When I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed I start reading Harry Potter again even though I tell myself “this year I will not re-read the Harry Potter series!” But really, who cares if I do or don’t? I know there are a million books out there to read but this one fills me with such joy and some people watch TV and some people drink booze and if my only vice is re-read Harry Potter once a year then I’m pretty freaking awesome.
Anyway, I just started book three today but one of my all time favourite quotes (spoken by Albus Dumbledore) happens at the end of book two:
It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we really are, far more than our abilities.
That quote comes up in coversation around our house a lot. Make of it what you will.
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Our little family went to brunch this morning (we were away this weekend for a Family Weekend with the Mister’s work) and after a long wait we sat down to a rather mediocre breakfast. Moira was hungry but really tired because a) she slept poorly the night before and b) having to wait for breakfast, so we were trying to find foods to entice her. There was a table that had trays of various (canned) fruits nearby and on the trays there were blueberries that were obviously there as a garnish. The Mister went and picked as many blueberries as he felt was polite and put them on a plate for Moira (along with some of the other fruit) and once she started eating them she kind of sighed, looked up at him and said oh-so-clearly, “Thank-you Daddy” and then resumed stuffing blueberries into her mouth.
Well, ‘give me death’ is a little extreme but yes, I too am excited about the new Liberty of London line at Target. I know people love Target with a capital L but I have only been there a couple times in my life and most of the time I have been unimpressed because it is, after all, just a department store and therefore often lacking in originality and smelling like child labour. However, years ago my Mom and I visited the real Liberty of London store in London (obviously) and all I could afford were two handkerchief scarves and the seeds for a life-long love of all things Liberty. As a teenager I was a huge fan of Laura Ashley dresses and should probably dig up some of those photos for a fun and highly laughable flashback post – but Liberty is so much more classier. ( Read more )
I’ve never been under the impression that I could do it all but last week made me realize just how bad I have become at keeping it together under extreme circumstances. By keeping it together I don’t mean my emotional health (which is fine, thanks for asking) – I just mean the day-to-dayness of running a home and family, the stuff you normally don’t think about until something happens. The extreme circumstances I speak of were both the Mister & Moira getting really sick – and yes, I mean sick again for Moira. She went to bed Monday night with a low fever that quickly turned into a very high fever and I didn’t get any sleep for the next 48 hours. Four days later the fever finally broke and now she is much better and her tonsillitis or strep throat seems to have cleared up but it was a tough week. ( Read more )
We got home Monday night after a long flight. For some reason Moira is really tired lately and all week at my sisters she would start lobbying to go to bed around 4 p.m. (which would be 2 p.m. our time) but I would force her to stay awake until 6:30 p.m. Seriously, what almost 2-year old asks to go to bed? Her cousin would try to play with her and she would start gathering her dolls and say “night-night Thomas” and start heading downstairs to bed. It was hilarious. She barely changed her schedule at all while we away because 6:30 – 7 p.m. is her normal bedtime and she is back at it. On the flight it took her 3 hours to fall asleep (the flight left at 7:30 p.m.) – it was a 3 hour & 45 minute flight. She was great though, poor thing.
The night after we got back the Mister & I were watching a movie when the vomiting began. That was the first time little Miss has ever thrown up. I always wondered what I would do in such a situation but I have to say the Mister and I handled it rather well for first-timers.
Thank goodness for guest bloggers! I got sick two days ago and felt awwwwful and couldn’t do a thing. I haven’t been sick like that in a long time – but that is what happens when I travel. Moira caught some of what I had too but at least she was spared from the vomit-side of things. Anyway, this is just a quick post to say Hi. Apparently the western world is talking about the Superbowl right now and all I have to say about that is:
Time for a name change?
The Mister sent this in defence of James’s post: ( Read more )
Toys. I could say a lot about toys, but so little of interest. Growing up, I mainly stuck to He-Man and WWF figures, and it takes a certain kind of ten-year-old boy mentality to appreciate those topics. Even most of the other ten-year-old boys I knew weren’t really interested. Eventually, I learned to fake it well enough, but for whatever reason, it’s not something I ever grew out of.
