Maybe the other mothers out there can offer me some enlightenment on this topic.
For a little over a month now, Nora has been two. And ever since that lovely birthday spent at the cottage eating pink and mocha cupcakes, she has been very… emotional. Things seem a bit more difficult. Daycare drop-off is no longer an easy transaction. Getting dressed is the hardest part of our day and this week, even bedtime (which was a later-than-normal but relatively easy 15-minute ritual) has become controversial. I am never, ever, on time for work.
I’m not too sure what’s going on with my wee Nora. I know that she’s had a cold on and off for about two weeks now but it hasn’t seemed all that bad, though she is stuffy in the mornings. Our days haven’t been traumatic that I know about – we’ve had a few houseguests come and go, and we weathered a return to work and daycare schedules after our vacation at the cottage – but perhaps there’s something bubbling under the surface that I don’t know about. Perhaps something has destabilized her somehow. I know the first week at the cottage was a bit weird for her; she was having fun, but still kept asking to go home. That soon shifted to “don’t want go home!” and when we were at home, “want go to the cottage!” so I feel like that has become ok for her. No worries there, I don’t think. House guests throw her off for a couple of days. She loves having them, but the routine is different and she reacts to it in subtle ways: waking up at night more, resisting daycare more, clinging to mommy more.
Aside from all this, things have been pretty cheery in her world. She goes to daycare, yes, but that’s not a horrible thing (at least I hope it isn’t). She plays with her friends and eats all her lunches and has all of her naps at the regular times. She plays outside and is happy to see me when I pick her up. When we get home we usually play outside for an hour, just horsing around rolling down the grassy hill, picking apples, playing with the dog, messing around in the veggie garden picking tomatoes and zucchinis and petting fuzzy caterpillars. Then we go inside and have dinner. Daddy comes home and one of us plays with Nora while the other makes dinner. Big messes are made with markers and water and vegetables and many changes of footwear. Sometimes she has a bath, which involves lots of drawing with the bath markers and splashing and ‘swimming,’ followed by naked monkey shenanigans. She is wacky and smart and chatty through all of that. All seems totally fine until pyjama time, then bedtime. I was so smug last week because she’d started to go to bed a bit earlier, but this week I’ve had my comeuppance as she’s back to her usual later-than-a-toddler-should-go-to-bed schedule.
Lately everything is an emergency. She makes this strange high-pitched panicky noise that sounds like a distressed monkey whenever something is temporarily amiss. She lays on the floor with her bum in the air and wails. She has a very specific idea of exactly which dishes she needs to use at suppertime (water in the BLUE cup!) and getting her dressed must sound to the neighbors as though I’m scorching her with a branding iron. I no sooner get an arm into a t-shirt or a leg into her pants than she screams and pulls it all off again. It is quite stressful. By the time we get into the car (late) we are both worn out.
So I can’t figure out what’s changed, and I wonder if I get to chalk it up to the terrible twos. I expected two to be defiant, noisy, messy, petulant and sometimes tantrumy. I didn’t expect it to be sad and quiet and shaken-to-the-core upsetting for both of us.
God help me when it comes time to get her into her snowsuit (shudder).
9/28/12
9/21/12
The Meals.
Oh the meals.
I love to eat and I love to cook. I really get inspired when I read about food or cooking or gardening or any of those good food-related things, and I love taking time and experimenting in the kitchen. I love the feeling of having made a whole bunch of food, and I theoretically love the idea of sharing it with my family and friends.
