This was a pretty exciting week for me at Lighthouse.  Remember that course I took a few years back?  I was filmed for a video commercial to promote it.  Apparently, I am an example.  Clearly they have not read this blog.

It was nerve racking trying to sound all…educated-like.   Chris Beck came to shot.  Look at this lighting.  He’s such a professional and he assured me that through careful editing, he’ll make me look good.  He’s really got his work cut out for him!  I’m sure he was thinking ‘lady, they don’t pay me enough!’

Here I am trying to appear sophisticated.

And here I am failing.

Here I am desperately trying to hide that third chin.

And there goes the hand!

And here a colleague moons the camera. Kidding of course, but I think he did something juvenile like stick his noes to the window.

We’re all business here at Lighthouse!

Today, I turned 34.  Turning 34 is no big deal to me, in fact, I had to use a calculator to determine my actual age; 2010-1976.   I’m not one of those who hate getting older.  I’m like a fine wine.  Wah, I make your teeth red? No, I like to think I’ve gotten better with age. If you knew me back in the day you’d say, “She’s right, less fun, but better.”

And just like new years, I always decide that this is going to be the year.  When I turned 19…”this is going to be the year that I take bigger risks.”  When I turned 24…”this is going to be the year that grow a pair and stop letting people walk all over me”.  When I turned 33…”this is going to be the year that I learn how to play the guitar”.  And this year?  This is the year that I learn and teach.    This revelation came to me at my sisters house.

She had myself and a few of her girlfriends over for scrap booking.  And no, no one except my sister is really good at scrap-booking (sorry girls) but that wasn’t the point.  The point was, we tried something new, and the result were really terrific!

No one cared that we didn’t actually know what we were doing accept to copy what Deanna was doing.

Besides, it wasn’t about what we made, it was that we could bitch about our spouses and talk about children, and feel…normal.

I left with a cute little scrapbook trinket, a full belly from the food,  sore cheeks from the laughter, and a promise to do this more often; learn things from people and hell, maybe teach them something too.  I’m not sure I have anything to teach other than how to layer shooters like I did in University, but that is a skill!

So, you never know what kind of invitation might pop up here on this blog ladies.  The question is…what are you good at and what do you want to learn?

There you have it.  What I have been living in for almost 30 days.  You know…the reno that was to take a week, 2 tops.  Yeah, not so much.  I’ll blog about the good, bad an the ugly when it’s done, and it will be lovely!  The end is in sight.

It’s hard to cook without a stove.  Even harder without a microwave.  But the other night, my kids said, “Mamma please, no more pizza.”  So among the dust and debris, I made their favourite meal; spaghetti and meatballs, and sure, the meatballs were packaged Superstore meatballs, the pasta sauce was homemade and it was a meal none-the-less.  Let there be no excuse for a frozen meal if I can cook in these conditions.

I couldn’t even be bothered to remove all the tools and crap to take the picture, I mean really, there was nowhere to move it to.

On the upside, David and I are still married, thou we’re both threatened divorce twice, we decided neither of us was willing to go anywhere because we were both covered in paint, and if we were going to go anywhere, we were going upstairs for a nap.

The other night my girlfriends and I had plans for dinner which was initially suppose to be here, and then got switched to Jen’s, for obvious reasons.   Nadia was coming down and was bringing Indian food form the city.  I had to call and cancel.  I was just so overwhelmed, the list of things to do, too enormous, I knew I’d be no fun.  So I cancelled.  Something that I hate doing and I felt like a heel.  Of course my friends understood, as I knew they would, but it didn’t make it suck any less.  The next morning I was painting when they arrived with coffee and a fabulous bag filled with my favourite red wine, bubble bath and a foot scrub, and I wept openly.  They just knew.

I hope that each and everyone of you is as lucky to have girlfriends like mine.

I think I drank the wine for breakfast.   I defy you to click here to hear what the bag does and not laugh! I’ve been opening it all day.  It’s fabulous.  I have a funny feeling you’ll be hearing a lot about this bag.  I’ve got a plan!

There are go-and-do’ers and then there are sit-and-stew’ers.  My Colin is a go-and-do’er.

