Tired Mama.com

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree - your ornaments are history.

Why yes, that is in fact our cat's butt backside behind sticking out of our Christmas tree.

Sigh.

Smack me

Climate change is at a crisis point.

Millions of children around the world are living below the poverty line.

Babys are being aborted because their parents cannot afford to raise them.

Our hospitals are full of people who are injured or terminally ill.

Um, and here?

I'm fussing because I can't get my Christmas garland to hang properly on the stairs.

Oy.

Advent Calendars are evil

Advent calendars are evil.

Yes, they are.

Why? Well, they are evil mainly because they cause stress.

Every time I look at our advent calendar I am reminded of how few days there are left before Christmas and then I start to panic about everything that still needs to be done. 

Advent calendars = Stress = Evil.

I also made the mistake of buying one of those pretty little advent calendars that you can fill yourself.

3 kids + 25 advent calendar pockets to fill = 75 things = More Stress = Evil.

Yes, I have to come up with seventy-five different things to put in the advent calendar every December. On top of the stockings, presents, cooking, cleaning, card writing, decorating, visiting, celebrating and gosh knows what else, I also have to come up with seventy-five love notes, chocolates or small toys to fill the stupid advent calendar with.

I don't have time for all of this.

It's evil, I tell you.

Eeeeevil.

It's beginning to look a little like...

It's the first of December.

So far this month?

I've already killed a poinsettia by over watering it. Seriously, it's December 1st, isn't there a law or something that says you can't kill a poinsettia the first week you get it?

Secondly, I forgot to fill the advent calendar before the kids came down this morning. Sorry, guys.

And finally? The cat is eating the Christmas village. It seems our kitten likes the taste of those little green plasticy-woody pretend tree things. All of my little village trees have tiny cat bites out of them now, it's like something out of an old Japanese monster movie. If they could, all the little village ceramic people would be running away and hiding.

Oy.

Can we just skip through to January? I'm not sure I want to continue preparing for Christmas if this is the way things are going to go.

Sigh.

You only have two feet....

Can shoes breed?

I'm starting to think so.

They must.

It's the only reason I can come up with to explain why we have so many darn shoes in my house.

I've decided they must be genetically programmed to breed, multiple and then run around my house and plant themselves in the middle of hallways.

It's not just one breed either, the wayward shoes in my house are of different sizes, shapes, colours and many even have weird things attached to them - like uh, cleats.

Shoe racks don't seem to contain these pests. These vermin are taking over my house and I don't like it.

I'm thinking about setting traps.

Will that work? Oh, but if I set them free once I catch them, will they just scatter again?

Darn kids shoes.

Sigh.

Roses are red...

We live close enough to the small center of our town that I sometimes let my twelve year old son bike or walk with a group of his friends downtown to get ice cream.

Last weekend they stopped on the way home and picked up hamburger buns at the bakery for me. So, this weekend I asked my son and his buddies to stop at the fruit stand and buy me some flowers.

Yep, flowers. I asked four twelve year old boys to stop and pick up flowers.

They were quite willing to run the errand since I was paying for the ice cream, but  they weren't that sure on how to buy the flowers.

'What kind of flowers?' one asked.

'Do we have to pick them?' asked another.

'How do you buy flowers at a fruit market?' asked the third.

My son, who has picked out many flowers for our kitchen table in the past, simply wanted to know what colour I wanted.

So, off the boys went and a short time later they returned with lovely yellow tulips for my kitchen table.

Perfect.

Then today I went into the fruit shop to pick up some things. The lovely lady who works there was happy to tell me that she had seen my son and his friends come in to the market to buy flowers on the weekend.

She also told me that the boys had declined her offer to help them pick out the flowers and had only smiled when she accused them of buying the flowers because they were in trouble for something.

She had then proceeded to ask the boys if the girl they were buying the flowers for was pretty. She reported that my son had answered, 'yeah, she's not bad'. Now this woman wanted to know who the lucky recipient of the flowers was.

Uh, that would be me.

But, not bad? My son thinks I'm 'not bad' looking?

I can't decide whether to be insulted or simply amused. I am, after all, his mother and he is twelve. I can't help but wish he would still think I'm beautiful like he did when he was two years old, but at least he's not telling the lady that I'm coyote ugly.

So, if you'll excuse me I'm going to go and smell my tulips. The ones my son bought for me.

Thanks, buddy.

Pick again

My youngest is now nine.

Over the past few months she's started to make some rumblings about the state of her room. It seems she's no longer happy to have pink and purple fairies dancing around in there with a big pink crown as a head board.

My youngest seems to no longer think that she is a princess. Go figure.

So, we've picked out a new bedding set.  This one:

It's cute, bold and tweenish. I think it'll work for a few years.