But lately, I am not so into it. I am not sure why – perhaps it’s because I have to do it, or because I am kind of tired and frazzled all the time. Maybe it’s because when I cook, I usually get to the penultimate moment (pots are at the right temperature on the stove, ingredients are about to go in and be stirred, things urgently need to be chopped) when Rosie parks herself between my knees and the counters and my darling sweet amazing Nora all of a sudden turns into a cartoon toddler, whining to come ‘Uppy mama!’ and clinging to my legs. Sometimes she falls to the kitchen floor and wails, face down, dramatic, and sometimes (the good times) she wants to drag a chair over and stand next to me while I cook. This is great but not conducive to fast cooking. She makes her own concoctions out of the discarded veggie scraps (a favourite is red peppers stuffed with whatever garbage she can find, like mushroom stems and onion skins) or just grabs and eats fistfuls of whatever ingredients (especially grated cheese, which she eats like cookie monster) I am trying to work with.
So mealtimes are a bit stressful.
Adding to the stress, because of our wacky schedules Nora eats earlier than hubby and I. Hubby gets home juuuuust a bit too late for Nora to wait. This was a fine and acceptable arrangement because theoretically, Nora goes to bed much earlier than us, and because she was pretty much eating baby food – low-spice, soft, small portions, not incredible variety - so we didn’t want to eat the same food as her anyway. I ended up cooking two meals in a hurry – the first one harried because an over-hungry Nora is no fun at all (see falling to the floor wailing, above) and the second because our dinnertime would conflict with bedtime preparations. Unacceptable! Sometimes hubby cooks but he finds it much more stressful than I do and makes a giant mess in the process. His strength is pizza night (Thursdays); he is great at making our pizzas. And he does the nightly cleanup, usually after I crawl off to bed.
I need to get a handle on this situation. Store-bought prepared foods are a no-go for me, even in the busiest weeks. And I get super depressed when my produce rots in the crisper because I couldn’t get my act together and create some meal out of it.
I improve things by about 50% when I take the time on Sunday night to plan dinners for the whole week. I can plan to have a dinner each of beef, chicken, pork, fish/seafood, Pizza night and vegetarian (we sometimes double up on chicken or seafood, rarely on beef or pork with the exception of pepperoni). I can plan to have one meal on Monday that will make a dinner for Nora on Tuesday. I can sometimes plan to have some things made in advance – sometimes. So that is a good first step. I make the list on Sunday, post it to the board on the fridge (a stick-on whiteboard on our fridge helps us to keep organized), and then I write out a grocery list accordingly. I am so anal that I will actually write the grocery list in geographic order (by placement in the grocery store), so that when hubby or I do the groceries after work on Monday it takes about 20 minutes max. It really bugs me when the IGA thwarts my plans by moving stuff around. SOMETIMES I will base this plan on what’s on sale that week but I find that’s just one too many factors. I often base it on what kind of meat we have in the freezer. In the morning when I leave, I use the little weird system we’ve developed where I leave signs we have made of cardboard and popsicle sticks saying “CHICKEN” (for example – the back of it says “FISH”) sticking out of hubby’s travel mug, and he gets said meat out of the freezer before he leaves and pops it into the fridge to thaw for the day. It’s weird but it seems to work, because in the morning frenzy neither of us can remember to communicate the message to the other. We’re too busy wrestling the toddler into her clothes and convincing her that daycare isn’t evil.
So I do that about 7 weeks out of 10. Not too bad.
I improve my life quite a lot when I make a big batch of a Nora-friendly meal and freeze it in small portions. A long time ago I baked little healthy (packed with veggies and pumpkin puree and ground flax seed and oatmeal etc) meatloaves, frozen in muffin tins. She liked that just fine because my girl likes beef. I made a veggie/lentil stew and froze that too, in baby food jars, and that went down ok with a dollop of yoghurt on top and a side of either crackers or toast with butter. I need to have dinner options for Nora that I can just take out of the freezer, pop in the toaster oven or microwave, and give her right away because often we fart around outside after work/daycare and only come in to eat, and by that time it’s almost too late (see wailing on the floor, above) I have 15 minutes MAX. Some other options that we like include jars of leftover butter chicken pre-mixed with rice, little containers of frozen homemade cheese sauce (I boil up some healthy pasta – kamut or something else crunchy like that – with some broccoli or peas, warm up the cheese sauce and just mix it together), fish cakes (made from leftover dinner trout that hubby caught), and whatever frozen casserole leftovers we might have kicking around. Sometimes I will whip something up in the moment, like a tiny one-egg omelette with veggies and multigrain toast or a yogurt mashed potato with broccoli and cut-up meatballs, but I much prefer the frozen option.
