This is Sandy.

Sandy used to be my Barbie, but now she belongs to Little Miss Sunshine. Little Miss Sunshine wanted me to make her a wedding dress, so I did.

Now Sandy has a problem. She’s all dressed up, without a suitable partner to complete the deal.

I know, you’re thinking Davin, right? But he’s been rejected, because a) he is not a Prince, and b) when invited to attend a practice wedding, to see how it would go, showed up in shorts and a t-shirt.

A girl has to have some standards, am I right?

We actually have another boy doll. He even IS a Prince – he is the Prince/Beast from Beauty and the Beast. And he dresses pretty snappy.

But he is an outcast among the Barbies. He is not allowed to play with the group under any circumstances. He’s been rejected by the Little Miss and Gal Smiley, barely being allowed to remain in the Barbie drawer, and then only if he doesn’t speak or complain or ask to wear any of Davin’s cool outfits.

We also have a Belle doll, and even she will have nothing to do with him.

Personally I think he’s being slighted by the ladies because he doesn’t have a proper name. Although truth be told, Belle always has had a little thing for Davin.

Poor Sandy. Always a bridesmaid…well, that doesn’t seem to quite capture the situation. But while we’re waiting around for Mr. Right, she sure does make a good couch buddy.

Thanks for all your fantastic comments about tipping. It’s nice to hear I’m not the only one who is frazzled by the concept, and also that my attempts at tipping are well within acceptable (or at least, common) range. Yay! Seems we are all tipping around 15% on food (before or after the tax remains a passionately debated issue), 10% on other services, and leaving a few dollars daily for the hotel maid. Food deliveries get a couple of dollars, hotel bellhops get a few more, the FedEx guy is out on his ear.

One thing though: I’m surprised at how many of you said you never tip on take-out. I don’t tip at counter-type places like say, Chinese take-out places or the Domino’s or the McDonalds, or even the take-out counter at Swiss Chalet. But when we get take-out from The Works or Lone Star, I do usually leave a small (10% -ish) tip. It’s usually a wait-person who took my order over the phone and make it a point to package it up, plus, don’t the servers share their tips with the cooks? I don’t know, am I crazy and throwing away money?

On to new domestic crises. The other day I was casually wondering if I should maybe be changing the sheets more often around here. I won’t tell you how often I was changing them, but when I googled the issue, the internet responded loudly with a “HEAVENS TO MURGATROYD, YES, change them more often.” It’s a good thing Google doesn’t have a feature whereby Public Health is called based on your search results. Although really, that can’t be very far away, can it?

I’m rather afraid to google how often I should be washing the towels.

Anyway, now that I’m all on the Healthy And Clean Sheet Washing Plan, I’m wondering, is it gauche to wash the sheets, then put them right back on the bed without a proper resting period of being folded in the closet? Will the other sheets get jealous? Will the one set that gets used and used over again get worn out?

Will the kids figure I just never change the sheets? Will they call Public Health, or have Google do it for them?

I am Concerned.

We don’t eat out at fancy restaurants very much. There’s never anything for the kids to eat, what with all their allergies, and getting everyone to sit nicely and talk quietly and not spill stuff, while trying to shovel food into our own mouths as quickly as possible, is just about the farthest thing from relaxing you can get.

So when Sir Monkeypants and I have a special occasion, we get take out from a local restaurant. We’re not talking five star places, but the kind of places you maybe would have gone to on a Saturday night to grab dinner with friends before a movie. You know, in those days when you did that sort of thing. Most places like this will pack up a take-out order for you if you ask.

Now here’s the tricky part: do you tip? And if so, how much?

The whole tipping thing is just so very beyond me. I feel like I should know what I am doing in this area, as a middle aged adult, but I really have no idea. When to tip, how much to tip, how to do it so you feel more like James Bond and less like Fran Drescher is completely outside my circle of knowledge.

The other day we ordered a pizza from Domino’s. We always drive down to pick it up, because the place is only a few blocks from our house and it seems silly to pay $5, plus driver tip (of course!), to have them drive the one minute it is going to take to deliver it. So this week, I used a credit card to pay, and the credit card machine thingy prompted me to enter a tip.

REALLY?

I think of Domino’s as kind of a fast-food place, like McDonalds. It doesn’t even have any seating. On the other hand, these people are making my food. So are we tipping for this sort of thing now? Am I expected to leave a dollar extra at Tim’s? Should I be tipping the drive-through lady at Wendy’s?

I’m terribly gauche, aren’t I? YIKES.

My mom went to DisneyWorld at Christmas, and every single place they ate had pre-calculated an 18% tip and a 20% tip for her to choose between. What has happened to the standard 15% tip? Is that out the window now? There was also a note in her hotel room suggesting she leave a 20% tip for the maid at the end of the week – a “tip” that would have worked out to about $300 PER ROOM. Do people actually do that?

