sing belting out tunes in the car, I guess. I don't know.  But I can sing some things. I know my boundaries - I am definitely an alto hahaha  

Anyway, I don't know even how it happened that I got labelled as a "singer."  I don't know if I'll ever see it, because it's just not me! hahaha I mean, I've always sung in choirs and whatever, but sometime after I was married and living down here someone up and decided I can sing. And that was that. Weird, right? 

Sometimes they're right.  Other times....oy.  hahaha Which obviously means I'm NOT a singer, I just get lucky. 

But I love it. It feels GOOD to sing - I heard something about singing for 15 minutes a day boosts your happy-endorphins some oodles-ish amount.... it's pure awesomness, really. 

So I don't remember who it was or what happened that lead up to it, but whoever it was who decided I'm a singer, I still think you're wrong, but THANKS for all the fun and happy-endorphins I've gained since then. 

4) Shuffle, iTunes & Playlists

(from: http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/16599/apple-ipod-classic/)

Remember when you didn't want to listen to just one cd so you listened to the commercial-ridden radio all the time to get the variation you wanted in that moment of musical need? REMEMBER that??  Ugh, or having to sit, with a blank tape in the deck, listening ever-so-carefully to the beginning of each song in case it was the one you were hoping to tape so you didn't have to go buy an entire album just for the one awesome song??  Or....maybe I'm the only one who ever did it....wanting to spend an evening listening to a certain list of songs and having a pile of cds beside your player and putting in one, listening to the song, taking it out, putting in the next, listening to that song, and on and on and on until you made it to the bottom of the pile and had your this-type-of-song fix?? 

THANK YOU, APPLE, FOR MASSIVELY SIMPLIFYING MY MUSIC LISTENING LIFE!!  I can shuffle through my iPod and it's like commercial-free radio of all my favourite music. WIN!  I can go to iTunes and purchase the one song off the album I can't get out of my head 'cause it's so brilliant. WIN! And I can MAKE a playlist  of all those songs from those cds I have that are all alike in some way and I want to listen to together in a string.  I LOVE MY IPOD. 

And thanks for my iPod, which I totally found at the bottom of my Christmas stocking one year - yeah, that was a stunner of a stocking stuffer!

5) Musicals

(from: http://amaliehoward.com/wicked-the-musical-a-new-take-on-a-classic/)

 I have loved musicals for as long as I can remember. Back in the day before dvd players in cars Mom & Dad would keep my brother and I quiet on the long trekk to Florida in the car with the soundtracks from Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. We listened to other neat tapes like Beethoven Lives Upstairs, Mr. Bach Comes to Call, Mozart's Magic Flute (the kid-dramatized version with a little girl navigating her way through the musical trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil queen... and the birds falling in love.....)....what else? Some mystery with Vivaldi's tunes set in Italy....I don't even remember. But I LOVED it. Loved loved it.  For my birthday I saw Les Mis when I was 9, and Phantom when I was 10.  I LOVED them.

Phantom became my favourite.  There was a lengthy period where I tried desperately to wear out our cassette copy of the soundtrack, as I listened to it every. single. night at bedtime to fall asleep to.  And the one time in our basement I had a sleep over and felt it necessary to, along with the soundtrack, re-enact the entire production for my two girlfriends. (shaking head - oy the horrors of remembering one's childhood - what was I THINKING??)

Anyway, as an adult I've seen both these musicals again. And while Phantom will always have that childhood-special-spot-in-my-musical-heart I have come to the obvious realization that Les Mis has WAY more heart. hahaha I was disappointed with Phantom last time we saw it. I've never been disappointed by Les Mis.  

I LOVE musicals. The good ones, anyway. I've seen some pretty lousy ones and some phenomenal ones, and some mediocre in-between-y ones.  I LOVED Fiddler on the Roof.  LOVED Billy Elliott for the absolutely mind-blowing DANCING, ohmigoodness.  Something Happened on the Way to the Forum....not so much love. 

Wicked? Oh. My. GAWSH.  I could do an entire dissertation on my love of this musical. It is unbelieveable. It was another birhtday present, though I was 28 and not 10, and I purposefully went into it knowing nothing about it except it was the Wicked Witch's back story. And that I've always been a big Wizard of Oz fan.

Elphaba is incredible.  And having now read the three Wicked books, I can say as great as they are, the musical's version of Elphaba's story is unfreakingbelieveable. I ADORE it.

I can't write enough about this. hahaha THANKS, Mom & Dad, for instilling an appreciation for musicals in us, letting us be entertained by live theatre and the soundtracks, encouraging (or maybe just allowing? hahaha) our fixations on characters.....

Thanks, folks, for putting the shows out there. Thanks for adapting great stories into amazing stage productions, and adding music so I can be that much more transferred into the world of the envelopping story.