Then usually, if she’s up late enough, she eats a second dinner with us, poaching our dinners from our plates like a baby vulture.
This plan is evolving. It’s evolving because of two things: 1) Nora has started eating slightly larger portions, so I have to adjust my jars/portions accordingly. Maybe I have to start using small mason jars instead of baby food jars, and 2) she has started eating some more interesting things and tolerating spices. Hubby and I eat a lot of spicy food – standards at our place include pad thai, Singapore noodles, fajitas, spicy BBQ pork tenderloin, grilled chicken sandwiches with chipotle mayo – hence my need to make Nora her own dinners. Once she spat something out and said “it burn me” because it had one chili flake on it. Oops, my bad. But lately she’s into it; she will eat her own fajita and pick at my Singapore noodles. We had curry the other day – not the hottest curry in the world, more like a yellow English curry with raisins – and she liked it so much she ate it for dinner the next day. We shared a pork stir-fry last week as well. So that is getting moderately easier. She will as happily eat rice, couscous, and tortillas as she will eat mashed potatoes and pasta. She is 78% composed of hummus. Eating with Nora is becoming a lot of fun.
In writing this post, I have talked myself into caring about food again. I have also been inspired by Pinterest to kick it up a notch, maybe use my crockpot a bit more to ease the burden now that fall is upon us. I am going to make a stew and freeze it. I am going to re-do the little muffin tin meatloaves. I am going to make make-ahead oatmeal for her daycare breakfasts, and start doing things like keeping pre-grilled meats and sauces around. I am going to mince up a mango and freeze it in ice cube trays, puree a squash to freeze and add to this and that, and buy some long-lasting produce like carrots and beets.
All I need is a day, a day when the pantry is stocked, the kitchen is clean, I can sip a glass of wine while cooking and nobody’s hanging off of my pant leg.
I love to eat and I love to cook. I really get inspired when I read about food or cooking or gardening or any of those good food-related things, and I love taking time and experimenting in the kitchen. I love the feeling of having made a whole bunch of food, and I theoretically love the idea of sharing it with my family and friends.
But lately, I am not so into it. I am not sure why – perhaps it’s because I have to do it, or because I am kind of tired and frazzled all the time. Maybe it’s because when I cook, I usually get to the penultimate moment (pots are at the right temperature on the stove, ingredients are about to go in and be stirred, things urgently need to be chopped) when Rosie parks herself between my knees and the counters and my darling sweet amazing Nora all of a sudden turns into a cartoon toddler, whining to come ‘Uppy mama!’ and clinging to my legs. Sometimes she falls to the kitchen floor and wails, face down, dramatic, and sometimes (the good times) she wants to drag a chair over and stand next to me while I cook. This is great but not conducive to fast cooking. She makes her own concoctions out of the discarded veggie scraps (a favourite is red peppers stuffed with whatever garbage she can find, like mushroom stems and onion skins) or just grabs and eats fistfuls of whatever ingredients (especially grated cheese, which she eats like cookie monster) I am trying to work with.
So mealtimes are a bit stressful.
Adding to the stress, because of our wacky schedules Nora eats earlier than hubby and I. Hubby gets home juuuuust a bit too late for Nora to wait. This was a fine and acceptable arrangement because theoretically, Nora goes to bed much earlier than us, and because she was pretty much eating baby food – low-spice, soft, small portions, not incredible variety - so we didn’t want to eat the same food as her anyway. I ended up cooking two meals in a hurry – the first one harried because an over-hungry Nora is no fun at all (see falling to the floor wailing, above) and the second because our dinnertime would conflict with bedtime preparations. Unacceptable! Sometimes hubby cooks but he finds it much more stressful than I do and makes a giant mess in the process. His strength is pizza night (Thursdays); he is great at making our pizzas. And he does the nightly cleanup, usually after I crawl off to bed.
