If your entire cell system renews itself every 7 years....

Is that why some marriages suffer the seven year itch?  Does that mean that we should renew our vows every seven years just to make sure we're still on board, agreeing to the same things we agreed to at the first marriage?  

Wait, what?  When did I agree to that?  Oh, no you don't...take that out, and then we'll renew this contract...I mean vows.  Yes...our vows.

Does that mean that I have to wait another 5 years before my body hits another multiple of seven, and therein I might receive the hourglass figure I want, without having to work for it?  I don't care about my weight, I'll keep that, whatever.  Just move my spare tire to my hips and my chin to my boobs and I'll be all set.  Nothing else should move though.  I don't want cankles.

Or is a slow process that happens over the seven years?  Does that mean that my spare tire might be slowly migrating south as we speak to join my hips and butt?  What about my chin?  Does that mean that as it's moving, I'm going to have one of those floppy turkey gobbler neck thingys for a little while?  I don't mind a double chin, on second thought.  Have you ever looked at a turkey?  I mean really looked at one.  Those poor birds have got to be the most disturbing piece of work I've ever seen.  You think zombies are freaky?  Pah!  Whatever.  I'd take flesh eating zombies any day over a herd (herd?) of giant, non-flying, pecking, squawking, bat-shit crazy ugly birds chasing me around.

Any day.

So yesterday, the kids and I were sitting at our bar, drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream, and I asked them if they knew what zombies were.  It's always fun to hear their answers to this stuff, because you know they are hearing about this stuff in school.

Shaelin wasn't sure, but Chase said that he sort of knew.  He knew that they were green, and they walk around trying to eat brains.  Braaaaainz.

Shaelin interjected to say that she had seen something like that, on tv, except he was wrapped in toilet paper.

Chase said that that was a Mommy, but they were only from the pyramids, because when people died, their friends would wrap them in toilet paper, and stick them in the pyramids and that's where they would live, trying to find brains to eat.

Sounds legit.

The conversations I have with the kids are usually hilarious and insightful at the same time, and I often wonder what they take away from them.  I always try to be as honest as I can, and answer them in anything they ask me.  But only give them just enough information to answer it, and not offer any extra.  Especially with Shaelin, because that child will ask you questions, on top of questions, on top of questions.  Until eventually I hear myself saying, "Ok, mommy is done talking now.  Why don't you go play now.  Please.  Now."

She asked me a few weeks ago where babies come from.  

Da Da daaaaa.

We were sitting to the table, and Darren was sitting on the couch trying to activate all his super powers to make himself disappear into the sofa, or at least be invisible, and I had to field it myself.

So, being as honest as I could, I explained how babies grow inside their mother's belly.  Then she interjects, impatiently, and says, "Yes, but how to they get out of there?"

Which is thankfully the lesser of the two evil questions.   Much better than, how they got in there.

So I explained how when the baby is ready, they start trying to push their way out, and the mommy has to push them out of her vagina.  And it hurts.  A lot.  But it's worth it when the mommy sees the sweet little baby and she knows she loves her very much.

But, that's not how my kids were born.  So I have to explain about c-sections as well, and explain that the Doctor actually cut me open and hauled them out by their feet, into the cold, sterile room, and smacks them on the bum to make sure they are ok, and then staples mommy back up, and she has a lovely red scar to live with for the rest of her life.  And then maybe a second one, that's a little bit squish, causing the little belly overhanging the scar to hang a little lower on one side that the other, giving her a lopsided, goofy looking belly.

Oh, ok, I didn't say it quite like that.

But then I showed them my scars.  And the look on their faces was priceless when Shaelin, a little bit awe struck and a little bit horrified, said, "Umm, wait....we came out of there?"  

Priceless.

I'm back!

And damn, it feels good to be back and currently mostly pain free!

Still don't know what caused it all.  It may have been Parvo.  May have been viral.  May have been an allergy.  It may come back.  It may not.

