Lies we tell ourselves

AKA New years resolutions.....

Does anyone really believe they will stick to their resolutions?  I mean I know we do at the time, at that exact second we are saying them and they sound so good, at midnight on the 31st when under the influence of whatever alcohol we have consumed, we say this year I will run a marathon, I will start eating more healthy food, lots of vegetables and non processed stuff.  Then we wake up hours later and ask ourselves WTF?
A marathon, I can barely make it downstairs to the kitchen, and I think someone needs to get the dead rat out my mouth first!  Also I need fried food asap, or perhaps a big Mac for breakfast with a chocolate milkshake, yes definitely a chocolate milkshake.   And that's as far as our resolution goes.

Image by Tink...B

Perhaps it's that we try too hard to set something that sounds impressive?  We are celebrating with friends and when they ask,  it seems to lame to say the things you know you will do, so you sprout off  something that is going to wow them, to make them think whoa, she really has her shit together.  Then the reality that you are just as fucked up as the next person hits sometime in the first few days of the new year.   Maybe we should be setting the bar lower.  Something like, this year I will read to the kids every day, nah  seriously, whom I kidding,  it needs to be even lower than that!  This year I will wake up and eat a meal every day, or this year I will drink more red wine 'cause it's good for my cholesterol.  Now those are some resolutions I  can keep!  Maybe even,  this year I will try to do the laundry and have a clean lot ready before we all run out of underwear....ok, but let's not push our luck here.  Ooh.... I know, this year I resolve not to be a perfectionist, done, done and done!


That being said, I do have some grand resolutions for this year that I am going to put out there on this blog, and I have not been drinking (well not too much), and I have had some time to think these through.  Tonight I agreed to run a 5km race this next year with someone, so that is one, and the other is to get to my goal weight this year.  That's another 25 lbs or so away, but considering this past year I got rid of 40, I think I can do this. 

Of course the laundry and waking up every day sound pretty good ones to make too,...along with perhaps not smothering DH in his sleep when he is snoring like a buzz saw next to me like he is presently! 

.....it's been 10 minutes since I typed the above sentence and I take it back, I don't think DH is going to make it into the new year, I am about to encourage the monster dog to go and sleep on his face.

Update on the aftermath

Stuff has been tidied, not very well, but it's all  in piles and has been moved around a little.

I spoke to soon, the monster dog has eaten at least two gifts but we did find the elusive bone.

The scarf knitting is going well, encouraged by Princess, but with little enthusiasm to do it herself.  She is plenty enthusiastic about all the other craft stuff she got, and has opened every packet/bag she could find, mixed everything up and tried to make something with a few pieces from each.  The kitchen table looks like crafts gone wild. 

I only gained 3 lbs not 6, I guess the 5 km run I did on monday night helped a little.

We are still eating turkey, I think I am going to try and make turkey pot pie tonight and use the last of it.  DH returned to work today.....he is going to love me so much when he opens his lunch and finds another turkey sandwich there. 

We got snow last night, it looks really pretty clinging to the trees and with a fresh white coat on everything,  yay, the kids can use their sleds that they got for Christmas.  But wait, Diggle is sick, a fever for the second day in a row.  Oh well I guess we can sit inside
 and watch the snow melt instead.  

Image by MakuKulden

Oh and most precious, Diggle is a man in training, he suffers sickness just like a man.  That's right it's a case of mini man flu.  He moans, he groans, he throws his body onto the nearest soft surface (usually me) and thrashes his limbs.  If anything, this has proved to me that man flu is not a result of how they are raised, but rather something inbred into their DNA.  
I am medicating the fever, and resisting the urge to medicate myself with the leftover eggnog, it is only 10am and I am at home alone with the kids, also if the man flu gets any worse I may have to run him to the clinic and you cant do that while self medicating, maybe tonight though.

I am off to shovel the driveway and clear the snow, maybe that will work out some of my frustrations, and some of the 3 lbs of turkey and chocolates.

The aftermath of Christmas

Image by Emily.Bluestar

You realize just how much you love your family, yes, you really do, I'm going to keep telling myself that, over and over again.

The house looks like Santas workshop exploded and the cleaning elves have gone on strike.

Diggle is happily playing at the table with princesses Polly pocket gift and Princess wants to open and play with anything of Diggles that he is not ready to use yet.  The Princess seems to think that Santa dropped the ball as he forgot to bring her a "monster high doll", but Santa truly did not see that on the list. 