I need to get a handle on this situation. Store-bought prepared foods are a no-go for me, even in the busiest weeks. And I get super depressed when my produce rots in the crisper because I couldn’t get my act together and create some meal out of it.
I improve things by about 50% when I take the time on Sunday night to plan dinners for the whole week. I can plan to have a dinner each of beef, chicken, pork, fish/seafood, Pizza night and vegetarian (we sometimes double up on chicken or seafood, rarely on beef or pork with the exception of pepperoni). I can plan to have one meal on Monday that will make a dinner for Nora on Tuesday. I can sometimes plan to have some things made in advance – sometimes. So that is a good first step. I make the list on Sunday, post it to the board on the fridge (a stick-on whiteboard on our fridge helps us to keep organized), and then I write out a grocery list accordingly. I am so anal that I will actually write the grocery list in geographic order (by placement in the grocery store), so that when hubby or I do the groceries after work on Monday it takes about 20 minutes max. It really bugs me when the IGA thwarts my plans by moving stuff around. SOMETIMES I will base this plan on what’s on sale that week but I find that’s just one too many factors. I often base it on what kind of meat we have in the freezer. In the morning when I leave, I use the little weird system we’ve developed where I leave signs we have made of cardboard and popsicle sticks saying “CHICKEN” (for example – the back of it says “FISH”) sticking out of hubby’s travel mug, and he gets said meat out of the freezer before he leaves and pops it into the fridge to thaw for the day. It’s weird but it seems to work, because in the morning frenzy neither of us can remember to communicate the message to the other. We’re too busy wrestling the toddler into her clothes and convincing her that daycare isn’t evil.
So I do that about 7 weeks out of 10. Not too bad.
I improve my life quite a lot when I make a big batch of a Nora-friendly meal and freeze it in small portions. A long time ago I baked little healthy (packed with veggies and pumpkin puree and ground flax seed and oatmeal etc) meatloaves, frozen in muffin tins. She liked that just fine because my girl likes beef. I made a veggie/lentil stew and froze that too, in baby food jars, and that went down ok with a dollop of yoghurt on top and a side of either crackers or toast with butter. I need to have dinner options for Nora that I can just take out of the freezer, pop in the toaster oven or microwave, and give her right away because often we fart around outside after work/daycare and only come in to eat, and by that time it’s almost too late (see wailing on the floor, above) I have 15 minutes MAX. Some other options that we like include jars of leftover butter chicken pre-mixed with rice, little containers of frozen homemade cheese sauce (I boil up some healthy pasta – kamut or something else crunchy like that – with some broccoli or peas, warm up the cheese sauce and just mix it together), fish cakes (made from leftover dinner trout that hubby caught), and whatever frozen casserole leftovers we might have kicking around. Sometimes I will whip something up in the moment, like a tiny one-egg omelette with veggies and multigrain toast or a yogurt mashed potato with broccoli and cut-up meatballs, but I much prefer the frozen option.
Then usually, if she’s up late enough, she eats a second dinner with us, poaching our dinners from our plates like a baby vulture.
