Tired Mama.com

Happy New Year!

We're off to the four o'clock showing of the movie, Bedtime Stories and then we're going to a friend's cottage to ring in the New Year.

Our plan is to eat, drink and sleep-over so no one is driving.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

Oh, and American Girl doll people? Yes, I still think your things are totally over priced but when my youngest and her doll appeared in matching pajama's last night, I melted.

Yep, she was a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e.

So, the price, duty costs and shipping? All worth it. I take back all my complaints. Kinda.

Happy New Year everyone!

Turkey and Soup R Us

I don't blog often about my cooking.

The reason?

I'm not a good cook.

As proof I give you tonight's main dinner dish at my house - Turkey Noodle Casserole.

Now, even though I'm a pathetic cook, I don't usually go as low as using soup recipes.

But you know what? It wasn't bad, I made it in less than ten minutes and the kids all ate it and liked it.

I think I'll be heading over to the Campbell's site more often, and no, they didn't pay me anything or even send me any soup so I would post this.

I just thought I'd share the fact that I think I've hit a new low in my culinary capabilities. The really sad part is that I'm okay with this. I mean there are peas in the recipe and that's a vegetable that I got into all three kids tonight without a fight.

Hey, sometimes you just gotta go with whatever works and after the last few weeks of holiday preparations the fact that I didn't just order in a pizza is amazing.

I'm burnt out.

Bring on the soup.

Costly Mama

Tomorrow I have to take my mini van into the collision center.

Last week, with all the snow and slippery streets, I took a turn a little too tight and got sucked sideways off the road into a light pole.

It only looks like a small dent but I damaged some of the guts of my van as well, so I will be losing my van for a week and shelling out about $1,800 for the repair. 

After filling up my Visa card with Christmas shopping, I really don't need this.

Sigh.

That's it - just sigh.

Multi-tasking Madness

I seem to have a problem.

It seems with everything going on over the last few months I have lost my ability to sit still and do nothing.

These days I seem to spend a lot of time uh, puttering.

I pick up. I wipe up. I throw things away. I sort things out.

I can't seem to just sit still any more.

Last night my hubby gave me a big glass of wine and we intended to sit on the couch, in front of the fire, and watch TV. I took the wine, watched the hockey game he turned on and sorted socks at the same time. When the socks were sorted I grabbed my laptop and started downloading and labeling pictures.

Between periods I jumped up to keep the laundry going.

I am stuck in multi-task mode and I can't seem to get out.

I need to find my inner sloth again.

Anyone seen her?

Holiday Hangover

Done.

I am done.

I can't remember being this tired since my children were infants.

BUT, the house is tidy and looks well, good. We got the new couch in at five o'clock on Christmas Eve.

The renovations are done, with a few small things the contractors have to come back and fix up in the new year, but mostly it's there. The painting got finished, all the walls look clean and new and I even like the colours. 

Over the last few days I was a MAD woman but I think I got most of the dry wall dust cleaned up too. 

Yesterday? Well, youngest actually let us sleep until eight, then the presents were given, and later in the day eighteen family members came and had a full sit down turkey dinner with all the fixings on my good china.

Most importantly?

My children said it was one of the best Christmases ever. Even my teen - and she didn't roll her eyes sarcastically when she said it.

Mission accomplished.

Now, I'm going back to bed - see you in the new year.

I seriously need to recover.

Merry Everything

Happy holidays everyone!

Whatever you celebrate at this time of the year I wish you joy and happy family gatherings.

Talk to you on the 26th!

Merry Christmas!

Have you missed me?

Probably not. But boy, have I been running around.

Tomorrow is Christmas eve and I have seven things left to do and twelve things left to pick up at the grocery store.

This is not bad, but I don't usually have this much to do on the 24th.

Ah well, I'm blaming the renovation...and uh, general procrastination.

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you're all further ahead than this mama, who really is behind and VERY tired today too.  

In other words, all is well and just about status quo.

Merry Christmas!

It might just work. Or then again it might not.

I'm going to run around like a mad bat today and order my family to do the same in the hope that we can get all our holiday prepartations done. We've got a small list of things to do outside the house, and a big list of things to do inside the house.

I'm hoping that if we spend today working hard then we can spend tomorrow just getting groceries in the morning and be done. I'm hoping that this will mean that all tomorrow afternoon and most of the 24th we can spend doing fun things, Christmassy type things - as a family.

