Thinking with my ass

The last day of Arianna’s school before Christmas, every one of her classmates brought their teacher a gift. Except for Arianna. Of course I felt terrible. When I related my embarrassment for my daughter to my Mother, in her usual comforting way, she said: “Why do you think with your ass and not your head?” I should be totally used to her brand of comments in the face of my incompetence but for some reason I still tend to feel shocked and – well – indignant.

The truth is that thinking with my ass is kind of almost my little charming trademark. Everyone knows I do it and well, actually they don’t believe its that charming. Its really a tossup between thinking with my ass or being a lazy bum as to what truly makes my life so disorganized. Either way there’s a serious case of behind involved. Don’t do laundry for a week that’s because I’m too lazy of a bum to treck to the basement. Lost my receipts to ikea that’s a case of thinking with my ass.

well, anyway, at the end of the year I got Arianna’s teacher a really nice gift.

I wear Juicy, therefore I am.

I’m a Reitman’s girl. They have terrific clothes for work that don’t defy the rules of ‘What not to wear’ and they are really reasonable in price. And they have those great commercials.

However there is that part of me that likes the designer labels.  I do get a little thrill of wearing a name brand. When I was buying a new pair of glasses the other day, I was somehow only drawn to Juicy and nothing else. I wanted Juicy. It almost didn’t matter that it was the right fit, only that it was the right label.

My sister told me that these days labels is all that young girls value. They are very popular if not the norm of the Thornhill Woods Jewish girl population. In fact, apparently its prestigious to live there, and once you do live there you have to have the right car, the right clothes and the right sunglasses and a big diamond ring. In fact, based on the way my sister speaks, there is the Thornhill Woods people that tend to think more of themselves simply because of the area where they live. Even though as Real Estate goes, Thornhill Woods is nothing but an overpriced designer label of homes. Narrow homes stacked closely together with bad layouts and small backyards. There are far nicer homes and areas in Toronto to live in.

Is today’s young girl so obsessed with labels that they wouldn’t see the beauty of a Molly Ringwald movie from my era? Will they not understand the magic of Ferris Bueller’s Day off? Has Sex and the City spoiled our young to the point that love and character is only secondary to the designer labels? Well, all right. I’m quite jaded on love myself. 

A long ago ex-friend is coming to Toronto. She had moved to Paris a long time ago and then got married and had 2 kids there. I heard all this information from my Mom. There was something about J. that gave you the feeling that she thought herself superior to you. I don’t know what it was. Well, yes I do. The fact that she deemed herself a better friend to my Mom than to me and devulged secrets about me that I told her in confidence as a friend. The fact that she would show me her new computer to me when I visited her a long time ago and but wouldn’t let me use it. In her tiny apartment, she had a white couch that cost thousands and I wasn’t allowed to sit on it. Or in anycase, i didn’t feel welcome to sit on it. You see my couch may have cost less than a thousand, but anyone is allowed to sit on it! J. is really the type of person that seems to enjoy making you feel a little worse because she feels a little better.

I wasn’t planning to see her on her visit to Toronto. But she planned to be at my Mother’s tomorrow and I have to drop off and pick up the kids. There are many reasons why I could feel worse about myself tomorrow and she could walk away feeling good. I’m overweight. I am going through a separation. The thing is that my weight is just a cog in my life no matter what I do. But at least I wish I had my juicy glasses tomorrow.

 

Kids fears

Arianna was really affected by the fire. The whole evening she keps asking me about different scenarios and what to do in each case. Like what if I went to the van to get something and there was a fire. What would she do then. Then she refused to be by herself when she went to bed. I had to stay with her till she went to bed.

I feel like she takes after me in being fearful. I’ve always been afraid of dogs. Yet, she is not afraid of wild rides at Canada’s Wonderland and I never liked roller coasters. At the same time, Nathan is very cautious about rides. He and I have that in common that we don’t enjoy the beach so much. But Arianna loves the beach. Nathan didn’t seem to be that terribly affected by the grease fire today.

 

My ipod stopped working after getting wet in the van when the rain hit and the window was open.

 

A day as testament to my idiocy.