This plan is evolving. It’s evolving because of two things: 1) Nora has started eating slightly larger portions, so I have to adjust my jars/portions accordingly. Maybe I have to start using small mason jars instead of baby food jars, and 2) she has started eating some more interesting things and tolerating spices. Hubby and I eat a lot of spicy food – standards at our place include pad thai, Singapore noodles, fajitas, spicy BBQ pork tenderloin, grilled chicken sandwiches with chipotle mayo – hence my need to make Nora her own dinners. Once she spat something out and said “it burn me” because it had one chili flake on it. Oops, my bad. But lately she’s into it; she will eat her own fajita and pick at my Singapore noodles. We had curry the other day – not the hottest curry in the world, more like a yellow English curry with raisins – and she liked it so much she ate it for dinner the next day. We shared a pork stir-fry last week as well. So that is getting moderately easier. She will as happily eat rice, couscous, and tortillas as she will eat mashed potatoes and pasta. She is 78% composed of hummus. Eating with Nora is becoming a lot of fun.
In writing this post, I have talked myself into caring about food again. I have also been inspired by Pinterest to kick it up a notch, maybe use my crockpot a bit more to ease the burden now that fall is upon us. I am going to make a stew and freeze it. I am going to re-do the little muffin tin meatloaves. I am going to make make-ahead oatmeal for her daycare breakfasts, and start doing things like keeping pre-grilled meats and sauces around. I am going to mince up a mango and freeze it in ice cube trays, puree a squash to freeze and add to this and that, and buy some long-lasting produce like carrots and beets.
All I need is a day, a day when the pantry is stocked, the kitchen is clean, I can sip a glass of wine while cooking and nobody’s hanging off of my pant leg.
8/28/12
Cottage Livin'
I am pleased to report that I can now answer all of those people who, upon hearing that hubby and I were building a cottage, said “you live in the country. Why do you need a cottage?”
Ways in which our house is not a cottage:
- Drinking water comes out of the tap.
- Our road is being paved as I write this.
- In any given hour, approximately 9 cars will drive quickly right past my house.
- My dog, if loose, might run over and irritate the neighbors or worse, attack their dog. She has developed an irrational and intense dislike of the sweet dog next door.
- My dog might get hit by one of those 9 cars that drive quickly past my house.
- I can hear my neighbors talking on their deck. And I’m sure they can hear me.
- Sometimes, at home, the radio is on, the t.v. is on, and I am on the computer. All at once.
- At home, if I need something, I can drive to the store quickly and get it.
- My well has its limits.
- There are always chores to do at home. Not fun chores, but things like laundry folding, floor washing, dusting, vacuuming, plant-watering, lawn mowing, ironing, furniture cleaning. If I try to sit down and relax, one of those beasts is always calling my name.
- In our evening fatigue, we usually sit speechless in front of the t.v.
- In the 10 years since we bought our house, somehow our neighborhood has become more of a suburb than a country road.
Ways in which our cottage is not our house:
- There is no limit to the water that comes out of the tap, but you can’t drink it. We just drink beer instead.
- Our road is 2.5 acres away from our cottage, through the bush. Said road is a nearly-undriveable rock pile-slash-dirt track. We have no idea who is driving past when.
- No car can drive faster than 40kmh past our property without doing major damage.
- My dog, loose, runs over and irritates the neighbors all the time and their dog does the same. Since we are family, it’s all expected and all good. She goes no further than the lower property limits of our two lots and is always within sight of someone.
- There’s a stronger chance my dog will get hit by a motorboat than a car at the cottage. Or perhaps an aggressive loon.
- I can hear the neighbors talk only if they are doing construction projects and they have to shout over power tools, or if they are calling one another to dinner, but that’s about it. Also: they are family, we love each other, it is not an issue.
- At the cottage there is no electricity. Hence, no internet, radio, television, and my cellphone charge only lasts 2 days. Blissful silence, broken only by the abovementioned aggressive loons.
- At the cottage, if I need something, I will walk across and ask the neighbors. If they don’t have it, I will live without. Dinner planning is simple when the nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away.
- The chores that need to be done at the cottage are fun chores. Sweep the sand off of the couch. Wash the dishes after each meal because the kitchen is small and I only have 6 plates. Maybe throw the duvet onto the deck railing so it airs out. Build stuff. Organize stuff. Fun chores!
