So my fabulous new winter coat is now on sale. Of course.

I don’t get it with the December sales. If people are going to be shopping anyway, and this is the busiest shopping time of the year, then why do stores feel the need to put things on sale? Is it just to punish those who have wisely done their shopping early? Sheesh.

Anyway, it’s worth $20 to us to go over to the Mark’s and get the sale price on my coat, so Sir Monkeypants would like me to take care of that. And really, I must logically admit that it is a smart thing to do. But irrationally, emotionally, I have a deep seated fear that if I re-enter the store with my coat, and ask for a discount on it, they will consider me unworthy of such a great coat, totally unappreciative of a coat that is clearly worth twice what I paid for it already, and they will take it away. No coat for you!

So we’ll see if I can work up the guts to go through with it.

In other sale-related news, the Little Tikes kitchen that we want for Gal Smiley was on sale at Toys R Us two weeks ago, 25% off, but by the time we made it over there — five days after the flyer came out — they were sold out. Yet another reason why there is no need for stores to have sales in December…it focuses everyone else on the exact thing that I wanted to buy. People, stay out of my way!

So on Saturday night I went over to the Toys R Us to see if they had restocked the item, prepared to pay full price for it. I’ve gone to a lot of work now to convince Gal Smiley that this kitchen is exactly what she wants for Christmas, and she even put it in her letter to Santa on the weekend, so it’s set in stone now.

And not only did the Toys R Us not have any, but they were sold out of every single model of kitchen they carry, which is like, six different models. Yikes!

I could see my daughter’s hopes and dreams and happy childhood disappearing right before my eyes, and I have to admit, I totally panicked. So I jumped in the car and raced over to the WalMart and got there five minutes before closing. They had exactly one kitchen left, so I nabbed it. Whew.

Sure, I could have waited until closer to Christmas and see if the Toys R Us got restocked. But that would mean a) venturing out again in the FREAKIN’ SNOW and the shopping crowds, on b) yet another evening which was way past my bedtime, only to c) find that they didn’t have anything anyway, because everything would have been ON SALE the day before and snatched up by other consumers, causing d) a complete mental breakdown on my part.

This way is better for all of us. Plus it’s a cute little kitchen I got, with little food sets that you can get to go with it later on (birthday gifts for years to come!!), and of course…it was on sale.

One thing I didn’t get around to posting about in November was that a few other NaBloPoMo posters, including its founder Mrs. Kennedy, were blogging on a theme of shoes. Every day they’d post a photo of a pair of shoes that they own, and then they’d write an amusing little anecdote about the shoes. It was a cute idea and I read lots of funny and sweet and sad stories about shoes.

What really amazed me, though, is that these people actually own thirty pairs of shoes. I did a quick tally and including all my sport-specific shoes, my bedroom slippers, and the flip=-flops that I shower in at the gym, I only own 14 sets of footwear. Fifteen, if you count the tap shoes I have on loan from , which means a full 1/5 of my shoes are for tap dancing.

I know my wardrobe is kind of in a sorry state right now, but really, is it normal to have so many pairs of shoes? Am I living in the dark ages with my one pair of brown loafers and one pair of black slip-ons that serve the purpose about 90% of the time?

Where the heck do they keep all these shoes? I’m just realizing that if 30 pairs of shoes is the norm, and not, as I imagine, an Imelda Marcos-like deviation from society, then some day I may have 90 pairs of kids’ shoes in my home. NINETY PAIRS OF SHOES. And that’s not including mine and Sir Monkeypants’, which will be at least another 30 pairs, bringing our total to a hundred and twenty. PAIRS OF SHOES.

We better start planning for an addition on the house RIGHT NOW.

This post marks the end of my 30 days of daily posting for NaBloPoMo. I’m happy and proud to say that I made it all the way through. I think I was able to put together a nice mixture of posts — long and short, funny and sad — and I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

As I expected, I didn’t have a problem finding things to write about. I keep a file with a list of possible topics and a bunch of half-written posts, and the file keeps getting longer and longer. Even after this month of posts, I still have at least 15 ideas kicking around.