Princess has been asking for the last 6 months to learn how to knit, so Santa brought her some knitting needles and yarn.  She has now decided it is too hard, and I should knit the scarf for her.....looks like I have a new hobby.  It is extremely therapeutic, surprisingly so, and I dont think it has anything to do with wielding dangerously sharp instruments and picturing the damage they could inflict to who ever is annoying me at the time. 

I have gained 6 lbs in two days.....yes, you read that right, 6 lbs!  I am so looking forward to my official weight being recorded tomorrow.  Maybe if I drown myself in water and run 20 km today it will only be 5 lbs by tomorrow.  On the bright side I have a lovely new iPod nano for running with, thanks DH.  Now if I had the energy to use it all would be good. 

We just ate lunch, toasted turkey and mayo sandwiches, tonight is roasted turkey and veg reheated.  I think I had better freeze some before I am all turkeyed out.  

The biggest Christmas miracle so far is that monster dog has not eaten any of the gifts yet (that I have found).  Although the rather large bone Santa gave her has disappeared, I look forward to finding that in a month or two.

So now, Christmas is over, I love Christmas, really I do, but at this stage I am thankful it is done.  I have two weeks of yelling at the kids, activities and play time with the kids till they go back to school and life returns to normal.

Roll on new year

Christmas Panic

I should be running around, in panic mode.  Something needs to be done, something urgent, before the shops close for Christmas and I run out of time.  But....I have nothing.

The gifts are all wrapped (although the monster dog did kindly unwrap one for me this morning), the baking is done,  the house just needs a little going over to clean (I am doing that today), the turkey is out defrosting, I have all the food, and the biggest miracle, the kids room is even tidy.  What am I missing, there has to be something?

Usually at this point I am stressed beyond belief, but I am remarkably calm this year.  I think I may have even told DH I love him as he left for work this morning!  Maybe I am getting sick, maybe I just want a good Christmas present!

I do have to go and buy Princess some new winter gloves as the monster dog ate one of hers last night while I was wrapping presents and not paying attention, however she can wear the spare pair for the next few days and I will take care of that after Christmas.

Tomorrow I will be in panic mode while cooking, drinking eggnog, and trying to keep the house clean until after the dinner guests arrive - think of me then.

I wish all of you, friends, family and random strangers on the internet who stumble on here, a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and joyful holiday season.

I vote we fire the fat jolly guy and hire someone like this!~
I would wait up for him on Christmas Eve!
Image by StefanWmitÖ

Elf on the shelf

Image by Micala

I know there have already been many many blogs dedicated to this dear little fellow, and a lot of them have been hysterically funny. I will quickly explain for those of you in other parts of the world.  The elf is basically a little guy who watches the kids every day and at night goes back to Santa to report on who has been naughty and who has been nice.  The adults are supposed to move said elf every night so that it looks like he made his trip and came back and found somewhere new to sit.  Some pain in the ass parents even make him do naughty and creative things around the home at night...but I ask you, who has the time?  Anyway I was pondering him again this morning after reading todays "Rants from Mommyland" blog and wondering about the merits of bribing/blackmailing  ones kids into being good for the weeks running up to Christmas.

Let me first say, I do not have an elf, and I have no intention of buying one.  Not because i dont think he is cute, he is in fact a decent enough looking ornament, but mostly because there is no way in hell I am paying $30 for an elf to blackmail my kids.  I can do that on my own thank you very much.  You see since my kids were old enough to understand Christmas we have always "emailed" our lists to Santa.  Therefore Mommy has Santas direct email and does not hesitate to threaten to use it at this time of year to report any bad behavior.  Now I don't mean the usual sibling bickering and not wanting to go to bed behavior cause really I don't have that sort of time to waste emailing Santa, I mean the bigger stuff, any temper tantrums, excessive out of the normal bad behavior, and most recently to scare Diggle out of searching the cupboards to find the presents that I happened to mention I had got for them to give to DH for Christmas. 

You may wonder why I don't just show them these gifts, and there is a good reason.  You see they only get told on Christmas morning what they are giving Daddy, as Diggle has a complete inability to keep a secret.  Even if he knows it will get him into trouble, if you tell him, it's a secret we don't have to tell dad that you broke his favorite xyz, the very first thing Diggle will do on seeing his dad is to run up and whisper the secret to him.  I have had my own presents ruined this way by him before, hence the hiding of the presents. 

So yes on pondering the merits of blackmail and bribery on your your kids I realized I do it all the time, so nothing wrong with that, but there is something wrong with having to spend $30 to get it done.   There are much easier, cheaper ways my friends, and you don't have to keep remembering to move the fucking elf every night, or wondering when the monster dog will have decided to eat him and how your kids now require years of therapy cause the dog ate Santas helper!

