Mortimer's Mom

Thank Goodness she reminded me

Poor BB, she is suffering form Second Child syndrome. We don't print out pictures as often, we give her hand-me downs, and we almost forget to plan a birthday party!

Well, we didn't forget. Her 3rd birthday is next Friday, and we will be at the beach with my parents for a long weekend before heading to the gift show. So she will get a nice family party on the beach. But yesterday, she told her beloved grandmother that she was having a pool party for her birthday.... Seems like months ago, we promised her she would have a pool party for her birthday... Color me panicked!

But I recovered quickly. None of my in-laws will be around, poor BB will always have her birthday in the middle of sleep-away camp. But I emailed Red and Journey to Mei Mei, who were both glad to accept my impromptu invitation and agreed to bring their little ones next Wednesday for hot-dogs and cake and a dip in the pool. Then I thought about the cool girls from knitting and how it would be great to meet their kiddos as well, so I extended an invitation to them as well and voila, we now have a pool party on deck!

My husband is going to scour the internet for a very cool present. (He already has one) and I decided to channel my energies into making her something she would go gaga over. Or actually, Gabba Gabba, as in Yo Gabba Gabba. I foudn the patterns on Etsy, made by CraftyisCool.

Here is #1 of 5. More crafty details at Ubercrafty.

Like internet-dating, but for friends

That's what blogging is turning out to be for me: Internet dating for friends. A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a new reader who had found Ubercrafty when searching for craft get-togethers in our city. She is fairly new to town and is very crafty and was looking to hang out with other crafty people and thought I might point her in the right direction. I didn't, because other than my knitting group, I don't know of any get-togethers. But I did invite her to join us or offered to have coffee with her.

Sure enough, last Friday, we had coffee over the pull-out pattern page of a Japanese craft book and I showed her how to find her pieces and highlight them. But we chatted too and I really  liked meeting her.

Then last night, Alisa came over to dinner with her very funny husband and super delicious tiny little girl. That would be Alisa from Mimosa. Alisa and I first met in real life many years ago, before their application went to China, shortly after Dumpling's arrival. I told her all about the online community and got her to join the KLBs. We also got together earlier this year when she was in town on business and yesterday, I couldn't pass up the chance to feed them a BBQ and get our 3 girls together. I won't post pics because Alisa doesn't post pics of her little one, which I totally respect. But let me tell you, they were so freaking cute together. Dumpling took such good care of the little one. She even shared her dress up clothes and put her in her little mermaid outfit for our amusement.

The grown ups enjoyed a nice bottle of wine and some pie (there was food in between, but those were the highlights!) and some fun conversation.

I know some people fear crossing that line, between the online and the real life. But for me thus far, it's been a great line to cross. A few weeks ago we had a grown up dinner with 2 other couples from Dumpling's school and they were sort of fascinated by the idea that I had gone on vacation with Mrs. Figby, after all, I knew her "from the computer". I tried to explain to them that if online dating and sites like e-harmony can be successful, why couldn't you form friendships with people you met online. After all, we sort of end up reading blogs of people who are like-minded or share an interest in something we like. If I could weed through people in real life and only find the people that I end up surrounding myself with online, I think I'd have a lot more friends. So for now, I'm going to forge ahead and keep meeting up with the people in the computer. It's fun.

(Special shout-out to J. father of little  miss J. You made it in the blog.)

Potty trained

Its the third accident-free day. I do believe we are officially diaper-free. Yeah BB!

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

My closet is the talk of the town

First of all, thank you so much for the kind support and encouragement. I think it will go a long way in helping me find my mojo. And I've come up with a venting solution. I won't say more, but if you are curious, email me.

So our house has been branded by the city with a large notice. There is a post on my front yard informing all my neighbours that I have no closet. Well, actually, it's informing them that we have applied for a permit to change the back 2nd floor of the house. But the nosy-posies in town have been pulling over and reading all the details of the notice. In principal, it's been approved, but with this lovely notice, the city is giving everyone a chance to come to the city meeting early next month and find out ALL ABOUT my new closet and oppose it. Well, they wouldn't be opposing the closet per say but rather the new look of the back of the house.

This is what it looks like now:

And if nobody opposes it, this is what it will look like after:

  the tiny right window is the closet, the larger right window would be the new master bath (we have a bathroom, but it's akward and wasted space).

On the other side of the house,the large window would be a new window in the back of BB's now larger bedroom.

Really, the only people who should have the right to care would be the back neighbours but apparently, in our town, people are freaking nosy! It's unbelievable how many people sho are walking stop to read the sign. But people driving PULL OVER and read it! Seriously, it's a closet! (OK, we have to raise the roof, but it's still a closet...)