This made it a bit difficult to choose a toy-themed blog topic. I know that nobody wants to read about why Modulok was the coolest of all the He-Man figures, and you don’t care why I found the late-80′s LJN “Ravishing” Rick Rude action figure so poorly designed. I got a great toy for Christmas, and recorded a video of myself playing with it, but really, I don’t have anything more to add to the description I posted: “I had this toy. Then I didn’t have it anymore. Then they remade it and I had one again.”
Is it wrong of me to find it funny and a little sad when the bowling ball does a header right into the burner?
Also, I think it says a lot about myself that my fridge is covered with drawings and I am wearing a t-shirt with a hot dog that says “I AM AWESOME.” ( Read more )
When I was growing up, my brothers and I played “guns” all the time. The rules were simple:
To shoot, you establish line of sight and call out something like: Pow! Pow! I got you!
If you’re hit, you fall over “dead”, close your eyes, and count to 20.
Your “gun” might be your hand, a stick, a flashlight (when playing at night), a store-bought toy gun, or one of the guns we carved out of wood scraps from the garage.
I have especially fond memories of those homemade wooden guns. We’d dream up a gun, sketch it out on the surface of the wood, then my dad would help us saw out the rough shape. After that, we’d file down the sharp corners and slowly but surely our custom gun would emerge.
Our homemade wooden guns had several advantages over store-bought toy guns: ( Read more )
In 1988, when I was just three years old, I wanted one particular toy for Christmas more than anything else. After seeing the commercial on TV, I just knew I had to have my very own Oopsie Daisy doll. Much like a real baby girl around 8 months old, Oopsie Daisy was learning to crawl, and, again mimicking reality, Oopsie Daisy would fall down fairly frequently because she was still learning, after all. But, rather unfortunately, the similarities to real life didn’t end there: Whenever Oopsie Daisy fell down, she would cry out “Mama, mama!” until someone picked her up again.
Despite this rather annoying premise, I still had my heart set on an Oopsie Daisy doll for Christmas, and my wonderful parents were determined to make my holiday wishes come true. ( Read more )
Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.
When you read you begin with A, B, C.
When we talk about toys we begin with Ampu-E.T.
No, you heard me correctly, Ampu-E.T. The beloved E.T. stuffed doll I got the Christmas I was five – or at least I think I was five. I don’t actually remember a time in my life when I didn’t have E.T. One of my earliest memories was discovering that our Dalmatian, Belle, had chewed off E.T.s arm and I remember being so upset I chased her around the house and beat her with it. Of course, being beaten with a severed stuffed arm by a six-year old probably doesn’t make much difference to a dog (or anyone). I quickly forgave Belle of course, because I can probably count her and E.T. as the two loves of my life as a child. Unlike many of my other toys destroyed by Belle, (I’m thinking of you poor Kermit the Frog doll) giving up E.T. was never an option. I have hazy memories of trying to sew the arm back on for a while but eventually I just took care to sew up the hole where his arm used to be. I certainly didn’t love him any less and I felt an affinity for limbless children everywhere when the Easter Seals envelope would come in the mail with stamps and (what seemed to me to be) dog tags for E.T. ( Read more )
I’m really excited about this week – there are some fantastic guest posts lined-up. Moira and I are flying to Ontario this morning and I didn’t get a picture of my most beloved toy (and don’t have one from childhood, my parents weren’t big into photography) in time to set that particular post up this morning. I will be posting it later on tonight from my sisters – which is perfect since she is the reason I have that toy.
Learning that being 9-months pregnant is NOT a good time to do anything technical to your blog.
Well-mannered frivolity:
I think of this as my little online space to write about things that are important to me. Lately that list includes: little girls (about to have #2), literature, first-time home ownership, crafting and my love of Canadianna.