No, for me, the problem is always finding the time to work on writing. I was hoping that this month of posts would encourage me to find a regular time for writing, and to make writing a priority. I’m pleased to say that NaBloPoMo came through big time. I’ve learned that even 20 or 30 minutes set aside in my day for writing is enough to get my thoughts down. I’ve learned that I can do most of my writing in my head — as I read on a website once, “As a writer, I’m always writing” — and all I need to find time for is transcription. Although I don’t think I can keep up with the every-day pace — I do need to the the laundry sometime — I hope to post more often, and to find time for other writing projects.

I’ve also found that writing on a regular basis has improved the quality of my posts. Some days were just throw-aways, but some days I produced better text than I’ve written in the past. I recently heard on the CBC about an experiment in an art class, where half the class was asked to make something every day, and the other half was asked to only make something when inspiration struck. The half that worked every day produced a lot more crap, but also a lot more high-quality works that they were happy with. The lesson here is just to throw everything out there, and some of it is bound to be great.

Overall, it’s been a good experience, and I feel almost like a real writer. I’ll definitely be signing up to do it again next year.

This morning, I came into our bedroom where Gal Smiley was watching the TV. She was chewing on something, but there was no food in sight.

Me: What are you eating?
Gal: I like it!
Me: Okay, but what is it?
Gal: I LIKE IT!!
Me: Yes dear, but what is it?
Gal: (opens her mouth wide — nothing appears to be in there)
Me: I don’t see anything.
Gal: It’s that thing! From my finger!
Me: Like, a piece of your finger? Or something was stuck to your finger?
Gal: I LIKE IT!

I decided to stop the line of questioning. Upon reflection, it turns out I really didn’t want to know.

Just tried out an online LJ generator and this is what it suggests as resolutions for me:

In 2007, turtle_head resolves to…

Find a better crockpot.
Admit my true feelings to fame_throwa.
Eat more star wars.
Spend more time with my minivans.
Lose ten game shows by March.
Pay for my movie quotes on time.

Get your own New Year’s Resolutions:

Actually fairly accurate. I really do need a better crockpot.

I don’t make a New Year’s resolution every year, but when I do make one, I take it seriously. It’s not a frivolous thing to do just to celebrate the holiday — I see it as a real chance to think about something I’m doing, or not doing, that I don’t like, and fix it. In the past I’ve been able to stick to my resolutions pretty well.

This year I’m going to make it a goal to improve my grammar. When I was in university I was such an obnoxious prig, I used to correct other people’s grammar all the time. I used to think I knew the English language better than most, and my biggest pet peeve at the time involved the improper use of the speculative tense after an “if.” Young people…sigh.

Now that our kids are learning to talk, it’s easy to see how they pick up on certain common phrasings that we use around the house, and having my mode of conversation reflected back at me has made me notice that my grammar is far from perfect (so sorry, 21-year-old self!).

In particular, I don’t like the fact that I often use the phrase “I never.” As in, “I never had breakfast this morning,” or “I never made it to the store.” Just typing out those phrases — totally typical of something I’d say in real life — has me shuddering with embarrassment.

I’m also making an effort to eliminate my use of the word “hopefully,” which is a common pet peeve for other grammar nuts. I often say stuff like, “Hopefully, we’ll be able to make it,” when what I should really say is, “I hope we will be able to make it.” Again, I’m blushing with embarrassment.

I know I also have a problem with split infinitives but that’ll have to be a lower priority.

Any other common grammar mistakes I should watch out for?

This morning Gal Smiley says to me, “When I grow up, I want to be a Mommy just like you.”

Like any Mommy would, I got all gooey.

Then she added, “Then I’ll get to use the big minty toothpaste!”

Ah yes, the main allure of motherhood — getting to use the grown-up toothpastes.

Yet another reason to love your baby:

The Wee One has a terrible cold right now and we’ve had a couple of rough nights (don’t worry, I’ll spare y’all a recap of The Suctioning 2: Electric Boogerloo). This morning as I blearily went to get her up to start the day, she looked right up at me and said, in the sweetest little baby voice, “Ma.”

Not that I think she’s developing language skills or knows my name or anything. But it was more than enough to keep me going for a very, very long time.

Yet another reason to love your new coat:

It’s -12 degrees Celcius out right now, -21 with the windchill. I wore my new coat this morning, with a scarf, hat, and mittens, to drop off Gal Smiley at preschool. And, with only a short-sleeved t-shirt underneath, I was plenty warm enough. Crazy! The thing weighs less than several sweaters I own, and cuts the wind like nobody’s business. If we were playing outside for any length of time I’m sure I’d have wanted a sweater on or something, but for just driving in the car and making short outdoor excursions…it was fine. Who knew we’d come so far in coat technology? Those crazy humans and their science.