I'm trying to explain this to my kids and hubby, but they can't seem to get past the 'run around like crazy today' part. I think they get the 'finish up the shopping and wrapping' speech but they don't like the sound of the general cleaning up, doing laundry, washing bathrooms, dusting and vacuuming the house part.

Sigh.

I'll let you know if anyone is still talking to me on Christmas.

It's getting closer

Christmas is coming soon. Actually it'll be here in four days which means I have three days to get everything on my lists done.

You don't really want to know how the list 'checking offing' is going. 

My advice?

Never do a renovation that ends the week before Christmas and then invite eighteen people over for dinner on Christmas day. 

I speak from experience here. 

But really, you probably could have figured this out for yourself.

Please excuse my blogging absence over the next few days. I'll be off panicking getting things done. 

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

We're getting 20cm of snow, and we've got blinding 40 km/h winds. Everything is closed or canceled.

Yes, it's winter in Toronto.

As I look out my office window the snow is falling sideways.

It's a good day for making lists of what we still need to do for the holidays and for doing uh, laundry.

Okay, maybe we need to bake some cookies and put on a Christmas movie too.

At least we still have power.

Ack. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

For those of you down south? Send me some warmth.

Thanks.

Gone Shopping

I can't blog today. I have to shop and tidy and then I'm taking the kids into Toronto to see this.

I'll post a better picture after I get one tonight.

 My kids want to take the train into the city too. That should be fun but I can't help but think that I worked really hard in my youth to save for a car so we could avoid public transportation. Ah well, it's Christmas.

Oh, and for those of you who were asking after yesterday's post - the cat is fine (we have another hole in the drywall), the tree is up (and tied with a string to the wall) and there is peace in TiredMama's family again.

Happy days...

Arrrgh!

So, what did I do tonight?

Earlier this evening I decided my family should decorate the Christmas tree. The renovation is almost over and our tree has been in the stand for a few days so I decided we would all have a nice family evening decorating the tree. 

Let me set the scene - I was baking cookies and we had holiday music on. All the kids were helping, it was nice - very nice. 

Everything was going well with the decorating until, about half an hour ago, the tree FELL OVER. I have no idea why it fell, but it's a flippin’ big tree and it smashed right over on hubby and eldest daughter.

Hubby was not happy and he yelled at our eldest daughter who, being a teen girl, marched off in a huff.

Since we had already put quite a few ornaments on the tree before it fell we now have broken glass and water all over the new family room hardwood floor.

I, being a good mama, told my younger children to get on some slippers while I cleaned up the glass. 

When my youngest daughter told me that she didn't have slippers that fit, I decided to go quickly upstairs to the freezing cold attic and go through the Christmas presents and pull out the slippers I had intended to give her for Christmas. I figured giving them to her a few days early wouldn't hurt and I wanted something on her feet while I was cleaning up the broken glass.

But as I was hurrying up to the attic our STUPID cat/kitten decided to bounce around me and run off into the depths of the unfinished part of the upstairs. When I yelled at him he dove under the unfinished floor boards and the last thing I heard was him bouncing down into the lower floors of the house behind the dry wall.

Sheeeeeet.

So, now the cat is missing, the younger kids are hysterical, my favorite tree ornament is broken, eldest daughter is in a snit and hubby is mad at me because I'm trying to find the cat instead of helping clean up the tree mess.

Lovely.

How are your holiday preparations going?

Tis the Season for Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Today was the school bake sale.

Our school's grade eight class has one every year to raise money to help pay for their graduation dinner.

Since my eldest daughter is in grade eight we were more involved in the bake sale this year than we have been in the past.

I baked chocolate chip cookies. I doubled my regular batch twice and made that twice again. All the cookies I made sold quickly so I guess I did my part.

Today when I picked up the kids after school all three of them told me that they had signed me up to make cookies for their Christmas class parties tomorrow.

Yep, they all want chocolate chip cookies.

The least they could have done was sign me up for shortbread.

Teary Eyed Mama

My youngest daughter is performing in her elementary school's Christmas play tonight. Her school has rented a theater with a real stage for the kid's to perform on and I even had to go to a box office to buy tickets.

Rebecca will be playing the part of Mrs. Claus. To say that my child is thrilled is an understatement. My youngest loves to perform and loves to be on stage, so she will be in her element tonight.

I, on the other hand, will be in tears.

Why? I have no idea.

It's not that I'm afraid for my children when they get on stage and my tears only feel a little bit like the 'they're growing up way too fast' kind. Honestly? I have no idea why I well up, but seeing my kids perform just makes me all emotional and teary eyed.