See? I told you I couldn't sum up "music" in one bullet point - I don't even think I've done a good job in an entire, really really long blog post! But the menu-tune on "Tangled" is calling me over to press play and hunker down to enjoy Disney's latest release with two little girls who aspire to be princesses.  I'm just watching to enjoy the singing...  ;-)

Crafty Computing

I am just way way too in love with this not to tell you about it.  So get over it.  hahaha

You MAY or may not know about me, I'm a scrapbooker.  I know, I know. Sports and kin and phys-ed, it all SCREAMS crafty, but there you go. (I also make jewellery. Do not judge. Or label....I'm allowed to be a crafty tom boy - there are still giant holes in the knees of the man-pants I stole from Mr. Man's drawer this morning, and I wear them with great comfort and pride!)

Okay, but, with my fantastically disgustingly disorganized house you can imagine how much space I have to do this. AND that when I DO bust out the papers, inks, stamps, and photos the ginormous MESS that lingers until I get around to putting it all back "away"....  Yeah, really, just the finished paper-crafted product is pretty.  The rest is not.

So with so many stupendous deterrants in my life lately I NEVER scrapbook. Which is kinda' bad 'cause, oh yeah, I'm actually supposed to be selling the stuff - I'm so into it I'm a consultant for Close To My Heart, and MAYBE I'm biased, but hot dang this is an FANTABULOUS company. Just sayin'! And yes, I went to a scrapbooking convention in Washington DC last July. It was absolutely FAB.

Anyway, what? Oh yeah!  Through a series of whatever events I found myself sitting at my computer saying to myself, okay, I HAVE GOT TO GET ONLINE and try out this online-studio-scrapbooking thing we've got, because I hear it's amazing, SEE it's amazing, and though I have time to blog, tweet, stay current on Facebook and all whatever, I haven't ventured into the faster, simpler, easier, LESS MESSY way to scrapbook.

Holy crap.

I. Am. In. LOVE.

You just login, upload your pictures, pick your "paper", pick your layout, drag and drop, boom bang baby, and you've a fantastic 2-page 12x12 layout to sneak into your "classic" scrapbook. Friggin' brilliant.

I've done OODLES more (I did 6 two-page layouts yesterday. And of OLD pictures, too, that have just been sitting on the computer for YEARS waiting for me to do SOMETHING with them) and am totally addicted. Today I've been chipping away at our 400+ wedding photos which I've always WANTED to put in a pretty album but never gotten around to. Yes, it's been 7.5 years. (Do you need to go back and see my house pictures again? I'm not always uber motivated...)

You do them, you add them to your cart, you click buy.... and after buying 7 layouts yesterday I got an e-mail that they were shipped today.  SO my fantastic purolator guy is on his way to bring me COMPLETED SCRAPBOOK PAGES!

Yeah, really, I can't tell you how ridiculously giddy this makes me.  It's kinda' sad....

(You can check it out here for free - you don't have to pay for anything unless you want to buy the layout - BUT I'll warn you now, it IS my CTMH website sooooo any purchasing or whatever is absolutely supporting [one of] my little side-business[es].  Sorry for the shameless plug, I'm just, GAH, SO excited about it!  hahaha)

Thanks for letting me nerd-out for a minute.  I have wedding pictures to "scrapbook" now... (and a kitchen to clean? What?)

The Response

Well, wow! hahaha

Sometimes a blog post of mine generates some interest and I get comments - actually in the 'comments' section, on Facebook, the odd ohmigosh-I-read-your-blog phone call (that one is USUALLY my mom - Hi, Mom!), or people stop me when we're out and about (I find this the weirdest way, just 'cause, I dunno, what do you say in person to someone who reads your blog and has something to say about something you said? Aye aye, cap'n, and thanks for the insight? Don't NOT do it, I just....feel funny sometimes! hahaha)

Yesterday's post was one of these.  I dunno, I just felt all ICK about stuff at the moment and had to write it out - my favourite part about blogging, I think.

Almost as soon as I posted the link to Facebook I started getting feedback, and at least over the last couple of months that I've been back to writing yesterday's was the most visited post on my blog by dinnertime.

My mom, true to fantastic form (don't never call me again because of something I wrote on my blog, okay, Mom??) CALLED me as soon as she read the post.  With this FANTASTIC advice:

• get a ziploc bag IMMEDIATELY and put the nuts and bolts sitting on the end table inside. Then take it downstairs with a piece of tape and tape it to a wooden section of the toddler bed from which they come. 

I did that.  The end table is STILL covered in junk, but not those nuts and bolts anymore!  BOOyah!

Thanks, Mom!

One gal lamented she doesn't live closer to help me get on top of things - my darling girl, when I go to your ridiculously beautiful home I HATE it because I can't DO that!  hahaha I would absolutely take you up on the offer if you could in fact offer it!