Today, was a day truly a testament to my flakiness. (What’s another word for it? Stupidity? Can’t get it together?)

Sometimes, I have no idea how my mind works. Here’s what I have accomplished so far and the day is not over yet. I almost burned my house from greese fire with my kids nearby. I got a parking ticket and I got every thing wet in the van after forgetting to close the window in the van. Sigh…. again. What am I going to do with myself. Like I’ve said it again and again. I am soooo sick of my self.

It started by having a pretty good day. I took the kids in the morning to Gymalaya where it was there last day of gymnastics the parents were to take photos of their kids doing their cartwheels and jumps. Its a pretty big room, but it was hard to get good shots of the kids cause other parents were all crowding around the equipment trying to get good shots of their kids. At the end the kids ran up on the scaffold where they got their ribbon and everyone cheered. Of course, not my son who didn’t want a ribbon, or stamp. My daughter is another story. She absolutely loves to be a triumphant champion and to have all attention on her.

I had more errands to run with my kids and it would have been easier to get food from a drive-through. But in my efforts to be a better Mom and save money, I took the kids home to have a proper lunch.

I had them sit at the kitchen table, which is only about a foot from the stove, and put oil in the pan to heat it. While they waited I gave some cerial to tie them over. As I put the frozen chicken patty on the hot frying pan, it began splashing hot oil and then suddenly burst into flames. The flames became so high that they spread all under the cupboards against the backsplash. It was very scary. I’m surprised that the paper towels didn’t catch fire. I grabbed the frying pan and threw it into the sink. I know that you are not supposed to put water in that type of fire, but dropping it into the sink did the trick.

For the record, putting a lid on it would have been the fastest way to put the fire out. As my husband later told me. I realized after the incident that I don’t know how to use the fire extinguisher and have no idea if ours works or not. So that’s something that I need to look into.

My kids began to cry. The smoke detector went off. Arianna wanted to go outside right away. She said that now she wanted a new house. (As I related the story to my sister, she pointed out that if we went to a new house, the Mommy would still be coming with them. HAHA. ). I gave the kids hugs, said we won’t eat in the kitchen any more. Its really a very small space. And I explained that it was my mistake. But sometimes accidents and emergencies happen. I took the opportunity to explain to Arianna about 911.

 So we went to Wendy’s. Spent a small fortune on food and we went walking around the plaza. It was actually quite nice. We sat on a bench and practiced reading the store signs. I have to say, Nathan read everything first. (He tought himself to read before he turned 3 years old.) After that Arianna had to go potty and we went to Reitman’s. While in there it started to rain heavily, and when we got back to the van I realized that the car’s passenger window was open. It rained on the seats and the camera in the box I planned to return. And it rained on my nutrisystem meal planner.

The kids fell asleep on the way home. So I thought I would go to Bayview and Eglinton to get the Klean Kanteen. I didn’t have cash and for some reason I just didn’t think that I would get a ticket. But I did. Ok. So there’s the end to my idiotic day so far.

 

 

Chicken breast in my purse

So, I have had the opportunity to stay a day on nutrisystem. It wasn’t entirely successful. Let me see… After the macaroni and cheese I had for lunch (just add hot water to this paper cup and watch the dried macaroni gain a life), I was doing ok. It wasn’t exactly a great lunch or even close, but it was what it was. A diet plan that i commited to follow. I had the snack. By 5 pm I picked up my kids from daycare. I was hungry but determined to stick to the plan.

I had promised my kids that I would take them to the Superstore to exchange the shoes I had bought them the day before. So we went. We spent a while looking and I was starving by that time. Still I was determined to wait until I got home to get the proper nutrisystem dinner. Having finally picked out the shoes, and gotten the kids home, I was ready to pick out my dinner for the evening. I don’t know if it was starvation or more than that, but I remember that i just had to go home and eat. I was getting very frustrated.

Oh what exciting, delicious and nutritious meal would it be? I ruled out the chicken and the burger, cause I didn’t have buns handy (you need to add those).  I settled on a pizza. It looked so satisfying on the picture and… well.. you can’t go wrong with pizza.