Two weeks of short term disability, a pill bottle of Tordol, and a stomach flu thrown in there for good measure later, and I'm 100% again!

Ready to come back to blogging.  I missed it actually, but perhaps a little rusty!

So they caught the Boston Bomber last night.  We were watching CNN when they got him, and it felt good to be part of that.  We watched the crowd cheer as the police confirmed that it was the guy.  We watched as Anderson Cooper tried to talk over the rising sound of a mob of happy, relieved, proud Americans walked down the street toward him, cheering and chanting "USA".  We watched the President come out and talk about it, saying how as one Nation, under God, we must now pray for the families who have lost, the ones who were injured, everyone who helped, as well as the people of Texas who had the explosion this week as well with many deaths and injuries.  He named each of the Boston victims one by one, and emotion seemed to catch in his throat when he named little Martin Richard.  Then he sighed, and said, "Overall, it's been a tough week."  It's been tough to watch, too.  The world seemed to be holding it's breath, waiting for this 19 year old to be found.

This was a sickening event, to think that someone would do this.  While I will never, ever condone or offer any justification or even sympathy for this guy who did this, it makes me stop and think, that wow, he was only 19 years old, and he could show such hatred and inflict so much pain.  And they were even discussing capital punishment last night, if the guy survives.  We are not talking about an imbecile, here, this is a 19 year old who didn't make a mistake, he took a cold calculated risk, knowing the chances of getting caught, to injure people and injure a Nation.  He knew what he was doing, no doubt.  But damn, he was only 19 years old.

It was all in vain though, really, because as we have seen time and time again, these attacks on the USA do not injure the Nation, it makes them stronger.  It bonds them as one.

But it got me thinking about was the stupid shit I did at 19.  Things that now I look back on and cringe because I clearly didn't have a lick of sense.  Well, I had some.  But not a lot.  And of course, it all pales in comparison to this guy.  There really is no comparison, except that at 19, you think you are indestructible, and that the world owes you something. 

At 19, you have enough sense to know right from wrong, even if you think you can bend each side a little bit.

At 19, you think the world is your oyster, and everything revolves around you.  It is full of promise and opportunity, and you think you can't be touched.

At 19, you think that your friendships will never end, relationships will never die, and that you can always be forgiven, and given another chance.

At 19, you still think that your family are jerks. The whole lot of them.  Although they are getting better than they were three years ago, so you can keep quiet and put up with it.  What you don't realize at 19, is that your family members are not the jerks, you are, but you aren't as bad as you were at 16, so they put up with the eye rolling and attitude.  Frankly, you're a bit of an ass, at 19.

At 19, you are right on the brink of adulthood, where people expect you to start getting serious, fortheloveofGod get yourself a job, take a shower, and give up with the pot already.  (not me, just some 19 year olds in general).  And you resist that every step of the way.

Because at 19, you want to be considered an adult sometimes, but only at your convenience.  Here in Canada, you can buy beer and cigarettes and lottery Tickets at 19, and anyone who ID's you is a dumbass because CLEARLY you are of age.  So you are an adult when you are out drinking until 4 am, stumbling around and making a complete ass of yourself.  But you are still a child when someone tries to take advantage of your drunken, idiotic state, whether it be to fight, for sex, or for money. It's obviously not your fault that those things happen, you are just a child, afterall.  And you're also just a silly child when they try to wake you up in the morning, with your bloodshot eyes, and vodka morning breath, spins to knock you on your ass, and a jackhammer in your ears, to go to a family brunch at Gramma's house.  A poor pity-me child.

You're still a child when you do something wrong, and people are blaming you for something, and some of your best friends are done with putting up with your shit, (refer back to reason two, the world revolves around you), because of course, at 19, you are likely not going to take responsibility for anything that you did wrong.  You will find some lame-ass see-through escape plan, that will shift the blame off of you, and make you the innocent victim.  Or so you think.