My mom wasn’t too impressed that an already expensive trip cost her almost 20% more with the tipping. Me, I’m pretty embarrassed that when we went to Disney last January, we took almost no cash and what we had was only in $20 bills, so we ended up not tipping anyone, even though the bus drivers/bellboys/maids all looked at us expectantly all the time. It was so awkward. Am I the only one who ends up in situations like this?

So I ask you, internet:

When you get take-out from a nice restaurant, do you tip?

Would you have tipped at the Domino’s?

How much percentage of tip do you usually leave for food/restaurant situations?

How much tip do you give for other services, like haircuts and taxi rides and deliveries (OMG, am I supposed to tip the FedEx man)?

How much would you tip your bus driver/bellboy/maid while on a trip – a couple of dollars, five dollars, or would you have forked over the $20?

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.

Pauline over at Brightest Blue gave me an award for general awesomeness (name this quote: “There is no charge for awesomeness.”) That’s awesome!

If you don’t already read Pauline, you should. Her blog is like a peek into all the cool, funky, unknown secret places of Ottawa (and often Montreal and Toronto, too). She knows where to find all the best thrift shops, and which untrumpeted diners are hiding a killer menu. She’s always finding little out-of-the-way places to visit, the kind of things you wish you knew about. Plus, she’s a better artist than you and I will ever be, and growing her talent all the time. Go and see for yourself!

Here’s my lovely meme award:

[Lovingly crafted on a theme of Major Irony by the super cool Jill over at Yeah. Good Times. Thanks, Jill!]

To fully accept this award, I’m supposed to list five things, four of which are lies, and one of which is truth. I’d love to say that I’m a crappy liar, but truthfully (see what I did there?), half the stuff you read on this blog is completely blown out of proportion already. So basically, I just just point you at my last five blog posts and you could pick and choose for yourself. Truth? Lies? Meh, it’s a grey area.

I kid! Mostly.

Here’s my list – see if you can spot the one truth. It should be pretty obvious.

1. My favourite number is 10.
2. My favourite number is 7.
3. My favourite number is 5.
4. My favourite number is 21.
5. My favourite number is 3.

Sigh. I’m an open book, what can I say?

Now I’m supposed to pass it on to five more bloggers, but that’s always such a tough part. I hate feeling like I am assigning my friends homework. But I also hate it when people are all wishy washy and say, “anyone who wants to can do it!”, because no one is ever going to do it if you don’t call them out by name. And I do like it when I get an award or a meme handed to me, but on the other hand, I get bitter and depressed when I am not one of the chosen ones.

It’s just SO MUCH PRESSURE.

So here are five bloggers who I think might actually want to do a meme due to the nature of their blog, but you totally don’t have to if you don’t want to, and if you do want to, you absolutely should! No judgment here! Julie at Thoughts of a Smother Mother, Liisa at Fit For A Kid, Carly at Talking Myself Out Of The Tree, J at Please Pick Up Your Socks, Sabrina at Ninja Mom.

Thanks, Pauline!

2007
Dora The Explorer: Say salto!
Captain: Salto!
Dora: Louder!
Captain: Louder!

2008
Dora The Explorer: Say parada!
Gal Smiley: Parada!
Dora: Louder!
Gal: Louder!

2011
Go Diego Go: Say rapido!
Little Miss: Rapido!
Diego: Louder!
Little Miss: Louder!

I’m thinking Nickelodeon should re-think this particular aspect of these shows.

Little Miss (looking at a photo of her teenaged boy cousin): That’s LeafsFan!

Me: Yes.

Little Miss: He has necklaces.

Me: Um, really?

Little Miss: Yes, he has necklaces.

Me: You mean, he wears a necklace?

Little Miss: No, on his teeth.

Me: Oh, you mean braces. He has braces on his teeth.

Little Miss: That’s what I said, bracelets.

LM: I would like Cheerios for breakfast.

Me: Very good. Get the box while I grab a bowl.

LM: I’d like a big bowl.

Me: Okay.

LM: Your dad smoked, and so he died.

Me: Yes, he did.

LM: I would like soy milk.

Me: No problem.

LM: Why did the girl have to look back? [Ed. note: Reference to that play about Orpheus we saw at the NAC.]

Me: She just wanted to see if the man was following her. She couldn’t help herself.

LM: Why did he have to stay in jail?

Me: It wasn’t jail, it was a place where people go to live when they die.

LM: Can I have some apple juice?

Me: Sure.

LM: You don’t know everything.

Me: Um, okay.

LM: You don’t know the whole world.

Me: That’s right.

LM: Why did Maddie say Never Ever Ever Ever? [Ed. note: Reference to both The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and High School Musical 3. I actually understand about 90% of her crazy segues, which is crazy itself.]

Me: It was her line. She was in a play and that was what she had to say. You have to say what they tell you to say when you are in a play.

LM: Your Mommy did not die. Your Mommy is Nanny.

Me: That is correct.

LM: Can I be done now?