Another, who I can't envision in a million years having a problem similar to mine, cracked me up with her comment: "You're brave posting all those pictures. You should totally use those to enter one of these HGTV shows where they come and give you a free home reno. Who wouldn't love a free home reno?"  hahaha I LOVE that.  I can't tell you how many times I've wondered if my house is 'bad' enough to qualify for one of those shows!  So yeah, seriously made me grin!

A lovely gal I knew back in the day in school THANKED me on Facebook for posting about our disarray - they have a similarly difficult time clearing the junk out of their home.

My one SIL, who last week came for a visit and asked about the nuts-and-bolts stuff on the end table "what are these for?" was ecstatic for me that we figured out what they belonged to! (Did you see? They're in a BAGGIE taped to the bed they belong to! WAHOO!)

My local friend commented about her sheer adoration for tidying and organizing.... but she's wickedly allergic to my cats.  Boo.

Another laughed and said if I had dogs it could be worse - yet another point AGAINST dogs in my cats vs. dogs mental log (dogs don't fare too well, and I am proud to say I'm a cat person hahaha)

A friend I haven't talked to in forever recommended a book she finds helpful in managing her scattered-living-lifestyle, introducing me to the fantastic phrase: C.H.A.O.S -> Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.  LOVE this.

And then today my MIL phoned.  It was funny, because she opened up with how sad she was for me, buuuuut I wrote that yesterday and am totally fine today so I'm all...what?? hahaha (Don't worry, my house is still a mess.  We didn't rehabilitate that quickly.)

So, my mom is working out how to get down and help me tackle my problem. My MIL and SIL and darling nieces are mobilizing after Easter, coming armed with bins (they're on sale at Giant Tiger this week - win) and gosh DARN it I WILL CONQUER THIS HOUSE!!

I just know for absolutely certain I CANNOT do it by myself.

And I won't have to. :-)

(ALSO, the shelf beside the bed that ate a chunk of my shoulder? Yeah, WITHOUT having read yesterday's post Mr. Man up and decided to take it down last night. It was eerie.... same-wavelength kinda' thing. shudder )

THANK-you, everyone for your love and support, and bearing with my downer moments.

Disorganized

If you've ever been to my house you know that as a family we are totally disorganized.  We're all over the place.

I was a slobby kid, for sure. Mom used to have to really coerce me to clean my room, and it always took me FOREVER.  I've just never been good at seeing the mess, seeing each item's home, and putting them all away.

Except when I lived in Utah for a while.  I dunno.  Maybe because I was SUPPOSED to be studying at school?  But I cleaned all my and my roomates' dishes and tidied the kitchen like, daily, and YES my room would be a disaster, but I would self-motivate and clean it SPOTless before I could sit down and focus on my homework.  That room of mine would glisten.

No mommy to make me do it, either!

....I kinda' flunked out, though.....

Yup, balance is one of my super-strong points.  oy

I don't know remember when in our married life it became a problem.  I feel like we've been having the same issue, fight, conversation, whatever, since the day we got married, but looking back there must have been a START, you know? One of us was the first to not put something away and then the other would have followed suit until the craziness that is us fully reared its ugly ugly ugly head.  And we can sit and talk and strategize until we're both blue in the face - me from talking and Mr. Man from holding his breath waiting for me to STOP talking? KIDDING - but we never get on top of it.

It's really really disheartening.

I KNOW it's a clutter problem. There's just TOO MUCH STUFF.

But after a several-hundred-dollar-costing pick up from the junk company of a ginormous pile of stuff we threw into the backyard, it didn't get better.  Like, the day after the pick up you couldn't tell we'd gotten rid of anything.

Regular piles of donations and trips to Goodwill doesn't cut it down.

Most recently we donated 7 garbage bags PLUS to Canadian Diabetes Association in their neighbourhood pickup.

Not even a dent in the problem.

Which I find REALLY REALLY disheartening, because we don't bring a lot INto the house - we can't afford it!  hahaha  We're not out constantly adding to our collection because we haven't any money with which to do so, so when we oust something that should be that, right?

Which means we're REALLY just super-dee-duper slovenly.

And it's not a habit I know how to break.

And it SUCKS because this is my JOB. I'm the MOM, currently a stay-at-home Mom, soooooo my job description includes all this everything-in-the-house.  Not going to lie, housekeeping has never ever ever ever eeeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvver been my dream job.  Ever.  And I'm terrible at it.

Livingroom

Front entrance, closet side

Front entrance, window-side. Pretty sure that green thing is mostly full of literal garbage.  AND there's crap piled in the window-sill.

Livingroom from entrance. Children's place bag full of hand-me-downs I have to sort through (I love hand-me-downs, except all the additional work they mean).

Sit at your own risk!

At least there's more than a pathway of floor, but man does it need to be de-crumbed. View from livingroom to diningroom.

Every single surface in my house looks like this.