But at 19, even with no friends, and no sense, and a boat load of ego, you are entering into adulthood, and you - only you -  are responsible for the things you do.  Some of those things will not affect you for the rest of your life.  Some of it will.  Some of those things, you will be able to forget, move past, and create a new identity for yourself.  You might have a little baggage, because as you get into your 20's, the bigger mistakes will stay with you and you won't let yourself forget them.  But you will eventually forgive yourself for some of the stupid shit you did.  You'll eventually come to terms with the fact that if you lost some friends over these idiotic 19-year-old mistakes you made, well, they may not come back.  Eventually, you can put any embarrassment behind you.

But at least you are only doing stupid shit that you can come back from, not like this Boston Bomber.  If he survives, he will (hopefully) never walk free to make the same mistakes that your average 19 year old will make.  Because at 19, he knew the consequences, and he is most definitely not a child.  He is most definitely adult enough to may the price for what he has done.

So yes, 19 means you are an adult.  Wake up and get a job.  But you are also still a child.  You are selfish, and arrogant, and self-righteous.  You're still learning life, and making mistakes.  Those are mistakes that you need to make, sometimes, in order to get the rest of your life on track.  Hopefully the mistakes that you make at 19 are ones that you won't repeat as you get over.  And, of course, at 19, you are still an ass of the finest kind, at times.

But you'll get over it.

I did.

I give Parvo the finger....

The one-finger-typing, to be exact.

It's baaaaack.

Last March I had a terrible outbreak of human Parvo, and couldn't do shit with my hands or feet.  It seems to be back with a vengeance  and getting worse.  I don't think I'll be blogging for a few days at least, but in the meantime, let me give you a link to a great article I stumbled across this morning.  Some of the comments were hilarious too, if you have a ton of time to kill because you can't really do anything else.  Like me.

Maybe they weren't that funny, it just struck me funny how random some people can be.

http://www.xojane.com/clothes/i-know-the-line-between-straight-and-plus-size-is-fictional-but-crossing-it-feels-super-real

This is a good one for all us ladies who are on the cusp between "normal" sizes and "plus" sizes.  Her third last paragraph opened my eyes to something, and I think instead of fighting against men for women's equality, we should be fighting against fashion designers for size equality.

It's called fashionism, and it's a thing now.  I just started it.

And we're all fashionistas.

Welcome to the movement.

Cheers!  Hope I'm back with you all soon!!

Finally! They wrote a song about it...

Any compliment that anyone has ever given me on my clothing has been followed by a comment from me on how much it cost and where I bought it. 

Finally my mom and my best friend intervened, and said, "Why do you do that?" 

I guess I'm just proud of my findings.

We were recently at a show, my best friend Lori, and I.  And we ran into some of her work friends.  One of the girl was only 22, and she had on a pair of killer heels.  When we complimented her, she said "Thanks!  They were only "60!"  Then she went on to say that she only tells people the price when they are cheap.

*gulp* $60 on a pair of shoes is a deal??  Well, I don't know, I think I would only wear them around my house so they wouldn't get dirty. 

So here's the thing, although her comment and my history of those remarks are very similar, there is one big difference.

She was excited to let us know that she got a good deal on a new pair of shoes in a retail store, that were on sale.  Normal, right?

I, on the other hand, am quick to let people know that I got a good deal on used clothing at a thrift shop or yard sale.  I've been known to say things like, when Lori complimented me on a pair of earrings, "Thanks!  I got them at a yard sale for 50 cents!"  Score, right?! 

The phrase "the tags were still on it!" is maybe not something that I need to brag about.

Especially when it comes in this sentence:  "It was a bit more than I planned on spending, but since the tags were still on it, I didn't mind spending the $12 bucks."

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not ashamed of my thrift shopping habits.  I live and breathe the lyrics to Maclamore's song, Thrift Shop.  (Except that I usually don't wear your granddad's clothes...they were my own grandad's clothes, and I don't have them anymore).

I think it all started for me, back in junior high.  We owned a grocery store, which, before my time, had been a store with a little bit of everything.