- In the evenings, we have options: game nights, where the two families get together in some combination for rousing evenings of games and wine; fishing nights, where hubby and nephew go fishing until dark and I stay home, put Nora to bed, then read on the couch with the dog snoring beside me; or we can always sit on the deck listening to the litany of owls, wolves, loons, distant motorboats, or any combination of the above.
So yeah, smartypantses, I have learned over the last two weeks that country life and cottage life are nowhere near the same thing. Now that I am being unwillingly dragged into suburban living kicking and screaming (even though I am still technically surrounded by trees) I am certainly happy to have at least one refuge in the woods.
Ways in which our house is not a cottage:
- Drinking water comes out of the tap.
- Our road is being paved as I write this.
- In any given hour, approximately 9 cars will drive quickly right past my house.
- My dog, if loose, might run over and irritate the neighbors or worse, attack their dog. She has developed an irrational and intense dislike of the sweet dog next door.
- My dog might get hit by one of those 9 cars that drive quickly past my house.
- I can hear my neighbors talking on their deck. And I’m sure they can hear me.
- Sometimes, at home, the radio is on, the t.v. is on, and I am on the computer. All at once.
- At home, if I need something, I can drive to the store quickly and get it.
- My well has its limits.
- There are always chores to do at home. Not fun chores, but things like laundry folding, floor washing, dusting, vacuuming, plant-watering, lawn mowing, ironing, furniture cleaning. If I try to sit down and relax, one of those beasts is always calling my name.
- In our evening fatigue, we usually sit speechless in front of the t.v.
- In the 10 years since we bought our house, somehow our neighborhood has become more of a suburb than a country road.
Ways in which our cottage is not our house:
- There is no limit to the water that comes out of the tap, but you can’t drink it. We just drink beer instead.
- Our road is 2.5 acres away from our cottage, through the bush. Said road is a nearly-undriveable rock pile-slash-dirt track. We have no idea who is driving past when.
- No car can drive faster than 40kmh past our property without doing major damage.
- My dog, loose, runs over and irritates the neighbors all the time and their dog does the same. Since we are family, it’s all expected and all good. She goes no further than the lower property limits of our two lots and is always within sight of someone.
- There’s a stronger chance my dog will get hit by a motorboat than a car at the cottage. Or perhaps an aggressive loon.
- I can hear the neighbors talk only if they are doing construction projects and they have to shout over power tools, or if they are calling one another to dinner, but that’s about it. Also: they are family, we love each other, it is not an issue.
- At the cottage there is no electricity. Hence, no internet, radio, television, and my cellphone charge only lasts 2 days. Blissful silence, broken only by the abovementioned aggressive loons.
- At the cottage, if I need something, I will walk across and ask the neighbors. If they don’t have it, I will live without. Dinner planning is simple when the nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away.
- The chores that need to be done at the cottage are fun chores. Sweep the sand off of the couch. Wash the dishes after each meal because the kitchen is small and I only have 6 plates. Maybe throw the duvet onto the deck railing so it airs out. Build stuff. Organize stuff. Fun chores!
- In the evenings, we have options: game nights, where the two families get together in some combination for rousing evenings of games and wine; fishing nights, where hubby and nephew go fishing until dark and I stay home, put Nora to bed, then read on the couch with the dog snoring beside me; or we can always sit on the deck listening to the litany of owls, wolves, loons, distant motorboats, or any combination of the above.
So yeah, smartypantses, I have learned over the last two weeks that country life and cottage life are nowhere near the same thing. Now that I am being unwillingly dragged into suburban living kicking and screaming (even though I am still technically surrounded by trees) I am certainly happy to have at least one refuge in the woods.