Top of the piano.

That painting of Little Miss' on the left is the top sheet of a pile of papers including umpteen paintings of hers, epicure ordering information, and sheet music. The file on the right is the file about our bathroom renovation.

Surfaces, nooks, crannies.... can't get in to de-dust-bunny 'cause of all the stuff, wires, etc.

This is where I'm currently sitting.  I tried to clear it the other day but got in trouble for un-organizing the organized mess of bills..... we lose stuff here daily.

Hide it behind the curtain in the windosill.  You CAN see these piles from outside. There's a laptop in one corner that was diagnosed DOA probably close to a year ago.

The view to the kitchen from the diningroom.  Don't you just itch to eat food from here?

And here?

The view of the playroom from the kitchen.

The playroom looks like this after Little Miss & the daycare kiddies from last week decided to dump all the toys from the giant bin we keep in there - the bin is better to use as a car, bathtub, boat, hiding place, etc etc than a place to store toys - aaaaand Little Miss went on a paper-cutting frenzy, sitting in the playroom with her scissors chopping up everythnig in sight.  Great for fine-motor-skill development, not so great for cleanliness.

One side of Little Miss' bedroom.

The other side. Stickers falling off the wall (any suggestions for how to get those things to STAY ON? They're SO CUTE but becoming the bane of my home's decor) aaaaand an explosion of the in-the-bedroom toy bin onto the end of the unmade bed. Apparently there was a party after lights-out last night.

With the bathroom reno finished we've been working, for weeks now, on the paint job. So the bathroom extras reside in the hall.  Tight space to fit through to get to our room.

Bagged and boxed bathroom stuff waiting for me to finally finish painting.

The unfinished bathroom paint job. It WILL look amazing when I finally get it finished, I've decided, but oy it's a lot of work.

Our hoarders-esque bedroom. Note you can't see the tops of dressers, the shelf on the wall over there that's been in a need-to-move-that spot for about a year - I have a scar on my shoulder from running into it getting into bed.

So before you freak on me and go all-clean-the-dang-house-why-are-you-BLOGGING, hear me out.  I will clean it today.  I've already supervised Little Miss cleaning up her playroom (there IS a floor under all that, all the toys are back in the bin, the paper pieces are in the garbage, the puzzles back on the shelf....), run the dishwasher, put away some of the clean dishes that were out from a party we went to on the weekend.... I will get it to a tolerable state today.  At least, parts of it. The livingroom, diningroom...hopefully I'll get a few more stripes painted in the bathroom tonight after Little Miss goes to bed.

But I have been trying my darndest since I graduated last year and being a mom became my full-time employ to get on top  of this house.  And I can't.  I. Can't. Do. It. 

I don't know WHY.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I don't know why I work so hard and clean and tidy and organize and get on top of one room and every single other corner of the house has become uninhabitable (don't even get me STARTED on our basement, which I did NOT go on a photo-frenzy with).  And YES I know it doesn't have to be perfect - mess means lived in and sometimes indicates a healthy prioritized household, but come on. Did you SEE the pictures?? There's a line, and we're WAY WAY WAY over it. And this is the more-normal-than-not state of our house.

I couldn't even hire a maid to come in and clean and help me because there are no friggin surfaces to be found for all the piles of crap everywhere! 

So I'll work at it today. I'll find the counters in the kitchen and get the dishes put away. But I won't get the stickers back up on the wall in Little Miss' room or clear the floor in our bedroom.  Again.  I'll tidy and dust around the tv and in the livingroom, but I'll never find a 'home' for the stinkin' nuts and bolts sitting on the end table by the couch that held Little Miss' old toddler bed together.  And maybe I'll tidy the computer desk, and then none of our bills will get paid because I'll have totally knackered the piles. 

The only thing I know for sure about my house is that I am absolutely 100% incapable of fixing this by myself, but have no alternative.  It's discouraging to know that forever and always you are destined to spend your life spinning your wheels getting nowhere.

Back to the useless grind I go!

Thankful Thursday - around the house

As I was sitting pondering my Thankful Thursday topics for today, and thinking about maybe doing another 'themed' version (I really don't know how long I'll be able to keep up themes - I'm just not that bright!) aaaaaand I found myself inspired by my house!  hahaha  SO, without further blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaahhh....

THANKFUL THURSDAY

the "around the house" edition

(things to do and/or sitting on the floor or put away in their place around my house as I sit at the computer wondering what things to write about today....)

1) DANCING

(from: http://blog.wfuv.org/?m=201001)

So, I don't think it's weird to love dancing, right? Everyone loves to bust a move now and then, yeah? Some of us are, you know, actually GOOD at it, and thennnn...there are the rest of us.  Who, when we launch into the groove adopt the white-man-overbite, the side-step shuffle, John-Travolta-hand oooooooorrrrrrr one of my personal favourites, the shopping cart!