I used to spend hours in the basement of that store going through old boxes, finding vintage treasures before I knew vintage was even a thing.  In the 90's, the bellbottoms came back with a vengance, and I was able to pull out the real thing when it came to platform shoes.  So who the hell cared if they smelled a little moth-bally.  I was loving my shoes.

Then it happened. I found a box of my pops old bell bottom pants.  Blue bell bottom dress pants, light brown courdroy bell bottoms, I mean, holy crap.  Talk about your gold mine of vintage clothing!  I loved that stuff, and I felt like it made a statement. 

Then again, my florescent yellow jeans also made a statement, but we don't need to go there today.

That's when I discovered thrift shopping, and I think that is when I became hooked.  Then, as if that wasn't enough, my nan opened a full-time flea market when I was in grade 9, and I worked there in the spare time, furthering my love for second hand items. 

Now, my thrift shopping has totally spoiled me.  At one time it was about saving money, getting a little bit of new clothing when I couldn't really afford to go out shopping. 

Now, it's about bang for my buck.  If I go to a regular store shopping, I am still a huge bargain shopper, and try to never pay full price.  That really limits the things available to me, because of course, all the nice stuff in the good sizes are gone long before they hit the sale rack.

If I spend $100 at a regular store, I might get a couple of tops and a pair of pants. 

At the thrift shop, I walk out with 7 shirts, a dress, a pair of jeans for myself, two dresses and a top for my daughter, a couple of hoodies and a pair of PJ's for my son, a polo for my husband, a couple of scarves for myself, and a pair of rubber boots for the boy, all for $97.38.

And that's a bit of a slow day.

So I suppose I'm a little spoiled.

So Lori and my mom have told me, and they are right, to stop telling people the price of the things I buy, and instead be sercretly proud of my finds.  Good call.

So now, if you compliment me on an outfit, and I smile and look like I'm bursting to tell you something, change the subject, comment on the weather, and make a mental note to go shopping with me some day.

You're just a 8 dressed up as a 9....

My husband manages a business where he spends a lot of time by himself, serving customers.

As a result, he spends a lot of time either on the internet, finding more interesting, but mostly useless information, to store in his brain-bank.  When we first started dating, one thing that I distinctly remember, is how much random information he knew.  He knows a little bit about everything.  No matter where we were, or what we were doing, he could pull facts out of no where relating to whatever we were looking at.

My brain, on the other hand, retains next to nothing.  I only ever remember useless shit.  And then, at times when some of that useless shit might actually be relevant, even helpful, to a conversation, you can bet your ass that I'm going to get the facts backwards.

I read MacLeans magazine every week (a week after they publish, because my father-in-law gets them and then gives them to me when he's done with them).  So I learn about a lot of relevant Canadian events, science discoveries, big news-makers, and celeb information from the magazines.  But if I don't manage to somehow work that information into a conversation before the next publication comes out, it's just as well to forget about it.  Because even if I do tell a story of something I read, I will get it wrong.  Every fucking time.

So much so, that it's laughable.  Or I'll do something like this:

Darren: I read online this morning that they discovered a bunch of new planets.
Me: Yeah, I saw that in MacLeans.  Pretty cool.
Darren:  Aparently, they are only about 500 light years away [or something like that, because again, I remember jackshit, so that number is probably wrong.]
Me: (not to be outdone) Yeah, I also read that there's a guy who is trying to get a bunch of people together to fly them all to one of the planets to start a colony.
Darren:  Well actually, that guy wants to start a colony on Mars.  And it was me that told you that, yesterday.
Me: Hmph. Yeah, well, I do know that they found a planet that is made entirely of diamond.
Darren: You would remember that.

Smartass.

His newest thing is sizing up coins, looking for ones that might be worth something.

He recently acquired a Zimbabwe bill that is worth $5 billion dollars, or some ridiculous amount like that.