Yet another reason to love your neighbourhood:

Last night I had a doctor’s appointment and when I got home I hit the button to close the garage and came inside. It turned out, though, that I hadn’t pulled the car far enough into the garage for the door to close properly, and it popped back open, staying that way all night long.

Both cars were in the garage completely unlocked…and the garage door, leading to our house was unlocked. This morning? Everything is still there, the cars and everything in the garage is untouched, and we are all safe and warm and fine in our little street. I guess the porta-potty burning hooligans don’t come out when there’s snow on the ground!

Last week, on my birthday, FameThrowa came over and I excitedly announced, “I got a labeller!”

She snorted and said, “Why?”

Why, you ask? WHY???

Because a large portion of my house looks like this:

or this:

or this:

I love to organize and I have long dreamed of a day when I did not have to use crappy masking tape labels to mark all my beautiful containers full of stuff.

And now, a select few small parts of my house look like this:

In close up:

Sigh. So lovely, it brings a tear to my eye.

I also got Ken Jennings’ book, Braniac, which I am enjoying, when I can find it. It seems that Sir Monkeypants is also more than a bit interested in what KenJen has to say.

This weekend I got a new winter coat.

There are few things in this world that Sir Monkeypants dislikes more than my old winter coat. Like most of my wardrobe, it was purchased because a) I desperately needed a winter coat, having put off buying one for as long as possible, and b) it was the first one I saw. It was a big heavy wool coat — probably weighing in at around 100 pounds — and it was so incredibly unflattering, it’s hard to believe I wore it in public without being accosted by style mavens everywhere. It was huge and had no shape and I basically looked like a big cylinder in it, with a pea-sized head poking out of the top.

Despite its weight and many layers of batting in there, it never was a very warm coat and I usually had to put on a fleece underneath just to stay warm. If we were going to be doing anything outdoorsy I’d need several other layers underneath the fleece, plus a scarf and giant ear-flap hat on the outside (paints a really pretty picture, don’t you think?). Considering I live in Ottawa, where winter lasts six months of the year and temperatures in February routinely reach -25 degrees, this may be the first time that my extreme aversion to clothing shopping has actually threatened my life.

I’d had the coat for about seven years now, and in the past three years or so it had developed a permanent “wet wool” type smell, because I never seemed to remember to have it dry cleaned at the end of each season. It had many large holes in the sleeves. At the very end of last winter, I broke the zipper on it, so it couldn’t even be closed properly and I was kind of wrapping it around me like a shawl.

I know, I know, you’re thinking that any normal person would have bought a new coat at least five years ago. Even those that hate shopping would have caved, maybe three years ago. But my powers of clothing shopping resistance are superb! I am the master! It’s weird, because I have no problem shopping for, say, books or face cleaning products or wrapping paper, all of which I have enough of to fill a warehouse. It’s just this clothing thing.

Anyway, this weekend Sir Monkeypants saw that Mark’s Work Warehouse had some coats on sale so he dragged me and the kids out — on a Saturday, in the pre-Christmas shopping season, to a store that features neither Thomas The Tank Engine merchandise nor a giant trampoline — so I could get a new coat. God bless him.

I tried on five coats in about five minutes and picked this Mid-Length Street Jacket with T-MAX in chocolate brown. It has a nylon exterior, perfect for playing in the snow with the kids. It weighs no more than a quarter of my old monster. It actually fits me. It doesn’t smell, or have holes, and the zipper works.

Most amazing of all, I wore it yesterday in 0 degree weather to the grocery store, with nothing but a t-shirt underneath, and I was too hot. Incredible!

And did I mention we saved 20%? So I don’t even have to feel guilty about it? I blew the savings on a really cute pair of pink and brown mitts to match, seeing as how the only other pair of gloves I own…well, suffice to say they were a nice match, smell-wise and holes-wise and warmth-wise, for the old coat.

I thought for a minute that the extra weight of my old coat was possibly good for working off a few pounds — like, the struggle just to walk in the thing would cause magical weight loss — so maybe I should keep it.

Then two seconds later, sanity prevailed…BANG went the lid of the garbage can.