Me: Yes. Can I lie down now?

I was reading a post over at Hella Stella the other day, where she was imagining what her 19-year-old self would think of herself today. Stella came out pretty well, but I’m thinking my own 19-year-old self wouldn’t be too happy.

When I was 19, I was so sure I never wanted to have children. I just knew I’d be a bad mother – absent minded, self-absorbed, too heavy of a sleeper. I had a million reasons why it was a bad idea, and I was just terrified at the thought. I’m sure my younger self would think it was hilarious that I ended up with three kids. Right after laughing and pointing at me, she’d go see a double bill at the movies, go out for a coffee afterwards and then head home to sleep in until noon. BITCA.

I never had very grand ambitions as a teenager. My mother thought maybe a pharmacist or a librarian, but I liked the concrete right-or-wrong of math so I went into engineering. I had fleeting thoughts of being Governor General or maybe an Oscar winning actress, but really, I just wanted to find something I loved, get paid to do it, and earn some respect.

(Although, there was that time when me and my friend Sheila told our favourite teacher at school, Mr. Mercer, that we both thought we’d make excellent secretaries. He was aghast, but actually, Sheila and I are both highly detail-oriented people with good memories and excellent typing skills, and we would have been seriously adored and highly paid as 50s era secretaries. Born too late, I guess.)

Running a household and being a full-time mom…well, it doesn’t pay very well. I do love it, most days, but there’s a decided lack of kudos – my three little bosses are more likely to whine and complain about my work than offer me a day off “in lieu” or give me an excellent review. Being at home just does not give you a feeling of actual accomplishment – it’s day in, day out of the same stuff, struggling to feel like you’re making a difference, wondering when someone is actually going to APPRECIATE what you do around here, for a change.

(Although, I did get a round of applause for finally cracking the lid on that bottle of apple juice that I was struggling with for 10 minutes. Thank you, thank you.)

And it’s not as though I’m going to be winning any awards for my awesome diaper changes, or the kick-ass way I changed those sheets, or the way I yelled at my kids until they finally, FINALLY did their homework/practiced piano/cleaned up their freakin’ Barbie shoes. My weekly meal plan does not appear to be patentable, nor will I be receiving a bonus for actually remembering to send the library books in on library day this week.

(Although, I am about to revolutionize parenthood with a landmark new finding: bring a box of crackers with you when you pick up your preschooler from nursery school. The brilliance! The Nobel Prize Committee should be calling any day now.)

I think the 19-year-old Lynn would call this life a fail. She loved getting A+ on tests. She always got the pats on the back. She never would have considered it a major triumph if someone told her they thought dinner was “okay, I guess,” or picked up enough toys to make a clear path from the bedrooms to the bathroom.

She’d laugh to think that I’d grown interested in volunteering, that I was most proud of my ability to put together a balanced meal from scratch, and that I (SHUDDER) occasionally, sometimes, identified with my own mother.

She’s certainly frown to think that I’d put my own big plans and dreams on the back burner – at least for a little while – and put the wants and needs of a family before my own.

But the thing is, I’m very happy with who I am now, where I am now, what I have now. I wouldn’t swap it out for the world. Quite frankly, that young version of me was a little obnoxious. And self-absorbed. And judgy.

(Although, she sudid know how to get a good night’s sleep.)

Times do change, don’t they?

One reason I haven’t been as bloggy this winter as usual is that I’m spending a lot of my creativity on another project. I feel like such a harlot!

Back in November, I started my own Project 365. Since then, I’ve taken at least one picture a day, usually a dozen or more, and written about them as well.

This project started as a way to help my mom feel closer to our family. She lives seven hours away, and we only get to see her a couple of times a year. I used to have a website that I updated frequently with photos of the kids, but it’s been more than two years now since I got around to uploading any shots. I still take the pictures – hundreds every month – but finding time to sort them, name them, and code the pages for the website was becoming impossible.

So I had this idea that I’d take at least one photo every day and send it to my mom, along with an email describing the shot and maybe with an anecdote or two from our day. She loves it, and surprisingly, I do too. It’s kind of like keeping a diary of our daily lives – unlike the blog, where I feel the need to come around to some sort of point, I can just blather on to my mother about how I feel about what the kids did today, worries I have about their growth and development, and issues I’m having with getting them to eat a freakin’ vegetable, already. It’s kind of like having another blog, with a readership of one.

I like documenting the little things that happen around here, shots of impromptu board games or someone snuggling up with a book, maybe a pic of tonight’s dinner or a pie I’ve made. Right now almost all the photos I take have a kid in them, so I don’t have too many to share just yet. But over the course of the year I’d like to try taking more “artistic” shots, and we’ll see how it goes. I have no plan to become the next great photographer or anything, but it’s a fun hobby and I hope to get better.

Don’t worry, Turtlehead – you’ll always be my first love. But I hope you don’t mind if I experiment a little on the side.