Or worth nothing, actually, since there was an international warning issued that says that Zimbabwe dollars will not be honoured for anything, anywhere, even in Zimbabwe, making the bill absolutely worthless, but pretty damn cool, nonetheless.

He has also found lots of coins that are full or half silver content, which he as been keeping, since the price of silver is ever rising, the value of the coins also rises.  Again, it's just kinda cool to know these things.  Well, ok, cool might be a slight exaggeration, but it is definitely interesting.

So yesterday he starts to tell me about this really awesome coin.  Well, in coin terms, it's as awesome as coins can be, really.  Apparently back in 1969, they changed the font of the date on the Canadian Dime to be smaller.  But, for the first 30 or so coins that they made, they forgot to actually change it.  So there are about 30 (estimated) large date dimes out there from 1969.  Only 20 of them have known whereabouts.  Mint, they sell for upwards of $25,000, decent condition, $10,000.

And he had one.

It was rough, but it was clearly a large date dime.  You compare it to the 1968, and the font is the same size.  Compare it to the 1969, and there is a definite, unmistakable difference.  So here we were thinking that even though it's rough, it may still be worth a couple grand, right?  Apparently there was one found that the front, with the date, was almost worn off, and the guy was getting crazy offers on this coin that was hardly readable.  Turns out it wasn't the real coin, but it still shows what people are willing to pay for this coin.

So Darren was on forums, trying to get as much info on this as possible, and we were looking for someone to be able to verify it's authenticity for us.

That's when he took a picture of his large font 1969 coin.

And the coin that, to the human eye is 1969, suddenly turned out to be 1968.

Estimated value:

Approximately ten cents.

Pillow for you...pillow for me...

I can feel myself getting a cold, but I think I might be giving it the good fight.  I am at home, getting up to clean for five minutes, sitting down for ten.

So I'm trying to make my house look like grown ups live here, instead of a bunch of college kids living here having keggers on the weekend.

Ok, maybe the kegger thing isn't too far from the truth at times, but it doesn't have to look that way.

It needs to look like it's a family house, with nice things.  I'm so tired of mismatched furniture, some left over from when we bought our first house and we were flat out broke.  For example, I just got a beautiful new coffee table set.  A nice wooden set, three pieces that ACTUALLY MATCH!  I was finally able to throw out the old end table we had, (the only one left from a set we bought some 8 or 9 years ago at Walmart) that had loose screws, and that bad plastic-fake wooden covering.

In the past, even when we have bought new furniture, we haven't always had much luck in getting nice things that stand the test of time.  We bought a new couch, loveseat and sofa chair about 4 years ago.  It's a tan coloured microfiber.  We went with microfiber, because the salesman told us that our sweet, lovely little cat, Silver, would not scratch it.  Told us that she would not scratch it because it heats up and feels sort of like carpet burn on their paws, so they won't do it again.

Man, he was full of shit.

Even as I am writing this, she is doing her crazy sideways exorcist crawl moves across the bottom of that chair.

Idiot.

Not only has our demon cat shredded the bottom of my sofa chair, (The same sofa chair that boasts my children's artwork all over the back of it from when my kids were small), but the damn thing is so hard to keep clean.  Maybe it was never scotch-guarded   Maybe it wasn't meant for people with kids.  Maybe it wasn't made for grown ups like us who eat most of our meals sitting on it.  (Ok, edit: The last three nights that we have eaten a meal together in this house, it has been at the table.  We're not [always] savages.)

Even a big black-hole powered super wet vac with the strongest upholstery cleaner can't take out some of these stains.

And to top it all off, the cushions are not actually attached to the couch, so every time you stand up, it gets sucked into your butt cheeks, pulling them out.  Every time.

So tonight I was fluffing the new throw pillows I have, and putting them on my couch.  They are nice and big, so as to cover as much of this shit couch as possible.  And I have a thought.

It is amazing what some nice throw pillows can do.

So that sounds so, uninspiring.  That is, until you really stop and think about it.