Around Christmas I was in Atlantic Fabrics and I noticed material for WWE Wrestling.  Colin loves WWE Wrestling.  On the material there was a pattern for a belt and a vest.  I thought it was a perfect little project for Colin and me to do because he’s really crafty.  He’d ask me almost daily to help him make it.  I always found other things to do.  ”Maybe later Colin.  How about this weekend?  I need to get black thread.  Don’t worry Colin, we’ll do it soon enough.”  We never did.

Finally he got frustrated and took matters in his own hands.

“Mamma, whera da sizzahs at?”

“They should be in the craft bucket, Colin.”

“Day not.”

And that’s the last I heard of him for about an hour.  I grew suspicious of the quiet, and went looking for him.  I met him in the hallway.  He had the wrestling belt that he made by himself, slung over his shoulder, wearing no shirt and a big grin.  He cut out the material and secured it to the guitar strap of his dad’s guitar.

He was proud as punch.

So was I.  Pretty creative little guy, isn’t he?

Then he said, “Mamma, you wanna wessle?”

Valentines Day is here, and let me first apologize by saying to those that I love that haven’t received anything, that clearly this was an ambitious project during THE WORST UNPLANNED HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECT ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, WHERE EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG DID AND I KNOW I’M YELLING, BUT IT’S REALLY TAKEN IT’S TOLE ON ME, ON US, ON OUR KIDS, AND I’M DYING INSIDE.

Thanks, I do feel better now.  I’ll tell you all about the twist and turns sometime, but I have to wait until it’s done, to show you the after pictures, and if I don’t see it complete , my post will be all bitter and angry, and I don’t want that.

Anyway, I had hoped to deliver a special something to my sister in Halifax today, but I couldn’t on account of priming my stair spindles.  Those little bastards!

I’ll deliver it tomorrow.  I don’t want to ruin the surprise by posting it, but let me just say it involves coffee, of which she and I are big fans!

I do want to tell you about what I did for my  husband, because, God, he’s really great.  I mean that.  Really really great!  He got me exactly what I wanted for Valentines day.  A beautiful, well thought out card.  Nothing more, and nothing less.  Simple.  Sweet.  Lovely.  And I teared up.  Some might think that’s inadequate.  But trust me when I say, that in our house right now, we don’t need anything else taking up room.  Flowers just don’t belong here among the dust, paint cans and nails.  The best thing David can do for me right now is to not get after me over the state of of our house, because quite frankly, I don’t know where to begin.

And what did I get him you ask?  I wish I could post a picture, but I can’t.  See, since I can’t find anything, on account of the dust and crap, I can’t find my camera battery charger, and my camera, my life line, has run out of juice and that is putting me over the edge.  Me…without a camera.  Not cool.  Instead, I’ll direct you to the blog where I stole the idea from.

David and I, like many couples, decided that we’d have a date once a month.  I think that happened twice, and one of them we fell asleep while the kids and the babysitter played outside. Life happens and you don’t do them.  But I decided to give him a date a month and write out 12 things and put them in 12 cards all labeled with the month, and that is what we’ll do for that date.

Like this:

found here.  Only mine were less pretty.

They were simple things.  ’Go for a drive in your Cuda, have a hot-tub together,  I’ll give you a massage’, things that I know he’d like, cause Lord knows, driving in one of his muscles cars isn’t my idea of a good time.  We all make concessions for love.

Others were food oriented, because I know that’s the way to his heart.  ’I'll cook Don Campbell’s pepper steak, your Mother’s crepes, dinner at The Knot’, things like that.

Then of course others that I can’t show you because if my kids found out they’d require a lifetime of therapy.

Happy Valentines day.

I’m not a strict parent when it comes to food.  My feeling is, if they eat a belly full of candy, they’ll get a belly ache.  I can’t teach them lessons like that.  They have to learn it themselves.  But Root beer is a treat.  Mostly because I never buy it, mostly because I don’t want to drink it.  It’s empty calories and I’m just selfish like that.

When we go out to dinner, or out to MacDonalds, the kids can have Root Beer and they get very excited.

So this Saturday before Valentines day, my boys had Root Beer floats.  What could be better than that?  You say, “Having Root Beer floats for breakfast?”  What a coincidence, because that’s just what we did.

And I had one too, see, I told you, selfish!

Obviously having my kids express their appreciation to their friends is really important.  So that brings me to the Valentines that my boys will deliver to their peers at school today.