Ok to say that I was dissappointed, would be a huge understatement. It was a crust packaged in a plastic wrapper. The crust resembled not quite a cracker, not really crust. About 4 by 6 inches of very thin thin crust like it was almost a cracker. Then there was the second packet which was the size of those refreshment wipes you get on the plane and that contained the red sauce artificially flavoured in attempt for it to taste like pizza sauce. And then there was a tiny package containing the shredded cheese. Well, I believe you could call it cheese. I think it deserved the name cheese more than the crust deserved to be called crust in this case.

For a fe moments there I considered returning the whole program. Based on what I read I could still get a refund minus the shipping charges and what I already ate. The pizza just was a poor excuse for pizza and a poor excuse for a dinner entre and almost a poor excuse for food. Still, i’m desparate to lose weight so I kept with it.

I ate the pizza at around 7 and didn’t feel like desert. At 9 I put the kids to bed and was really not up to desert. I felt really full and kind of bloated even though I stuck to the plan and didn’t overeat all day. Though I had planned to do some work work, i just climbed into bed to watch “So you think you can dance”. I felt cold and turned off the air. Then I got a second blanket. I was still cold. Though i was tired, I couldn’t sleep. I felt kind of nauseated. I realized that I had a fever. By about 1 am I felt so bad, that I made myself throw up. (sorry). After a while I fell asleep.

The next morning, I still felt pretty bad. Head pounding and felt like the force of gravity had trippled overnight. I wrote to work that I was going to be off and spent the day in bed recovering my strength.

So I was perplexed. Here I started a new program and on the first day I get so ill. On the other hand, even if my stomach did react adversly to some ingredients, would I have a fever? It seems that every couple of years I get stricken with this flue that makes me puke and lasts no more than 24 hours. Is it a virus? Is it food poisoning, no idea.

I don’t really believe that its the Nutrisystem that’s at fault for me getting sick. Still, I have to say that for me this food, perhaps is not the right option. And another program bites the dust.

I think that I’m going to steal the plan though and substitute the foods from nutrisystem with my own. Today on the way home from sauble beach, we compared the price of nutrysystem for a day with foods we felt were similar from the supermarket. It turned out that we could have the same and even better food for half the cost or at least 2/3 the cost of nutrisystem.

More importantly, I know that I’m not the pickiest eater. But even to me a chicken breast that could be carried in your purse indefinitely doesn’t sound good. And if a dehydrated burger is better than your Mom’s cooking then perhaps you should try eating out a little. 

Sauble Beach Vacations

Its about 7 am and I am up at my Parents’ cottage at a coffee shop down the street using the internet. My nose is runny and I’m having a cup of English Breakfast tea and English muffin. Well i’m just having an English morning, aren’t I?

I have a love hate relationship with this place. I love going to the quaint and cute coffee shops and chatting with my sister. I love that my kids are outside much of the day. And I love eating what my Mom makes. That’s about all that I love.

To get here is a 4 hour drive on average taking in account potty breaks and the tim horton drive through lines. Since I work,  I cannot stay here long so that’s another 4 hour drive the next day. But even if I didn’t have to work, I think I’d stay as few nights as possible because sleep here is so uncomfortable. Last night my kids cried that they wanted to go home and after they were finally asleep, I could hardly get any sleep myself. There was the mosquito buzzing in my ear. The my sister’s daughter woke up and for some reason began to cry for a while. The couch in the living room was very  uncomfortabl to sleep on, and that’s after my Mom decided to take the narrower couch and give me the wide one. It didn’t help. I just feel guilty now that I made her do it.

Things like that remind me of just how old and fat I am. I used to be able to sleep on anything. Now my back and legs hurt during and after. Gosh, Iam just pathetic.

Nutrisystem Arrived!

I haven’t opened the box yet. Its too big for me to worry abuot now. Right now I wish to catch up a bit on my blog and then maybe watch another rerun of “So you think you can dance” and then sleep until the morning chaos ensues once again.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’ve been forgetting to zip up my fly for some reason after going to the bathroom. I don’t know what that’s all about.