Does anyone else get like this or am I the only lunatic mother in the crowd?

Good thing the theater will be dark.

But you gotta know my eldest daughter and son will be sitting right beside me watching their little sister shine and rolling their eyes at me as I sniffle.

It should be a fun night.

I now have a list of my lists

Christmas is a time when a Mom needs to follow up on a million different things.

The end of a renovation? That's where I'm at and it also seems to be a time where I need to wrap up a million different little details.

Three kids and life in general? Most days just getting through that means I gotta remember to do a million things.

What am I at? About three million little details?

Yep, that would be why I have all these lists.

I just put together a master list to keep track of all my shorter lists.

Sigh.

I think I'm gonna need some hard working elves and maybe even a Christmas miracle if I'm gonna get all this done.

Yippee. Not.

I'm getting slippers again

Last night my hubby asked me what I wanted for Christmas.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. A dish washer that empties and reloads itself.

2. A clothes dryers that spits the clothes out folded.

3. A self cleaning kitchen floor.

4. Lights that automatically switch off when a family member leaves the room.

5. A closet that picks up everything off the bottom of it and hangs it up.

6. A few more hours in a day that I can use to sleep.

Oh, and peace on earth and good will towards all mankind would be nice too.

My list really doesn't change that much from year to year, but I never get what I ask for either.

What's up with that?

A house full of stuff

There was a house fire this past weekend that took place a few streets over from where I live. No one was hurt, even the pets were all safely taken out, but the house was gutted.

It got me thinking about my house and everything in it.

If we had a fire here I would want to save my photo albums, my laptop and maybe my purse. Other than that?

I think I could rebuild.

As long as my family and our pets got out, I'd be okay - more than okay even.

All the rest of the things here are just uh, stuff.

So, can anyone explain to me why I have so much of it and why I'm currently Christmas shopping for more?

Christmas Cards

I'm doing my Christmas cards tonight. I've done uh, eleven.

I have only about fifty to go.

Sigh.

Yes, I still write Christmas cards. I make my kids sign their name to each one and I enclose pictures of my trio with them too.

Why?

Right now, I have no idea.

I'm noticing that every year I get fewer cards in the mail too. Maybe I'm receiving less because I'm offending people. Who knows? But really I think it's because they take so much time to do.

Personally, I love getting Christmas cards in my mail box. Not via my in-box but through the real mail system, the one that requires a stamp. 

But I also must admit that I find it a total pain in the tush to get the cards out - it's expensive too.

Still, I always try to get my sixty or so cards out on December 11th, as this seems to get all my cards to everyone, even those in Europe, by Christmas. I have two days to go.

So, tonight I am going to try and get about half of the cards done. I figure I'll be done by about midnight.

And yes, the e-mailed computerized holiday cards are starting to look better and better right about now. Actually, they're looking really good but I've already bought these pretty 'send in the mail' type cards so I've gotta use them.

I'm off to get a hand cramp.

Sigh.

Guilty Mama

Tonight I watched my kids put up our outdoor Christmas lights.

They did it by flashlight because by five o'clock here it's already dark.

We are a little behind on our Christmas decorating this year.

I am however happy that the outdoor decorations are finally accessible. It took me an hour but I did manage to get them out from behind all the renovation debris.

I dug the Christmas decorations out while I was waiting for the furnace guy to drop by and take all our money fix the furnace. The good news is we have heat again tonight.

Still, I'm behind. I'm hoping to catch up this weekend. The renovation to the house should be done by Saturday and I plan on spending the weekend cleaning and decorating.

I also need to finish the Christmas cards and start some baking.

I've got some shopping to do too.

I should also get out and buy some wrapping paper and start wrapping presents.

How long is it until Christmas anyways?

Do I need to start panicking now or can I still wait a few more days?

Let me know.

It's cold here

I am cold.

I live in Canada and it is December and our furnace decided not to work tonight.

I am cold. Did I mention that already?

We called the furnace man to come and fix the furnace but because it is Sunday night, the fee he wanted to come tonight was enough to feed my family for about a month.

So, instead of fixing the furnace we are putting extra blankets on our beds tonight and we're having the furnace guy come over in about eight hours for a more reasonable cost.

I should have stayed in the line-up at Toys R Us, the wait was ridiculous but at least it was warm.

Gonna get it?

They have something at our local Toys R Us called, 'Gotta Get it Deals'.

One of today's one hour 'deals' is a toy that youngest daughter has on her Christmas list.