Finally, I couldn't take the mess of computer wires and extension cords near the couch yesterday, so I invented a solution. it's up on Ubercrafty.

The State of The Blog Adress

First, let me start with the end of this post: I am not shutting my blog down. There, you don't have to worry. But it doesn't mean that things are just fine around here. This post is probably going to be a tad disjointed, try to bare with me, I've been trying to organize this in my mind for weeks now and the conclusion is that I just can't organize it properly.

I love blogging. I love the virtual archive of my life, the back and forth with readers, both in comments and in private. But this blog is no longer what it used to be. I have no more "Peeps". After the KLB breakdown, my blogging landscape changed quite a bit, but I was able to rebound with the help of some newfound bloggy friends and some ongoing relationships. I enjoyed the inside jokes of the Herb/Harry/Figby clan we had going. I forged some crafty links with some really talented people. But once again, the blogging landscape is barren and I am left here, in the words of Blue Rodeo "And I stand in front of this Ferris Wheel, and I wonder what I am doing here?"

I have always been very honest on this blog. Even when things weren't all puppy dogs and rainbows, especially when it came to adoption. But lately, I have had to self-censor a lot more than I would like. Over the years, I have gotten a lot of readers. Some of them make me uncomfortable. There are people I used to be friends with who have cut me out of their lives, yet still read my blog daily (gotta love the stats). I don't get that. If you don't want to talk to me anymore, why are you still reading my blog. (You, yes you, I know you are getting a kick out of me talking about you.) And then, there are all the "real-life" people who read my blog. Sometimes, there is stuff I would like to blog about, but I can't because the people in my life don't know about some of the things going on.

So I self-censor, and I talk about crafting and TV. But really, there are some serious things that I would really, really like to blog about. But I can't, at least not here. I do have several options, but as you will see, they all cause me stress and give me hives!

• I could simply password protect this blog. But then I would lose the occasional new reader that finds me through links or Google searches. And I so love getting to meet new readers
• I could start a new blog, a deeper, more serious blog.
• I could use a different platform that allows some public ans some private posts

Here is the stress that these options are causing me: How do I go about choosing who gets the password or URL of the new blog? I don't want to make a presumption and send it out to certain people that in fact might not be interested in getting it. And if I say "email me and I'll send it to you", how do I NOT give it to someone I am not comfortable with, without letting that person know, therefore causing strife.

The most likely option I think is a second, non-password protected blog. But distributing the URL would be problematic in the same way. What if someone didn't know I didn't want so-and-so to read it and told them about it?

You see, I am in a major quandary. But this blog will continue. Maybe I'll go more into the crafty side or the work side (apparently the customer story was enjoyed by many). But the big stuff I'm carrying around inside, I don't have an outlet for yet.

Cleaning, Hooking and other weekend pasttimes

What's your idea of the perfect Sunday Morning? Waking up at the country house, lounging about with your children over a warm cup of coffee, enjoying the fresh country air... Don't I wish!

We packed up the kids yesterday and headed for the Kibbutz of the North for the first time since Spring. I was hoping we hadn't been invaded by either bugs (last year, we got thousands of ladybugs) or vagrants. The house was still there, but man was it filthy! So after being woken up BEFORE 6 am by two wild girls, and having a luke-warm coffee from a somewhat clogged espresso machine (mental note: make sure you soak the nozzle if you don't visit often), I set about to clean the house. People, I used Murphy's Oil. And I vaccumed. And I did the stairs with a sponge, on my HANDS AND KNEES...... I know! you are shocked! My kids were pretty shocked too!!!!

Saturday, we vegged out and did nothing. The kids watched newly purchased movies (Return to Neverland and Shark Tales) and I became a hooker...... as in crochet, more specifically amigurumi..... it's widly addictive. I wrote all about it on Ubercrafty.

I am also mulling over a long post about the state of my blog. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere, but the departure of my compadre Mrs. Figby as left me pondering my own existance and where I want this blog to go. I'm still mulling it over, expect a serious post this week.

I didn't get the memo

Apparently, the entire interweb went on vacation and forgot to tell me. I thought it was just me (the lack of comments) but I noticed that the only category in my bloglines that has new posts is Celebrity Gossip. Thank goodness Angelina had her babies and Heath is starring in a movie even though he's gone,  because otherwise I'd have nothing to do!  Well, you know, other than mothering, wife-ing, bossing and broken-heart mending (that's a new one, hopefully temporary. Gotta love that I am in fact so close to my staff, they come here for TV, wine and comiserating). {edited because apparently I can't write clearly: it's not my heart that's broken, I was mending someone elses!}

Thankfully, I have summer TV to keep me company. And I went to see Wanted.... All I have to say is teenage boys are horny little f*ckers! It was 1 pm on a Tuesday and I sat with a dozen or so acne-riddled, sweaty, horny boys. But I get it. Seriously, I would do her too! (totally not my type of movie, but it was actually well worth the 5$ Tuesday Matinee rate. And the AC and peace and quiet. It even made up for the severe BO in the room)

Tomorrow, of course, is  my mental salvation, aka the Wednesday knitting group. Thankfully, the vacation schedule there is on rotation, so we are still on, minus one or two yakers. But I'm not missing it, no siree!