Anyway, nutrisystem is here and i’m hoping it brings good changes to my body and my wallet. Cause I figure I gotta spend less money on that than I do on cafeteria and Tim Horton’s food. Like I said to my sister, if you see me spending money on other foodcrap, then just smack me. It must be miracle food since you don’t even need to freeze it. I don’t know what’s in it. I just know that its better not to inquire. Luckily, I have an iron stomach and I’m sure that I’m up to the challenge.

Ok I don’t really have a lot to say right now. Oh except that my dream is to lose a lot of weight, get back into salsa dancing (or other sexy type of ballroom) and celebrate the new me. Maybe make a nice little recording to save for years to come.

Good night.

The eating festival

I can no longer say that my eating is out of control. It is, but I just don’t want to say it. So in order to put a positive spin on it, I’ve declared an eating festival while my life is in limbo. I just eat whatever I want to eat and I want to eat everything. Thank God that this blog is not about losing weight any more. Cause i’m certainly not doing that.

Its hard to feel and look fabulous fat. I just don’t notice many fat girls with Gucci and Prada bags. It seems like we all belong to Wall Mart and not Saks Fith Avenue. When I was younger, single and living in Austin, I was more of the Sacks Fifth Avenue variety. Not that I could afford to shop there but I looked like I at least hung out at the plaza. I had expensive (relatively) haircuts. I was relatively thin. I wore Banana Republic, Ann Taylor and Victoria Secret clothing. (I’m still stashing all the stuff). After having kids, I became a wall-mart type person. I get the cheaper haircuts and somehow they are just not fabulous. I don’t have time put on make up often. And my clothing is just basically what I can tolerate to sit in for 8 hours at my desk. And part of me I think says: What’s the point of really trying? You’ll still be fat. No, I don’t feel like learning to like myself this way or to accept myself this way at all. Its funny that when I was relatively thin, I always was unhappy that I wasn’t really thin. Now when I see people the way I was then, I think “What was my problem”. Why didn’t I enjoy my life more?

I’ve decided to try Nutrisystem.

Funny Nathan

I’d like to give a shoutout to people who commented. Here I am sending out these words into the cosmic void. Who said that? Oh it was Meg Ryan in some movie in the Meg Ryan romantic comedies movie era. I believe it took up about 2 decades. It started with When Harry met Sally and ended with You’ve got mail. Then she started injecting her face and well, now I hear she is going to be in a new movie soon.

Nothing reminds me more of my own aging than looking at aging movie stars. Today my sister and I went to see What happens in Vegas. It was a silly movie but served its purpose of fulfilling the night with mindless entertainment. Treat Williams played Ashton Kucher’s Father. Now I don’t know who is closer to my age, Ashton or Treat, but I remember seeing Treat Williams much younger and long ago. Cameron’s face looked at little puffy and overtanned. Is she really getting older or just injecting as well? Why can they not see that wrinkles may look better than inflated bloated looking faces?

Then we snuck in to see a bit of Sex and the City. Oh those girls we love to discuss. No, we are not delusional in our love of the show and therefore the movie. We objectively thought about the film and critiqued it like we would each other’s outfits or behaviour. We decided that we judged it out of love. Like family. So maybe I’ll write about our opinion of the movie later but I’m sure that there’s been enough of that everywhere. However, I will say this. Big didn’t go through with the wedding after he saw the stupid bird on her head.

So my son Nathan. When he was one and a half he loved the beach and the water. He went to Canada’s wonderland on every ride that he could. When he was two and a half, he hated the water and the beach. And was terribly scared of the rides. So at three and a half he gave the rides a chance and decided he loved them. I was so happy. I was afraid the he was really missing out on the fun of the rides. Third time we went this year, he said he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. I asked him yesterday if he wanted to go there again and he said that no because it will make him feel not well. Ooooh.

 

 

Changes, sigh….

Well, my weight loss has long been put on a shelf and other things in my life are currently taking priority. I have a few things on the go.

Selling my house. My realtor has set the price for this modest condo townhome on Leslie and Finch for 259. She claims that this is a fantastic price. After showing me all the comparables, I think she is right. So the question is, why after almost 30 showings we’ve only had two very bad offers. We didn’t even entertain to reply with a higher price since they gave us nothing to work with.

The lucky thing is that I didn’t buy another property first. I’m not under any kind of pressure to sell the house and I would rather continue to live here for another year or so than to just give it away.