Work

I have had a few people say to me that I should be posting every day, but really, my life is not that interesting. Some days I wonder if it's even worth getting out of bed. Then I remember that if I don't get out of bed the kids won't go to school and I will have to look after them and entertain them. That thought alone is enough to wake me up and get me moving.

Image by RMLondon

Today over breakfast Diggle asked me when I am going back to work. We had this big conversation over the weekend about jobs people do and if Mommy works, what Mommy used to do to earn money, and ultimately what the kids would end up doing for work when they are older. The discussion somehow started due to Diggle telling Princess that Daddys did not have to help Mommys with the chores in the house! DH, I think it may be time you started considering what sort of examples you set for your kids? Also is it wrong of me to be considering emailing this post to your Mother?

I answered his question this morning with "when you are old enough to be left alone in the house after school." His look of pure delight was enough to scare the crap out of me as he grinned and said excitedly "then we can do whatever we like!". Needless to say I have now revised my thinking to only return to work once the kids have moved out of home!

Princess says she does not want to get a job ever, she either wants to be a princess (good luck with that) or she just wants to be a mommy, um sure sweetie try telling that to the boys you date when you are older, yes please do, I'm serious, it should alleviate a lot of problems for your Dad and I when you reach the dating years.

Diggle has been through a lot of options, he wanted to be a singer, a dancer, stay at home with me, test computer games (he really liked this option and would be scarily good at it), and yesterday after our discussion on what jobs people in our family do, he decided he wants to fix animals like his cousin.

In truth, I dont mind what my kids become as long as it's not homeless street people, and they earn enough that they can support themselves and not leach off me.

Of course if they can support me through old age thats an added bonus too.

Housecleaning

The bane of my existence.  DH has on more than one occasion told me that I am not very talented in this skill.  I have told him he is welcome to find somewhere else to live, alternatively I have also encouraged polygamy (it is all the rage with all the TV reality shows), but only if his second wife cooks and cleans.

I truly don't understand how people even manage to keep their houses tidy, let alone clean.    Well maybe if there were just two adults it would be easier, but even then I sucked at the job.  With two kids and the monster dog, there is always the look of that freshly brewed tornado.  There are either toys strewn over the floor, or something that the dog has chewed and left little bits of scattered all over the room.  The latest craze of the monster is to burrow into the couch and knock all the pillows and cushions off onto the floor.   If I want my house to even resemble tidy I would need to be constantly picking things up or yelling at kids.  Sometimes it's easier to just overlook the mess and have a drink. 

Image by: thierry bonot 

However today I have resigned myself to the fact that it is time to clean up.  DH is going to go and do his usual panicked last minute Christmas shopping spree, I will put a movie on for the kids and I will clean.  I will vacume, I will wash floors, I will dust but I will not clean the inside of the oven, cause that just scares me.  I am in fact hoping that one day it will self destruct and I can have an excuse to get a better one with the self cleaning function. 

Once the cleaning is done I may need to make a batch of my homemade eggnog  to drive the horror of my day away, and if DH decides to comment on my lack of abilities in the cleaning department he will see a definite lack of abilities in a certain other department.

Who knows he may even need to find somewhere else to live.

Holiday concerts and other shenanigans

I was told my last post was far to serious and apparently it is my duty to write light hearted funny stuff to entertain you all.  Seriously, where am I going to find material like that?

I could start by telling you how monster dog ate through the wires to our Christmas tree lights and nearly electrocuted Diggle and I, not to mention the risk of burning the house down.  Then I had to sew the straps of Princesses only decent pair of black shoes together for the Holiday concert, do you need to be told what happened to the straps?  Yes monster dog again!

 Image by: t2ll2t 

The kids were both in the choir and sang their little hearts out.  The school has an extreme drummers group which performed and were excellent, all in all not a bad concert as far a school concerts go (read this to mean we did not have to sit through hours and hours of torture).

The part of the concert that had me holding my breath the whole time was that Diggle was standing on the risers on stage, he was second from the end on his row and the boy next to him was a young kid with downs syndrome.  He was thoroughly enjoying singing in the choir, he loved the music and was throwing his head around and clapping his hands.  It was great to see him enjoying it, if I had not been worried about one of two things happening.  I feared that Diggle was either going to get an elbow to the face, or lose it and push the kid off the riser for being bumped too often.   As it turned out he kept his cool, even when he got head butted, yes it actually happened and it was sore.  He just kept singing and shed a little tear to me afterwards.  I was a very proud Mommy.