The house itself is like my family.  Everything that you really need.  The walls for support.  The roof to keep us safe from the storms that may rage outside.  The heat to keep us cozy.  All you ever really need in life.

It's not about the throw pillows, it's never about that stuff.  That is just that - stuff.  It's not the throw pillows that are important, it's all about the structure of the house.

But it's when you add the throw pillows and the pictures on the walls, and the nice new wooden matching coffee table sets, that life gets interesting.  That's when life gets a little prettier.

The throw pillows are the picnics in the back of our SUV with the kids.  They are the marshmallow roasts in the backyard.  They are the ice cream dates at Dairy Queen.

Ok, wait.  That all included food.

Let me try that again.

The throw pillows are umm...ok, wait, I got this.

They are the tickle fights on our bed.  They are movie dates on the couch.  They are reading Harry Potter together.  They are tossing a football in our cul-de-sac.  And they are cuddling, four people deep, on the loveseat before bed.

Have I mentioned that I just love the new throw pillows?

Till death do us part....

That translates into, until we kill each other, right?  That's the modern day take on our wedding vows?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had two of our apartments become vacant in the house we used to live in.  So as a result, we have been spending quite a bit of time in that house over the past month.

We're in the home stretch, almost done, thanks to an awful lot of help from my husbands parents.

The thing is, even though I couldn't be more thankful to have them, I can't help but feel guilty every time they are working on the house.  They watch our daughter all day, and then pick our son up from school, feed them, and bring them to their various activities (ballet, tae kwon do, etc), and I know if it were me, I'd have cracked by now.

But as I said, we're in the home stretch.  And not a minute too soon.  Cause I'm about to crack.

But being in our old house, where we started our family and lived for 6 years, makes me think about where we came from.  And not just the memories from that house, but from when we met, and what we've gone through together.

I was 16 when we met, he was 20 (almost 21, but I'm pretty sure I probably rounded it down when I told my mom about him).  He was such a nice, genuine guy, and I couldn't help but fall for him right away.

He had this cute little mustache (ok, it was cute then, but God help me if he decided to wear it that way now.), and his hair was longer and his cowlick over his forehead more prominent.  He lived 4 hours away from me at the time, so ours started as a long distance relationship, which when you are 16, is not easy.  Maybe that's why mom didn't mind me dating him, because I only saw him twice a month, at best.

One weekend when he came out, he surprised me with a coolerbag, full of ice, and packed inside of it was my favourite chocolate frozen yogurt, that you could only get in his hometown.  It was mostly melted from the drive, but it was, barr none, the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.  To be honest, I think that was really made me realize that I would marry this man.

We had a couple of rough patches, but then, who the hell doesn't?  We persevered, we struggled, but we fought for it, and we won.  We have a wonderful life together.  Where I am weak, he is strong.  And we have fun, and we are each others biggest supporters.

I drive him nuts sometimes.  Sometimes because we're so different.  Other times, just for the fun of it.  He has been known to be a little anal when it comes to things like, well, lets say painting a wall, for example.  Where as I, could not be less anal.  When rolling on a dark paint, someone like me may get a little paint on the blinds, on the wires, on the floor, in my hair, in my eyes.  I'm not saying that this has happened, or anything, of course.  Just a rhetorical scenario.  Someone like him might make some teasing, sarcastic remarks to the affect of "I can't believe that you got paint all over the blinds.  Way to go."  To which, someone, not me obviously, may respond, "Shaddap or I'll stab you."  See how fast this stuff escalates?

My point is that, you knew this when you married me.  You knew that I can't paint a patio without trying to schoo away a wasp, leaving a huge paint stroke up my leg, and falling off the ladder and knocking a gallon of paint into the driveway.  (True story).  You knew it's impossible to fold every load of laundry as it comes out of the dryer.  You knew I would never win awards for housewife of the year (Hence why I work outside the home for a living).  And you still put up with me.  Imagine that.

So, thanks for that.  ;)