I also agreed to paint her room. 'What colour do you want it to be?' I asked carelessly.

When she asked for my opinion, I told her to pick a colour from the comforter cover. I suggested pink or purple or green or even yellow.

But what does she want?

Black.

Shiny black, please.

Uh, no.

Sigh.

Can I borrow a shovel?

It's Monday morning.

On Monday mornings I spend a fair amount of time tidying up my house. I do it because it allows me to avoid working and because, after the weekend, my house REALLY needs to be dug out from under all the crap that got thrown at it while my kids and hubby were home full time.

This morning's task is going to be to try and find my kitchen table.

I have a new kitchen table arriving in November but I still need to use my current one for dinner tonight. Right now I can't even see it because it is piled full of papers, bags of apples, dishes and goodness knows what else that my beloved family heaped on it over the weekend.

My goal is to get it dug out by dinner time.

I have two large garbage bags and an empty dishwasher so I'm hopeful.

After that I need to clean out my fridge.

No wonder people hate Mondays.

Sigh.

Trashy Entrance R Us

The snow is melting and out my window I can now see our lovely browny-yellow coloured lawn.

I also noticed today that our Christmas garland is sitting in a heap beside the front door, up until today it couldn't be seen as it was covered in snow.

The wreath I had hanging on my front door blew away sometime over the last week.

The metal bench that sits on my front porch started to rust this winter too.

So, come on over everyone, because you know nothing says welcome to guests better than dead grass, decaying evergreen ropes and rusty furniture.

Sigh.

I guess I now have a spring project, or two.

Oh, and spring? Please hurry.

What made me smile today

As I was waiting for my youngest to finish her dance class today I wandered into a gift shop at the local mall.

There was a sign in there for a baby's room that read,

'Before I had you I never knew how much I could love and how little I could sleep.'

I think that sums up being a new mother quite nicely.

All the wrong stuff

The last few days I've been busy finding stuff and finding places to put stuff.

I also have a large amount of Christmas stuff I need to put away.

Since my renovation ended just a week before Christmas I have a lot of rearranging to do as I haven't had the new space long enough to know how I want things arranged in it. I also put a lot of things away for the renovation that I now need to find. You know what? I just have too much stuff.

My Christmas tree filled a huge space in my newly renovated family room, but now that it's gone that room looks half empty. I need things to fill and decorate the room properly but at the same time I have too many things which all seem to be the wrong shape or the wrong colour. 

How does one go about getting rid of the wrong stuff and finding the right stuff without accumulating more stuff?

Sigh.

Is there such a thing as the stuff police, cause honestly? I surrender.

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...

The first of December

It was nice here yesterday so I suggested that it was a good day to get the outside Christmas lights up. Tired Papa hates putting up Christmas lights.

Finally, after much badgering, off went a grumpy Tired Papa to the garage to try and find the big plastic container of outdoor Christmas decorations.

He came back a brief two minutes later humming and wearing a big smile on his face.

It seems the outdoor Christmas decorations are buried in the back corner of the garage high up on a shelf and the guys doing my renovation have completely covered this corner of the garage with all the trim, wood and bits and pieces that they plan on putting back up in the house again after plastering.

It is truly impossible to get at the outdoor Christmas stuff.

But at least now Tired Papa is in the Christmas spirit.

How much extra do you think he paid our contractor to do this?

It's a bit messy

My kids were off of school on Friday and they have today off as well.

I like my kids. I like to spend time with my kids.

But it does seem that when my kids are home from school they tend to make a mess. I have Lego, doll stuff, Nintendo parts and coats all over the place.

When I mention that they should pick-up after themselves, my beloved off-spring look at me with big uncomprehending round eyes. It's like I'm talking a foreign language.

I have half my house being ripped apart for the renovations, the other half of my house is being taken over by the mess my children are making.

To be fair, I have been sorting through so many things and we've moved so much stuff around for the demolition that it is getting a little tight around here to move, never mind try to neatly entertain one's self, on a rainy day off of school.

Do you know what it's like when you're trying to sort through stuff and you've got so many piles that it looks worse than when you're started, but you know if you keep at it in the end it'll be better?

Yeah, well I'm there.

But, it's only the second week of an eight week renovation and I'm already tired of the mess and I'm tired of sorting through everything that got moved around.

I need a break.

I need chocolate and wine.

Yep, I do - again.

Sigh.

Snow+Catalogs=Christmas

I'm trying to clean up my house a bit today. 

There was a lot of stuff that got moved from one side of my house to the other so that our renovations could start this week. I tried to go through most of it but honestly? After a few days I just got tired and over whelmed.

Today I'm back at it.