Of course this raised the question, how do you explain Downs, or special needs to a 6 year old, as afterwards he was telling me how naughty the boy is for not sitting still etc, and I tried, but nothing I could think of in the moment seemed like the right way to put it, so that conversation is still one we need to have.


Christmas is in a week  (like we need to be reminded!) and I have a list of things to do a mile long.  I still have gifts to get, parties to go to, baking to do and I need to do an almighty house clean before I have guests for dinner on Christmas eve.  I seem to turn into a grinch around now as the stress starts to get to me,  I politely tell those people who cannot drive in the mall parking lots to go and have intercourse with themselves and mutter things that should not be said in front of kids a little too loud.  I know that by the time Christmas eve rolls around I will be happy and loving the season, it's just the two weeks leading up to it that make me want to drink all the egg nog.  Oh and that is something I do like, my homemade egg nog.  It's like a little (or big in my case) glass of heaven.  Also if you drink too much of it, it just may get you to heaven faster, it has eggs and cream and sugar and brandy and rum.....mmmmmmm, my cholesterol levels love it!   But oh, yes remember the diet?  I wonder how far I would have to run just to get rid of one glass of the stuff?  I am betting about 10km, maybe I will lay off the egg nog this year! 

All in all probably the funniest thing this week was the look on my friends husbands face when we were video chatting and she handed him her iPad and said show her your cock dear.   Notice how I omitted your name here!   Aren't I a good friend? 

On that note it's time for bed.....goodnight world.

Emotions

The post below is a bit of a rambling, but I decided to post it anyway, so bear with me ;)
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While Catching up on  a friends blog  she posed a question on emotions triggering memories.  What emotions stay with you, what, when you have forgotten all else about a situation can bring that memory back and replay it in your head like a movie.
It got me to thinking about the strongest emotions for me, and the ones that came straight to mind are those of fear, pride and love.

I am an extremely fearful person, ha, I bet a lot of you never saw that coming - or maybe you know me too well and know that my over planning is a result of this.  DH will readily attest to this.  I fear the unknown, I fear not being in control.  I plan, I analyze, I make lists, I print maps when going new places, (ok not so much now that my phone has the handy GPS app), but I still double check my route and commit it to memory before I leave the house.  I feel the incessant need to double check times of appointments and overanalyze conversations.  Hell  on re-reading this, maybe I am just insecure and neurotic?
Anyway back to fear, I can vividly remember the times in my life when I have been afraid, and I'm not talking monsters under the bed afraid - although I vividly remember that too. When I think of fear I remember being chased by dobermins as a child, the shear terror.  I remember the pounding of my heart when I could not find my family and realized I was lost at the shops, and then when older and a parent, the fear of realizing one of your kids is missing.  Of course there are more memories that it triggers, but I  can't write down some of the things I remember as a result of this emotion of fear.  You see I  have admitted to only a handful of people the things I did to put myself in those situations, we'll chalk it up to being young and stupid, and I will say I am both glad and lucky to be alive.  Also, I could not possibly post it on here, someone from my family may read this and tell my Mom, and yes I may be 40 years old but I do still fear my Mom!


Thinking about pride, I have a few things in my life I am proud of accomplishing, one of the major things being my Diving training, I went from a kid who was scared of going into any body of water due to sharks (thanks jaws) to being a divemaster, leading dives and helping to train new divers.  It's the one thing that totally insecure little old me knew I was good at, and am extremely proud both of the fact that I overcame my fear and of a job I did well.   We all like to feel pride of a job well done, of being recognized for being good at your job and for being made to feel valuable.  Pride is a funny emotion for me, we were raised so completely different to the North American model of teaching your kids that they are the best and can do anything.  School to me, beat down most of the pride I had in myself, after all we were taught, "pride comes before a fall".  We were taught to be modest, to respect even if respect was not due and I think caused a lot of self doubt.


Love, ah that wondrous feeling of a new love, that teenage crush, of never wanting to wait another second to see them, not wanting to hang up the phone, everyone remembers that and everyone, well I hope everyone has experienced the butterflies of new love.  When I think of love, my thoughts go straight to the people in my life I could not live without, to family, friends, those that are essential to keeping me sane (and sometimes to blame for making me lose my mind).
Of course this poses the question of how do you know you really love someone?  The best description I have ever heard to answer this  is: when their pain is your pain.  When those you love are in pain, whether it is physical or emotional,  you feel it yourself, you would do anything to remove it including taking it yourself if you could.                                          
                                                


Well this post has gotten way too deep and philosophical for me, time to end it and go back to my mundane existence, I am sure the kids need food or the dog needs to be let outside to pee by now.