I believe I am one of these.  When I dance, except for the purple, I think I probably look kinda' like this little guy:

(from: http://baristamagazine.com/blog/?category_name=retailing)

But I'm not going to lie: I REALLY DON'T CARE! I know I look silly soooooo why not have some fun with it and look even sillier? The sillier you make it the more loose you can be and the more fun I have, at least!

DANCING! It's just....pure awesomeness.  Has got to be one of my absolute most favourite things ever.  And I don't know, could you ever really credit ONE person with creating it, being responsible enough for my knee-jerk-to-the-beat movements that there's someone I CAN be grateful to for it?  I mean, it SEEMS to be almost an innate reaction to awesome tunes - Little Miss has ALWAYS bopped to music; she ADORES dancing.  I'll put on a tune and she'll be in the middle of something and it's like she can't HELP but bop her head or waggle her butt in time to the song.

Did I mention it's exercise?  HOLLA!

Have you seen this video yet? (sorry, embedding is unavailable sooooo click the link. For real.) I love it.  I love what the surprise-special-guest-superstar-dancer says at the end about dancing: "...everyone should do this; it's SO much fun."

Maybe I'm grateful that I grew up with some experience dancing and bopping around and that it's totally normal, okay, and EXPECTED even for some of us to bust out into crazy jives when we crank the tunes.

(There may or may not have been an impromptu dance party in my kitchen this afternoon.  Well, what do you think happens when you mix a 28-year-old. 13-year-old, and 3.5-year-old with a room full of dirty dishes and the newest Glee album featuring Justin Bieber ditties?  I HOPE someone saw us 'cause there was some serious fun going on!)

2) PHOTOGRAPHS

I've been working on getting some older photos scrapbooked lately and...I'm just so grateful I HAVE them!

2005 trip to a HOJO in Toronto with visits to the Ontario Science Centre, Metro Toronto Zoo, Tim Hortons and the movies!

2006 trip with my family to Florida, including golf, swimming, being cramped in a rental, lots of mozzarella sticks, and Disney World.

Trying to take pictures of ourselves in California in 2007. Mr. Man was getting up to see if the camera was working....

Very pregnant.  2007.

Later in 2007. She's so huge now!

Always a class act! At our wedding, obviously, in 2003.

Grandma.

Love this lady!

Behind the scenes of a wedding BBQ!

Straigtening out for pictures.

Not every kid can rock a Pebbles hair-do latched onto a neon-green suckie AND hold a ferret!  Feb 2009

 Cue: Barbara Streisand... "Meeeeeeeeemoriiiiiiiieeeeeeeessssssssss......."  (although, I know the song is really "Memory".... just got with it).

3) MY KNIFE SHARPENER

(from: http://blog.asseenonpcnetwork.com/?p=521, and no, neither my knives or my knife sharpener look as fantastically scary as in the picture I choose - I just like the intensity of the picture....) O:-)

So, one day, I "grew up" (HA! hahahahahahaha Oh, THAT'S FUNNY!) got married, and moved into a "house" of my own.

With some knives.

And I didn't notice it happen, but I eventually discovered how really displeased I was with my knives! I'd go home to my Mom's fantastic kitchen and her fantastic kitchen things and I'd cut with her knives, and then trudge home to my tiny kitchen with my not-so-fantastic kitchen things (some of my stuff is fantastic, some of my stuff is young-married-ish. I mean, it happens, right?) and I'd really really notice how much I hated my knives.

Then one day my MIL, knowing I hated my knives, found a whole SET on sale somewhere, and picked them up for me as a gift!

HOORAY! New knives! They work, they're great, they're wonderful! I love my knives!!

But then I'd go home and use my mom's stuff and then trudge home to MY stuff.... and my knives weren't so great.

I mean, the grass is always greener, right??

.....THEN one day my Mom and Dad were cleaning out the extras from their house.

And they offered me their no-longer-in-use knife sharpener.


Wait, WHAT?

Soooooo.....my knives are STILL not as great as my mom's - she just got a really fancy-schmancy super-dee-duper professional-and-then-some holy-mackeral-knives-cost-HOW-much set for her birthday last October....that grass is like, unbelievable. I can't imagine ever needing knives like my mom has, (they're probably kinda' crazy intense like the one in the picture that mine aren't like?) ;) buuuut I LOVE MY KNIVES!

So, THANKS MIL for my knives, and THANKS SO MUCH to MY parents for cluing me in on how the heck to get my great knives to actually cut things after they dulled.

shaking head

Yeah, I know.  Sometimes I'm a moron....

4) KRAFT DINNER

(from: http://starktower.blogspot.com/2010/08/theres-always-kraft-dinner.html)

Today, I went to Costco. And bought a ginormous box of Kraft Dinner for less than $10.

