You know, I think I’ve been a good sport. I made it through this winter with a cheerful smile and a chipper attitude. I happily took the kids sledding and shoveled the driveway. I wore snowpants and the Frankenboots faithfully, in public.
Now I want my spring, dammit. I got shoes and a mid-weight jacket out of the closet over March Break and I do not care to re-embrace Jack Frost. I’ve moved on, dude. You should too.
ANY TIME NOW.
The extended forecast calls for morning lows of -10, daytime highs of around 0, for as far as the satellites can radar. I’m done being upbeat. Now I’m bitter and jaded. OVER IT.
Speaking of bitter, know what else is giving me frown lines? My eyebrows. Back in the 80s when I was a teenager, the news was full of horror stories of supermodels who had overplucked their brows, only to find that they would never grow in again. Now these poor supermodels were forced to go through life scarred, nothing but pencil lines on their foreheads. Worse, with bushier eyebrows coming back into style, they were thrown out of work, probably to die destitute at the side of the road (or at least wait there until a millionaire with a limousine pulled up to offer them some Grey Poupon and an iron-clad pre-nup).
And yet, I have been plucking my self-same eyebrows for more than 25 years now, in the exact same shape, exact same style, and still those little buggers grow back. Where are my rewards from overplucking? How much longer does a dame have to wait?
Apparently I should have been a supermodel.
Speaking of supermodels, the kids are getting much better at modelling for this whole 365 photography project. In the early days they’d drop when they were doing when I approached, giving me fake smiles and rock-on-devil-horns. They’ve learned that This Makes Mommy Angry. They’re not quite at, say, Season 4 Nineteen Kids And Counting status, able to completely ignore the camera like it’s part of the wall, but they’re approaching Season 2 Jon And Kate Plus Eight status, where they give the camera sly side glances and then carefully exaggerate their colouring/Lego playing/dancing for comedic effect. It’s progress.
Speaking of progress, I gained five pounds last year during My Year Of Pie, and one of my goals for this year is to take that off again. So far I have lost one pound, which is sometimes so fabulous that I want to strut around in my underwear showing off my one-pound-lighter hotness, and sometimes so sad that I just want to buy some granny panties and get it over with. So my new cookbook by Edna Staebler arrives, and what’s the first thing I make from it? PIE.
Vanilla Pie, it was called, but it was made from massive amounts of boiled maple syrup so it’s really more like Maple Pie, or maybe Sugar Pie. This pie is tragically good, much like Melanie in Gone With The Wind. So much for that pound.
Speaking of pounds, there’s about 500 pounds of sticks in my garage. Every day on the way home from school we pass through a small wooded area, and each kid has to get a stick. If there are no sticks to be found, there will be tears. And when we get home, it goes in the “stick pile” of legend, a pile that is getting so huge that you could build us a second house. Where is Charles Ingalls when I need him?
MyFriendJen has an even bigger stick pile on her front porch and she came up with this brilliant plan last week: we will take the stick piles, and take them back to the woods. Replenish the stick supply, so to speak, for the upcoming spring and summer months. Release the sticks back to their natural habitat. Born free, people. BORN FREE.
Speaking of born free, I am not a girl who likes to tuck in her shirts. My regular uniform is jeans with a long-sleeved T overtop – I think I have a long-sleeved T in every single colour in my son’s mega Crayola pack. For the past year or so, almost every T-shirt I own has developed a tiny little hole right over the button area of my pants. It’s less than a half-centimetre in diameter, and it’s not caused by me wearing a belt nor is it associated with any one particular pair of pants. It’s not that my T-shirts are getting old, either, because I’ve had this happen (FRUSTRATINGLY) to shirts on the first or second wearing.
I patch them up, but it’s getting weird to be always walking around with a little hard knot of repair work in the centre of each shirt. Is it caused by the zipper on my winter coat, rubbing or catching? Is it being burned by the way I pull cookie sheets out of the oven? Is it wearing away as I do dishes at the sink? Do I, as Sir Monkeypants suggests, have a small alien living in my belly who likes to eat T-shirts? WHAT IS CAUSING IT? I’m extremely peeved.
And speaking of peeved, have I told you I’m so over winter? Get your ass in here, Spring.
TurtleHead 
I feel your pain (or, rather, I vaguely remember that pain). If it helps, it has been pouring here for over a week. I know that sounds kind of like made-up complaining, but it really is annoying. Puddle-jumping only keeps the kids happy for so long, and then they go back to be interminably bored, as if they’ve been alive for 700 years already and there’s simply nothing they can do that they haven’t already done.
I did enjoy your post. Reading it makes me feel like my brain works the way yours do, and so maybe I’m not actually going slowly insane.
Loved your idea about the 365 photos.