Before I share with you the most adorable idea, I must first explain my motives.  Sure it’s cute and original and all, but that’s not what made me do this.  You see, last year, I think I got Spiderman Valentines for Evan and hell broke loose when he screamed, “Do you want me to get beaten up?”  because appearantly Spiderman in grade 2 is not cool.  And sure Valentines are only like, $1.99, but still, I had to go out and get new Valentines.  I think I got Bakugan or something, then went home asking if they’d be ok. His response was, “They’ll be ok but you have to get me Barbie ones for the girls.”  Now, I know that breaks all kinds of rules, but I did it, because we pick our battles, and I won’t allow Valentines Day, the day of love, to be the cause of a war in our home.

Now, let’s not get me started on my frustration on getting the boys to write their friends name on all  21 Valentines.  I know it doesn’t seem like a lot of work, but Evan gets a fair bit of homework now, and last year, I vaguely remember having to write the names of a dozen or so kids with my left hand when my kids gave up.

This year I got smart:  No names and no need for girl and boy Valentines.  Sugar is unisex.

I took this picture ….

…And turned it into this Valentine.  Isn’t my Colin just lovely?!

And this picture….

…and turned it into this Valentine..

Evan’s is still cute, but he has less patience for my foolishness than Colin.  Colin’s still game for anything, and I shall ride this enthusiasm train while it lasts, maybe for the next 2 years.

I found this idea here, and here.   I cartoonized them here.  That was fun.  Then I punched a hole with a hole punch on both sides of the fist and stuck a sucker in it.

I urge you to do the same!  What fun!

Valentine’s Day is almost here and I haven’t even begun to express my love to nearly as many people as I had hoped when I started this little project.  I best get a move on.

That brings me to this post.  My mother.  She’s really…saint like.  Few of us would be able to cope through life without our mothers.  Maybe we could but not at the same capacity as we do now.  So I went to Gow’s Home Hardware and for $5 I bought an empty paint can and we filled that paint can with  5 begonia bulbs in a variety of colours and styles and bird seed.  Then we did a photo colleague of the boys and a few of their cousin.

Evan, being so wise, said “With the pictures of her grandkids, flowers and bird seeds, this can is full of all Nanny’s favourite things.  It’s too bad we can’t put a cup of coffee in it.”

And just like that, we put $10 on a Tim Horton’s gift card and stuck that in too.

Then I delivered it to my mother and she loved it…and then she agreed to babysit on Saturday night.

On a regular old Wednesday, we had cake.  A really delicious cake that was sort of home made.  I mean, I might not serve it to Oprah if she ever popped by, but it was a cake none the less.  And it was a really great cake! Oh, and as a side note, right now, I have no kitchen, which makes it even more impressive, if you ask me.  But it would probably be a conflict of interest to ask me.  That’s such a silly saying.

We had this cake when my husbands fellow councillor, Lila O’Connor had us in for dinner.  My kids have not stopped asking for this cake ever since.

You take any old store bought angle food cake.  You could make it, but why on earth would you?  You cut some of the innards of the cake out, dice and add them to diced fruit.  Take half a container of cool whip and ice the cake.  The other half add to the fruit and cake cake innards and stick in the hole.  Refrigerate, serve and just wait for the love!

Honestly the easiest cake on the planet, and easily the favouritist. I know favouritist isn’t a word…but according to Colin it is.

Did you know that they make Junior Mints in the shape of hearts?  I know right?  Very exciting.  I feel as thou I discovered plutonium.  I also found them here, one of my favorite blogs! They’re Junior Mints, they’re delicious. Remember this?

Anyway, I bought a box at Kinburn Pharmacy in Mahone Bay and decided that I’d give them to the boys in a Valentines Cracker, kind of like Christmas crackers.

I didn’t have any empty toilet paper rolls so I ended up stealing them from full rolls.  My mother actually saves all her toilet paper rolls, saying, ‘you just never know when you might need one’, or 3 dozen.

I stuffed Junior Mints, Hershey Kisses and Mike and Ikes with pink raphia in a toilet paper roll, wrapped it with wrapping paper, tied the ends with ribbon and put it in their lunch, and I just know this one will be a winner!!

Evan came home from school and told me that he and his friend each grabbed an end and pulled and the candy flew everywhere!  I bet those teaches love me now!