I know, I know. There are MANY evils to Kraft dinner.  Like, empty-caloric white pasta, POWDERED cheese (really, yeah, 'cause THAT sounds all-natural), aaaaaand a heck of a lot of 'orange-number-whatever'....

BUT IT'S SO GOOD!

For a few reasons:

1. EVERYBODY loves it. 
2. ESPECIALLY Little Miss, aaaaaaand I'm not going to lie, I LOVE making that kid happy. 
3. It's so darn EASY
4. It's so darn FAST
5. It's inexpensive
6. It really DOES taste good
7. .....you can add your own twist and make it even less healthy yummier! (Like, sometimes, instead of mixing in milk and butter we use whipping cream and butter....droooooll... OH and finish it off with some freshly-grated-into-the-pot old (strong) cheddar - creamy, sharp, delicious KD taste.  Ooooooooooohhhh yeaaaaaaaahhhh..... 
8. One pot to clean!

So I KNOW that there is little to no nutritional value to this meal, ESPECIALLY when we make up the extra-fattening version above.  But I'm sure glad it's around 'cause it's such an easy meal, it's a treat, and it makes us all happy.

And don't worry. The giant box will last us a while.  .....at least until next week.....

5) SPLURGES
..........I dunno. I don't buy myself a lot - or at least it feels that way; Mr. Man may have another thought on this statement, but... this isn't his blog! - buuuut today, I splurged.  A whopping $13.49 I spent on absolutely nothing but myself.  I saw it, I wanted it, and I only debated with myself for a moment and then said, you know what? I'm BUYING it.

You know how many people CAN'T DO THAT??  Aaaaaaand really, probably, I really shouldn't do that.  I mean, we have some serious financial things going on being ex-students-new-workers-with-not-humongous-paycheques, and a house to keep up, a family to look after....

But I splurged. Today, I can splurge, and I did. And it feels a little like a well-deserved pat on the back and I'm okay with that today.  And unbelievably grateful that I live in a place where and with people for whom that is a-okay.

AND my splurge may or may not have been the thing that instigated the rockin' dance party mentioned before.... just sayin'. :-)

And THAT, my friends, is this week's Thankful Thursday. 

Snooze

(from: http://365daystoahealthierme.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/i-cant-sleep/)

Back to 6am wake ups. groan

I know that 6 REALLY isn't that early and that there are lots of crazy-demented-overachievers people who DO routinely get up at 6 without any problems or headaches.....

....but man oh man, I am NOT one of them.

Mr. Man and I have been having a hard time adjusting to daylight savings time, actually, the last week.  Our nightly routine instead of landing us in bed around 11 or midnight just continued as normal, except the clock changed, so we've been landing in bed around midnight or 1 all week.  I know, I know.  GENIUS move.

So we've been a little bit fatigued this week.  Totally self-inflicted, that's fine, but there it is.

So yesterday, knowing that I had a 6am wake-up today (which my ill-adjusted body still thinks is 5am) I planned to just hunker down for the afternoon, get through the day AWAKE, and get to bed by 9. Because I was so tired I knew I could fall asleep quickly and figured an extra hour or so at night would be just fantabulous to helping me adjust and recover from the week of stupidity. 

I made it nap-free 'till about 4:30.  Then, I just DIED.

I didn't even sleep a full hour! It was one of the shorter naps I've ever laid down for AND interrupted with a phone call....

....so why the HECK did it take me over three hours to fall asleep when I went to bed last night??  I did NOT nap long enough to make up for previous zombie state, and USUALLY when I go to bed, that's it! I'm down, I'm out and I SLEEEEEEEEEEP!  (Have I mentioned lately that sleeping is one of my most favourite things to do? It's just, such a TREAT to sleep snuggly, comfortably, uninterupted-ly, deeply...mmmmmmmmmmm......... visions of pillows and blankets wrapping around me in my head.....)

Yeah. Couldn't sleep.

So now, at 7:09am, after having been up for over an hour, with a lovely daycare child playing happily in the playroom.... I WANT MY BED!!  I am so TIRED!  My head feels swollen - you know that not-quite-a-headache uncomfortable feeling? I have THAT - my eyes have that ever-so-slightly burning, NOT refreshed feeling to them.... and I've been up for over an hour AND IT'S STILL DARK OUTSIDE! 

That is just wrong.

I tried counting sheep last night.  It went something like this:


Okay, count sheep.  That will focus you on something so menial your mind won't wander.  Okay, great.  One, two.... wait, is that a sheep or just a white blob?  Okay, PICTURE a sheep.  What does a sheep look like. Yeah, that's a silly animated-looking one.  What about the sheep at the petting zoo.  Okay.  But that sheep doesn't look like a jumper, I can't picture it jumping a fence.  Why the heck when we count sheep are they jumping fences anyway? That's stupid. I should just count them grazing grass.  Okay, a bunch of sheep.  One, two, three, wait, did I count that one? How do shepherds DO this? They all look the same....