I was surprised to see recent activity by you on “the dreaded Facebook”. Waving the white flag?
I laughed at your comment about them being alive for 700 years already. SO TRUE. What do you do with yourself when you already own every piece of Lego ever made? SIGH.
As for Facebook, not quite the white flag but wanted to share some photos of the kids and it seemed like the only place to do it. I still only log on once every three months. Are you on there often?
No, I’m a total lurker on FB. I check it occasionally, but rarely contribute anything of my own. A few “Happy Birthdays” and that’s it. I do feel left out. Many people I know are on it a lot, so I feel like I should be on it to really know what’s going on in their lives.
I do agree that it seems like the best place to put up photos these days.
i laughed so hard at the stick thing. my kids have been known to drag home small trees to add to their collection, and of course they are the most specialist sticks ever so how could i ever even think about throwing them out/burning them. huh.
and yeah, winter? making me foul. if one more person says “at least it’s a beautiful sunny day” i will cut them. with a stick.
Meanie, you crack me up. “I will cut them…with a stick” is already cemented as part of our everyday vernacular around here.
Tell me about it!!
enough of winter already.
Before you know it we’ll be bitching about the summer humidity.
bring it on.
oh and we have a matching stick pile in our yard as well.
And I thought only dogs liked sticks…
We should get a dog! That would totally solve the stick problem! Brilliant!
I know. I’ve been cold all freaking day. It hasn’t stopped snowing in five days. This post was very cheering, for several reasons but I have to say I’m happy I’m not alone. I get those little holes in my shirts all the time and OMG is it ever annoying. What is up with that?
I am SO HAPPY to hear that others get these holes. I hate to admit it but I was actually starting to think my husband’s theory about the little alien was true. SHIVER.
If I figure it out, I will let you know. I can say that in frustration I have been tucking my shirt in just at the very front this week, and so far, no signs of wear (I sometimes get a little shiny spot in the usual hole-making spot and I know it’s going to blow at any minute) and no holes. So apparently my pants do offer protection but with the tuck-in, I look like a refugee from 1984 and all my previously cool pants have morphed into MOM JEANS.
Why can’t anything be easy?
If you ever figure out what’s causing the holes in your shirts, please let me know. I’ve got the exact same problem.
I’m really hoping it’s not the alien thing…
I KNOW. I am having nightmares now about the alien thing. It can’t really be that…CAN IT?????
In any case tucking in seems to help (see above) but I’m not sure I can live with this belly-baring profile. EEK.
My children subscribe to the ‘Every Box is Precious” theory. Whereby, we must drag home every box, big piece of cardboard or even especially large chunks of styrofoam packing we might see on our travels through the neighbourhood. These things collect in my garage until some recycling day that I happen to be home when my kids aren’t and I can sneak them out to the curb and PRAY the truck comes by before the kids see.
Hilarious! I have given this extensive thought and I agree that the box problem is worse than the stick problem. I can’t imagine what kind of mouldy bits of cereal boxes you have floating around in your garage. You’re a good mom, Fiona :).
Ah, the vicious circle! I feel your pain. DS melts down regularly over the freakin’ cold weather. We’re moving to Hawaii. But will there be enough rocks in Hawaii? DD will melt down if we can’t continue the humungous collection of rock friends that are gathering on the porch. Oh the humanity! Also, I want shirts, and eyebrows, that make me look like a supermodel.
Maybe you can just ship the rocks when you move? And set up a nice rock garden outside your new Hawaiian home?
I am TOTALLY coming to visit you in Hawaii. We’ll work on our eyebrows in sunny luxury :).
I hear ya on being sick of the cold! One meteorologist basically said that “It’s cold, it’s Canada, deal with it.”
Um yeah, but it’s not usually THIS cold this time of year! We normally do get other seasons in this country too!
Ha! You are so funny! I identify with every single one of your arguments!
I had so much fun following the thread of this circular argument! Spring to sticks to pie and supermodels, T-shirts and back to spring. What a great ride. My favourite laugh-out-loud was “tragically sweet like Melanie in Gone With the Wind.” You rock!
I get those holes in my shirts too. At first I thought it was the washing machine, but how would it know to pick that exact spot every time?
Are you jogging again? Would you be interested in jogging again. I need a jogging buddy 🙂
The hole cause is an easy one (I think)… do you always wear jeans? It is caused by the rubbing of shirts (which are extremely light weight cotton these days!!) on the corner of our jeans just above the button. I usually get two hole next to each other which mulitply and are the same distance apart as the two edges on my jeans.
At least… these is the theory I run with. One of my volunteers who sews, knits and is working on an engineering PhD took one look one day and immeadiately gave this answer!
Hope it helps. And thanks for the comment. The bread was very yummy.