"I Miiiiiiisssssss Her!"

Well, yes, I do in fact already miss Mrs. Figby. I find it so effortless and easy to hang out with her. But those words, that's a quote from Dumpling, less than 10 minutes after dropping Apples off at the airport. And then, big ole tear drops streamed down her face. And she held her sister's hand in their respective carseat and moaned about how much she was going to miss Apples, how Apples was her BESTEST best friend and then they recapped the ENTIRE weekend out-loud ("and then, we swam in the pool! And remember when she let me play with her little petshop? and when we went to my room and hid in the closet! that was fun! I miiiiiiisssss her.........")

I'll skip the minute by minute recap, since Mrs. Figby already gave an indepth report of her time here, but I will tell you about some of my favorite moments of their visit:

• right off the bat, at airport arrivals, Dumpling and Apples spy each other through the glass and Apples takes a mad dash towards us to say hi to Dumpling. They had met once, almost 2 years ago, there is no way they actually remembered. but right there, in that moment, they were instant friends. Plus Dumpling had made a nice Welcome Apples sign like the limo drivers. Except pink with butterflies....
• Being able to leave them almost immediately with M the Amazing babysitter to spend the afternoon by ourselves like grown ups. it was only 4 hours, but it was so pleasant. Yes, there was shopping involved, but mostely just a lot of talking.
• the look of shear terror on Apples' face after dinner on Saturday night as we were leaving a messy tomato sauce dinner... Mrs. Figby picks her purse up (well, it was hanging off the table by her fancy purse hanger doo-hickey) and she says, super nicely, not mad at all "Oh dear Apples, you spilled some sauce on the Prada!" Man, that kid thought she was done for good! It wiped up immediately, and like I said, Mrs. Figby wasn't mad in the least little bit, but the look on Apples' face..... a 5 year old who has clearly been thought the importance of taking care of a good Prada bag!
• Memorable, but for a different reason: leaving the grocery store, Mrs. Figby announces with no fanfare or forewarning that a night of insomnia in my basement led her to the conclusion that she was closing her blog.... I wasn't surprised, we had discussed our online futures in Paris, but I wasn't expecting it in that particular instant...... I'll miss her blog. Luckily, I should be good for private info by email!
• Finally, memorable overall: watching two  5 y.o. become fast friends in the space of 3 days. There are no politics in friendship when you are 5. Sure, Dumpling got in Apples personal space a few times and required adult supervision to rectify the situation, and there were moments when frankly, they had enough of each other, but overall, it was so fun to watch them evolve from perfect strangers to total companions, even telling secrets and plotting jokes against us.

I leave you with a few photos.....

Apples hangs in the bouncy castle (best ever afterdinner activity to tire out children)

the ladies at the Biodome

Vets in the making

Dumpling has some Mad Skillzz as a waitress

Finally, Apples and BB as pit crew

Guess who's here?

The children have been left in the capable crafty hands of M and we are doing what we do best

Email on the go, sent by TELUS

Rolling out the Green Carpet

What, not everyone astro-turfs a third of their backyard the night before guests come to stay? Just me? Oh well....

As much as I would like Mrs. Figby to believe I did this for her and Apples, it wasn't EXACTLY for them.... Seems like dealing with a mentally ill relative and a Attachment-disordered 5 y.o. isn't enough (not to mention work stress, website stress, etc)... No, you see, Mortimer was getting jealous that Mortimer's Dad was off dealing with other things.... He somehow came home with a case of hookworm. Which is bad. It's nasty and contagious to other dogs (and possibly humans if you don't take precautions). So no more doggy daycare. No staying at the trainers during our vacation (we are hoping to find some sort of boarding solution, otherwise, no vacay for us). And no more sand box. Because hookworms THRIVE in sand. And if kids step in contaminated sand... well, you get contaminated kids. So the vet recommended we quarantine the sandbox. Which is 22 ft by 10 ft......

A visit to the home improvement store, less than an hour of staple-gunning and voila, one astro-turf backyard. the girls already miss the sandbox. But I already don't! And the Roomba doesn't either.