(from: http://mychinaconnection.com/english-slang/counting-sheep/)

Yeah, it was one of my more brilliant internal dialogues.

So I will stumble through yet another day, longing for bedtime.  Hopefully I will be able to discipline myself this evening and GO TO BED at a decent hour and then, without resorting to the apparently ridiculous task of counting leaping lambs fall asleep, ready for TOMORROW'S pre-dawn hours. 

YAWN

Thankful Friday?

So...yesterday I was working on my Thankful Thursday post wheeeeeeeen.... I totally fell asleep. hahaha  I think between using every spare second to paint my bathroom, covering the daycare, visiting with my SIL and three wonderful nieces and trying to keep the regular we're-starting-to-get-on-top-of-our-house housework done, oh yeah, and being SICK.... I just had it!  hahaha

Don't worry -there were no children in the house when I dozed off.  Well, except my own. She was watching Sesame Street.  And she didn't let me sleep long because the show ended and I got smacked in the face with an exclamation of "AGAIN! Sessmeeee Sweeet again, pwease, Mom!"

Yeah, that'll wake you up.

Anyway, so I missed my few minutes of blogging time and did NOT get Thankful Thursday posted.

So let's just pretend today isn't Friday (except I'm SO excited it is! HUZZAH end of the week!) aaaand:

THANKFUL THURSDAY  

the "spare time" edition
(yes, that's right, I went with a bit of a theme this week - things I'm grateful for having during my spare time. I know, I know, it's pure awesomeness.)

1) BOOKS

(from: http://www.artsjournal.com/bookdaddy/2008/07/)

I LOVE me some books.  LOVE them.  Which, I know, isn't an anomaly or even all that defining but man oh man do I love to read.  I've read 12 books so far this year - my thirteenth is going a little slower, I think, with the drive to get the bathroom painted aaaaand a lot of times, when I'm sick, I curl up on the couch in front of the TV (yay Netflix!) and zone out...and I've been sick this week.  hahaha Anyway, lately I've been through a book or two a week, depending on the length, my interest, and whatever all else. 

But enough about my reading habits! This is THANKFUL "Thursday".  I'm THANKFUL for books.  I've never been much of one for tearing stories apart looking for themes, lessons, what-is-the-author-trying-to-say kinda' garbage (have you seen Finding Forrester with Sean Connery? LOVE it! He plays this author who wrote "The Great American Novel" and then never writes another book because he's so P.O.ed with everyone for ANALYZING the thing to death! He's like, WHY the heck did it have to mean anything more than what it says?!?!  LOVE LOVE LOVE it! hahaha) but all that aside...

...I love getting lost in a book. I love the creative license left in the medium for my brain to be totally enraptured in its own understanding of the story. I love being able to read the words, picture it, and FEEL like it's happening to me. 

I spend so much time reading I can't imagine life BEFORE books! Isn't that a horrid thought? That only the richest of the rich and elitest of the elite COULD even read? And then were very selective about what books who got when? Geeeeeeeze.....  can you imagine not being ALLOWED to have a copy of the Bible, even? Goodness forbid anyone be able to use their own mind and understand things. 

THANK you, Gutenberg! Thanks world, for evolving to a place where I CAN read, anything I want to, whenever I want to.  Sometimes I read classics (Austen, Mark Twain, Dickens, Bronte), sometimes I read YA (Twilight, Blue Bloods, The Hunger Games), sometimes chick lit (Sophie Kinsella, anyone?), sometimes the latest craze (The DaVinci Code, The Host, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)....

Thanks for writing and thanks for letting me read.

2) NAPS

(from: http://ashleysfunnyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/02/everything-is-bigger-in-texas.html)

Do I really need to say much more than this, especially the day I'm writing Thursday's post LATE BECAUSE of an accidental nap?

Naps are one of my most favourite things. 

Aaaaaaaaaand I couldn't take them without lots of help.  USUALLY by one, poor, nap-deprived Mr. Man (alTHOUGH, he doesn't LOVE naps as much as I do - sometimes when we BOTH have opportunity to nap and I dive right into bed he paces around and then lands on the computer playing video games.... which is TOTALLY fine, but makes me feel a little extra justified in the I-take-advantage-of-him-and-nap-on-the-weekends-more-than-he-does bit of our marriage).

Proper naps, on a bed, with snuggly blankets everywhere and a fantastic pillow..... blisssssss

(from: http://www.zazzle.ca/consciousness_that_annoying_time_between_naps_tshirt-235748040862746940)

3) SPORTS

(from: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/06/soccer/soccer-text.html)

I think maybe in one of my classes in school it was (? memory, where art thou?) where I (we) was (were) asked to identify the MOST FUN THING EVER. Like, what is the one thing that you do that you'd rather do any time than anything else, that is just the best.  And I thought and thought and thought about what is invariably the GREATEST thing.