The funny thing is that we bought this house for 227. The house was a mere shadow of what it is right now and I have to say that I am quite proud of myself to have renovated it the way I have. Ok, of course I didn’t do the work myself but I chose the finishes, hired the right people (such as my Mom, Dad, even putting the former Nanny to work) and a few contractors that were probably more trouble than they were worth. But the result is really nice and I think on the nicer side than what you would find in homes of the same style and price range.

Here’s what I have done:

I remodeled the kitchen. It could have been the ugliest kitchen in America. With the coarse brown corke on the walls stamped with blotches of gold. The fake brick paneling on the other walls. The dingy and dirty seventies cabinets. The dark and disgusting vinyl tile floor. I actually didn’t even use the kitchen until it was renovated. Of course I bought Ikea kitchen cabinets, got a speckled blue laminate countertop, bought all new appliances. Had the floor done in laminate. And put drywall over all the ugly paneling. And opened up the window into the living room much larger. The kitchen looks fantastic.

The living room had dark fake wood paneling again curtesy of the seventies on some of the walls and had a huge fireplace that wasn’t ornamental or cozy. It was just a metal structure peering out of the dark fake wood paneling taking up space. My dad demolished that beast. The thing about fireplaces is that it has to adorn the room. Add to it. Make the place feel warmer. And it has to be in keeping of the current updated styles.

We put laminate all over the first floor. In the entry way we tiled with vinyl tiles but really fantastic ones that look like stone. They are of the more expensive variety. This house doesn’t warrant true stone tiles except where they are necessary like in the bathrooms. The renos have to be well done but not luxurious. Or I would never get my money back.

We replaced the front door. My Dad did that.

In the powder room, we repainted and replaced the cabinets and the mirror. Upstairs bathroom was another complete disaster. Had I lived there a little longer without renovating, we would have had mold growing in the house. I think we were that close. There was that white plastic surround (bathfitter type) that kept peeling off and letting the water in around the bathtub. We tried to repair it but it was to no use. There was the rotten vanity and the rotten floor beneith it. We replaced the vanity right away but soon enough I realized that the entire bathroom had to be retiled.

Looking through the decore magazines one day, I saw the words: don’t renovate your bathrooms until you see these. So I chose a simple design that I could replicate. It had the subway tile almost all over the bathroom. All around and above the bathtub and wainsotting on the walls. And so that’s what I did. I udpated the fixtures as well. Installed a new toilet. Basically all that was left of the old bathroom was teh bathtub which is actually in pretty good shape. Home Depot did the work which in hind sight was the most reliable contractor I had dealt with.

A note on the subway tile. Its the cheaper way to go. I’ve seen subway tile, the same white cheap ceramic tile in pictures in even the most extravagant kitchens. Its classy that can enhance a modern look and a more country feel. I love subway tile. Its just sleaker and I’ve had great reviews on the bathroom from overhearing potential buyers.

So WHY NO OFFERS?

The reason I would like to sell the house sooner rather than later, is that we’ve decided to get a divorce. Well, actually I decided that I could no longer tolerate our lives together. Somehow, though I know that failure of marriage is usually the fault of two people, I can’t help but think that it is really mostly his fault. I don’t think he ever really grew up. The constant late nights out. The inconsistent money that he brought in. And the lack of ability for us to see anything the same way. How in the world can we possibly raise our kids this way?

We have no joy from our marriage except that the joy the kids bring us.

Sometimes I think that we were meant to get together just to create the two wonderful kids we have now. Ok, I’m not above bragging about them because they are truly the very very best things about us. And Sean should thank me every day for giving his life some meaning by tolerating his childish behaviour long enough to have these blessings in our lives and bringing him over to Canada so he can be with them. So whenever I think that Gee, I pushed him into a marriage, or I was the desparate one, no. He was in love with me and he wanted kids. And he is lucky to have us.

Yes, at the time I was desparate for a family myself. But my desparation doesn’t take away from his love for me at the time and his desire to have kids with me. Ok enough about that.

Its 3:43 right now. The blessings have woken me up as they do every night and so my life continues to feel like its completely out of control. So now I have to get some sleep.