Today is also garbage day in my town so I'm trying to lug as much paper as I can out to my recycling paper boxes before they get picked up. I can't believe how much paper advertising I've kept over the last few months.

As I'm working away at this, in the other half of my house, separated from me by a thin plastic sheet, there are three young guys ripping up floors and walls. My house is literally cut in two.

So as I sort today, I have the added bonus of a light dusting of white drywall dust settling on me.

Sigh.

It's snowing in my house. That and all these catalogs has now got me thinking about Christmas shopping. I need to start that soon too.

I am so not ready for any of this.

Tossing. Paper, not cookies.

I did a brave thing today.

I took the HUGE pile of papers, mail and kid's stuff that was sitting on my kitchen counter and I threw the whole thing in the recycling bin.

I didn't even sort through it to make sure I wasn't throwing out money or anything, I just carried it all out to the blue box in the garage and tossed the whole pile. It took me two trips to haul everything out there.

I carried on into the family room and tossed out all the papers and magazines I found in there too.

Toss. Toss. Toss.

It was invigorating.

I love a good clean up.

Hey, did you know that my kitchen counter tops are made of black stoney stuff with tiny colored specks in it?

I hadn't remembered that either. It's amazing what you find when you clean up. 

Fall Funk

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

 

When we were away on vacation we didn't get a lot of rain.

That was good for the vacation but bad for my planters. I didn't get anyone to water them while we were away and now they look well, dead.

I am now thinking that I need to get out to the garden center and maybe pick up some 'fallish' looking things for the flower pots I set out beside my front door.

Does this mean summer is really over?

Am I supposed to be ready for autumn?

Sigh.

It's only September 5th and I miss summer already.

Ooooh.

I went out and bought a new desk a few weeks ago. (Yes, this is the catalog picture of it. I should grab the camera and take a picture of my own, but I'm feeling lazy tonight.)

Oh, and no, I didn't get the chair, the pattern looks much nicer in the picture than it does in person. The desk though? I LOVE the desk.

Hubby went and picked it up for me on Saturday.

It's big and white and has nothing on it right now but my laptop.

I could get used to having a clean desk.

Reality?

Give me about a week before I can't see the surface again.

Sigh.

Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs.

I spotted this sign in a hotel gift shop. I didn't buy it, as I'm trying to get stuff OUT of my house not haul more stuff in, but it is just so perfect that maybe I should have spent the $14.99.

I wonder if it would work as a blog banner?

Wondering

****************************************************************

So, tell me something.

There's a little stone sign for sale in my town gift shop that reads, "Don't piss off the fairies".

In my mind it just cries out to be put in my garden beside plants like this one.

What do you think?

Is the whole idea funny, vulgar or just sorta pathetic?

Be kind.

Pretty red uh, flower.

For those of you who are horticulturally savoy, I have a flower in the back yard that we call 'the red flower that Robbie really likes'. Anyone know what it's really called? No, there's no punch line - I really do want to know. 

That's a picture of it up there. I have lots and lots of them. They are tall and leggy and well, I think they're trying to take over.

That's only one small section of what we've got growing here and yes, I am horticulturally challenged.

I'm also quite possibly photograhically challenged, it took me about eight tries to get this picture, but we won't go there today.

Any help in identifying it/them would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, if it's a weed? Don't tell me.

Home Sweet Home

Does anyone else buy or borrow home decorating magazines? I do.

I ooh and I ahhh over the nice layouts and the fancy furniture. The beautifully matched curtains, the faux painted walls and the hardwood floors with expensive area rugs all make my heart beat a little faster. I dream about what my house could look like.

Now I have lived in a lot of houses over the years, and some of them have been very nice. I've painted and decorated and tried to pull a 'room together' to resemble those that I see in the magazines. In my house however no matter how hard I try something always gets in the way.

When my kids were little I used to joke that I decorated in Fisher Price and Little Tykes primary colors. I had toys every where and while I like to think I had a fun and funky child friendly look going, I think what I really had was just one big mess.

The house we're living in right now has sticky kitchen floors, unwashed windows, finger print smudged walls, and books, papers and kid crap strewn EVERYWHERE. I live in a junk filled dump.

This morning I was looking through some home magazines in preparation for a house renovation we will begin in the spring. I was dreaming of the shiny wood floors, the new kitchen with shiny appliances and the lovely stone fireplace we will add.

I'm wondering if I can call the magazine people and have them come in the minute the renovation is done and take a few pictures. I don't expect them to publish what we've created in a magazine but I would like a copy so I can remember the dream that I will have for oh, maybe half a day? Then my family will actually LIVE in the new space and it will become a junk filled dump again.

Which I guess means this time next year I'll still be buying magazines.

Sigh.