And I decided, for me, it's sports. 

I have more fun playing sports, running around, laughing, exerting and competing with friends than just about anything else.  That doesn't mean I DON'T LOVE OTHER THINGS or other people or that I can't have fun playing Blockus with my family (if you've played board/card/any games with me, you KNOW I have fun!) but SPORTS, for me, are invariably, my favourite most fun thing to do. 

If there's a pickup game going on somewhere, of ANYTHING, I want in.  If there's a chance for a regular game of anything? I want in. 

And as much as I enjoy individual sporting - running, swimming, cycling, etc. - where the only real competition is with myself, there's that added oomph about being with and playing with friends that brings extra awesomeness to the whole thing.

How lucky am I that my parents saw that I was a sporty kid and let me follow my childhood best friend around the soccer leagues growing up. That I was supported in swimming, in 6am hockey practice in high school, in my high school wrestling stint (I made it to OFSAA, the provincial competition! ....hahahahaaaaa yeah, that's a story in itself), that I was driven to soccer games in and outside of town, allowed to participate on the select league teams and travel to tournaments.  That we had some sport activities at church where we got to get together with a totally different group of people and have fun with in volleyball and basketball tournaments.  That I have been permitted to understand and define myself and my femininity on my own terms, without the bars of illegal female activity.  That I had an awesome highschool PE program and got to try and fall in love with sports like broomball, curling, squash, floor hockey, badminton, tennis....

Thanks, world, for giving me sports.

4) MOVIES

(from: http://www.peoplejam.com/blog/7591/why-america-needs-its-superheroes)

Okay, so in addition to reading, sleeping, and exercising...I'm a movie person. hahaha  A little while ago Mr. Man and I were getting some advice on togetherness from a wonderful guy who said that he and his wife watch a movie together every single night. And we were like, wait, WHAT?  'Cause we just couldn't SWING that!  He then went on to explain that they put on a movie, sit together, and pay half attention to the movie, half to the newspaper or magazine they're reading, and are just...TOGETHER. 

Which is SO great, I'm SO glad that works!  But Mr. Man and I got out of the conversation and were like, yeaaaaah.... no.  hahaha

Movies, on the couch or at the cinema, movies are EVENTS!  They are planned for and around, and EXPERIENCED.  (Often with popcorn!  hahaha)

At least that's how it is for me.  And Mr. Man, I think, too.

So why am I grateful for movies?  Well, it's an adoration that Mr. Man and I both share, so it goes a surprisingly long way in our "similarities" checklist in our happily-married column. ;) We even like a lot of the same TYPES of movies - can I just say how through-the-roof excited we both were when we first saw this trailer? YEEEEEEEHaaaaw does that look like a great time or WHAT??

And THAT is why I'm grateful for movies. We ENJOY them. It's fun to borrow someone ELSE's vision for a couple of hours and escape into whatever reality is operating to make the movie plausible.  It's the escapism of my books with less effort with bird's eye view.  'Cause lemme tell ya', as great as my imagination may be, I don't think in a million years I could have dreamed up anything similar to what James Cameron had going on in his head with Avatar. Or Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Aaaaaaand although we've always been Batman fans (hello, Adam West, anyone?) our undying devotion to the greatest "super"hero ever was definitely sealed by Christopher Nolan's brilliant Batman Begins, which is absolutely (for the moment) my favourite movie of all time. (Joss Whedon doesn't like it and is AGAIN rebooting the series? Really?  Should be interesting 'cause.... I generally really like Whedon's stuff.... hmmmm....)

5) BABYSITTERS

(from: http://welcometomysoapbox.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-much-should-i-pay-my-babysitter.html)

AND, as I mentioned, briefly, in NAPS, where on EARTH would any of these wonderful spare moments even COME from if it weren't for people OTHER than me lending a hand and keeping their eyes on my kid for a few minutes. 

I couldn't read books at night while Little Miss is getting ready for bed.

I couldn't take naps on Sunday afternoons after a too long week or a too late Saturday.

I couldn't go out and  play sports without a team of willing friends on the sidelines watching until Mr. Man makes it from work, or Mr. Man already taking that one for me so I can leave for a bit.

I can't go to the movies with Mr. Man without someone watching the kid. My parents, his mom, our friends... SOMEONE takes that kid!  Unless it's a kid movie (she LOVED Tangled, as did we) then she comes with us... :-)

I can't go to the movies with FRIENDS unless Mr. Man can be home and is willing to be in charge for the evening. 

Babysitters. I am SO lucky to practically have an ARMY of ready, willing, able, and cost-effective O:-) friends and family to turn to so I CAN enjoy my spare-time activities.  And that's huge. 

Thanks, babysitters!

Okay, time to make lunch. :-)