Let me introduce you to My family

DH (dear husband) when asked how long we have been together always answers with "too long" and sometimes it does feel that way!  We met when I was just 16, a sweet young girl, ok those who knew me at 16 may disagree with the sweet part there; I was a rebel, a terror to have as a daughter who sometimes wore my hair in a Mohawk, dressed in all black and was nicknamed coffin kid.  I would sneak out my bedroom window to go clubbing, and meet up with much older friends who were already in university.  My mother always said meeting DH actually calmed me down, I think she just felt that way because she now knew who I was with.  Anyway I digress, DH and I met when I was 16 and he was 21, however  we only had kids 6 years ago.  Miraculously we have survived these first 6 years of being parents and can only pray we survive the next 14 or so as well.

The kids:, for the purpose of the blog as I have stated before, I will not be naming names to protect the guilty.  I have 6 year old twins, a boy and girl.  We will call them Diggle (boy) and Princess (girl), well you have to admit it would be a little odd if we called the boy princess, no?  They are good kids, I would not have survived if they were not, they are each others best friend and worst enemy all rolled into one package. 

We have a dog, the monster dog.  She is a little black and tan cocker-poo, with the most adorable face, (black with little tan eyebrows).
Its a wonder really that she is still alive, she has lived with us for a year now, and in that time has eaten many, many shoes, drank paint, eaten toothpaste, glue, muscle rub ointment and countless toys. 
She is a menace, a loving adorable menace who I love dearly half the time and wish I could quietly dispose of her body the other half.   She loves me, and I mean really LOVES me, I cannot sit down without her sitting on my lap, on my feet or pressing herself into my side. She will leave me alone if there is a friend/stranger in the house, then she will want to be jumping at them, trying to get attention from them or eating something of theirs like shoes or a handbag!  I am told she will grow out of this, I hope it's soon!



Well that is my little family, I am positive you will hear plenty more of them in the future posts on here.

Welcome to my new blog

Welcome to my 1st post on my new blog, I will start by saying that names are going to be altered to protect the guilty, hmmm, maybe I mean the innocent, ....nope pretty sure I mean the guilty, so no-one will be outed on here,you can all relax. However if you know me, then you should be able to figure out who I am talking about in my posts ;)

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The other night I went out for dinner with my SA girls, a group of girls who have all immigrated to Canada from South Africa.  We share similar backgrounds and it's nice to have people in your life who get where you come from and what your past experiences are.  My friend C suggested I start blogging hence THIS.   My first post on Fuck I'm 40!  Yep, so named because I hit the big 4-0 this year and it has actually changed my life.

In February this year I realized I was in imminent danger of turning 40 and so my mid life crisis started.

I was struck by the fact that your stereotypical mans midlife crisis is usually to 1. run off with a sexy (perhaps younger) woman, or
2. buy an expensive car to feel better about themselves, so I felt that as far as mid life crises go, mine was a pretty good one to have, although kind of similar in some aspects to a mans.  My goal, I wanted to recapture my youth, feel better about myself and get back to being sexy.

Married for forever with 6 year old twins (more about that life in future posts) I had lost the plot somewhere along the line.  The body had gone to....well it had just gone!  It's nearly the end of the year now and I can proudly say 40 lbs down and I am a different person.  I am back to a size 12, and still working on it.

I  will admit that I turned 40 a few months ago and am so far enjoying it, but I thought I would share a quick post I did on my weight loss board the day before I hit that milestone, as it pretty much sums up my year...


"Well I turn 40 tomorrow, I always thought I would dread this day, instead I find myself looking forward to tomorrow, and to the party we are having on Saturday night.

I thank Weight watchers for some of that. I am nearly 18 lbs down and I like who I see when I look in the mirror, especially since I know its only going to get better. Who knew, at the age of 40 I am going to look the best I have done in years!

The other reasons I guess that I am not dreading the significant change of decade is that I actually like my life. I have some pretty awesome friends, amazing family and in general I am happy with where I am. It has taken me a long time to accept that I live far far away from my immediate family, and to make peace with that. But I feel like its done, this is my home now, this is what I know and where I want to be right now.
I like myself, I like my friends, I like who I have become as I have grown up......I even like my 6 month old puppy today (which takes a bit of doing when you know how many times she has peed and pooped on the floor, and the amount of things she has eaten!)

I think 40 is going to rock!!"