I'm thinking about donning my battle gear and charging into our local Toys R Us today to try and get it for her.

Yep, it's Saturday.

Yep, it's nineteen days before Christmas.

If I don't return in a few days, can someone please send my husband and kids an e-mail as to where to look for me? Oh, and I might still be in line waiting to pay so could you ask them to bring a sandwich for me too?

Thanks.

Shoot

I bought chocolate last week. The chocolate was supposed to be used to fill the kid's advent calendar

The problem with this?

I ate it.

Can I put a cereal bar in an advent calendar instead?

Probably not.

Hmmm.This is worse than me forgetting about the tooth fairy. This time there are three kids expecting me to have put something in that advent calendar's little pockets.

But I have nothing. Nope, nothing to put in those cute little pouches that my kids check every morning on their way down to breakfast.

And, it's only the fifth day.

Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

I did however get to the bank machine today.

Do you think they'll settle for a twenty dollar bill instead of candy?

Parlez-vous francais?

My youngest daughter was the 'announcer' for her school's assembly today. She did a great job.

To be announcer at assembly you stand in front of the entire school and ask everyone to stand for the national anthem. You then ask students to come forward if they have a birthday or special announcements to give and you introduce the students who will be telling jokes, quotes and giving the sports, news and weather information. You also introduce the children who will be giving special music or drama performances.

It's a great way for the entire school body to come together every morning for fifteen minutes and, because the children take turns preparing for the assembly, it also gives all the children valuable public speaking experience.

Today however was Wednesday, which is the day that the assembly is run in Canada's official other language - or Canada's other language for my family. Today my youngest did all the announcements and introductions in French.

I don't speak French very well.

Apparently however my daughter does. Like I said, she did a great job and I am proud of her but I'm also now sorta worried.

I mean, I really didn't follow a lot of what my child said.

So, tonight I'm sitting here wondering exactly what it was that she did say. 

Should I be worried that I don't understand my eight year old? Should I be concerned that it's possible that my third grader is already smarter than I am?

I feel like I'm kinda in trouble over here.

Sigh.

I'm trying over here...

I found a job advertised on-line that I think I'm going to apply for. I have until Friday to send in an application.

I spent all last night working away on my resume.

Don't ask how that went.

Why is writing a resume so hard?

I mean, we all know that I'm fabulous and that anyone would be crazy not to hire me, so why is that so hard to capture on paper?

Sigh.

This is why I'm a writer, I love the thrill of trying to pin down the unexplainable, the excitement of trying to find the perfect word to convey one's exact feelings. I live for the ecstasy of finding that exact spin of a phrase that succinctly sums up my emotions.

Either that or I'm a nut case.

I'll let you decide.

Canadian Politics

I'm not a huge political person but I must say tonight I'm completely frustrated with my government and I'm not even sure I fully understand what just happened today. 

Does my vote mean nothing?

And why do I have such a bad feeling about all this, especially in these turbulent economic times?

I'm off to read the news...again.

If someone 'gets' this, please feel free to explain it to reassure me.

Sigh.

I'm really really behind on this one

A few ladies in the blogosphere have been reaching out to me and I'm behind in responding.

Sorry.

First of all, I've been blessed with a few awards.

Thank you Mary Lynn over at Riding in a Hand-basket for this award. I'm hooked on your blog too. If you want to see a funny picture go over to her blog today - there's the best family Christmas photo ever there!

And then there's this one...

Thank you Carol from over at She Lives. I'm glad you find my blog cool, can you please inform my kids that something about me is cool? I think your blog is VERY cool too and I appreciate the award.

Finally,

 

I got this sparky award from April over at Doin' the Working Mom Thing. April inspires me and I'm glad I can make her smile once in a while too. Thanks April!

Oh, and I've also been tagged by Janice at  Mom on the Run  and she asked me to fill out a questionnaire that has like a gazillion questions.  Ack!  There were just too many questions so I'm going to give her the Butterfly award instead. Janice, this one is for you! Thanks for giving me a great read each and every day. I think your blog is cool and I think since it's getting cold in Toronto you need a butterfly. Please keep him warm.

That's it.

If you have tagged me or left me an award, and I think I have forgotten one or two, please e-mail me or comment. I'm bad at remembering these things.

Now I'm off to the store to get some new Christmas lights. I can't let Tired Papa off the hook that easily. There's a winter storm warning out today too so I think it's the perfect time to get out and hang up some outdoor decorations. Right?

I'll make him some hot chocolate while I wait for him to finish.