8/2/12
And Now For The Fun Stuff
The last month has been a bit rough. Not only have we been blowing the money cannon on a near-daily basis, there have been a ton of small projects on the go, most of them unfinished. We weathered a drought (hopefully I can use the past tense there) which nearly gave me an ulcer; the year I decide to put extra effort into a vegetable garden, water becomes scarce. Our well kept running dry. Thankfully I installed an irrigation system this year so at least I could do short targeted waterings every three days or so, because otherwise, sayonara investment and fresh veggies.
I have been messing up at work here and there as well. Nothing major – it’s not like I failed to come up with adequate security two weeks before the Olympics or had to deal with thousands of people protesting my political decisions in the streets – but small mistakes that threaten to make me look bad in the long run. Add them up, it’s not looking so great. I have been very distracted. I am now hoping that a brand new month (August) and a vacation means I can turn a new leaf, leave that awful July behind me and restore my reputation.
But now for the fun stuff.
The cottage is nearly done. There’s enough roof on it that it’s dry inside, and the doors and windows are going in as I write this. I hope that by the end of the week, we have some interior walls, and on Monday we are all going up there to put together the kitchen and bathroom. It has come in pretty damn close to on time and on budget, barring some last-minute changes that may or may not have cost us some extra money. I haven’t yet had to call the bank and ask them to raise our credit limit - fingers crossed.
And last week I ignored my bank statements and went to Ikea. I had a whirlwind lunchtime shopping spree and spent $450 on fun but necessary stuff for the cottage – a nice duvet cover, kitchen knickknacks, small storage for Nora’s room, batteries, a garbage can, storage bins, a bench, curtain rod holders, all that stuff. It may not be everyone’s idea of a rockin’ great time but for me, Ikea is my happy place (to hubby’s dismay).
I realize, through the compulsive writing of 857 lists, that there’s a lot that goes into creating a new household, even a casual, temporary one. While life at the cottage should be simple, that doesn’t mean that we don’t also need batteries, a fire extinguisher, a broom, a dustpan, basic food necessities and the jars to store them in, a potato peeler, knives, a frying pan, barbecue lighters, propane tanks, lamp oil, bedding, mattresses, curtains, dog bowls, pens, hair elastics, a coffee thermos, cereal bowls, a soap dish, wall hooks, towels, first aid supplies, toilet paper… you catch my drift. It is a lot, because we are not camping, and we intend to leave all of it up there in the interest of not having to pack everything every Thursday night. Packing = fighting at my house, so all of this is to benefit marital harmony. From curtain rods to paper napkins and a seperate set of toys and things to amuse Nora during the evenings and rainy days, we have to think of it all unless we want to be driving back and for the whole damn time in search of stuff we forgot. Selection is fairly limited in Otter Lake, Quebec.
The goal is to go up there, unpack, put it all in its forever home, and relax.
We got loads of stuff second hand, at the Great Glebe Garage Sale, and from our own jam-packed household. We are breaking down and getting a used couch from kijiji (more like a loveseat, due to space considerations, but when do you ever fit 3 people on a couch anyway?). I’m not sure we’ll have many kitchen chairs but we’ll figure something out. Just means we can’t have any giant dinner parties in the near future unless we have a BYOBAC party (Bring Your Own Booze And Chairs).
And the projects. The projects! There have been a lot of projects. I have (as always) bitten off a bit more than I can chew, but here’s the rundown of my projects:
THE TRUNK
That leg on the front right is the new one I made (Nora was making Styrofoam art on top. The things I let her do in the interest of getting stuff done…). To achieve the proper level of distress, Nora and I rubbed it with rocks! She enjoyed her woodworking experience very much. I had to cut down all of the legs by about 1.5 inches to make it an appropriate coffee-table height, and I had to shore up a few of the others with some extra nails, but I am thrilled with the result. And for 10 bucks!
THE MIRROR
We bought a very ornate gilt picture frame at the Great Glebe Garage Sale. It is very old, and gorgeous, and was a bit more than we’d normally expect to pay at the GGGS (a whole $15) but worth it. We then took it in to have a piece of mirror fit to it, and hubby installed it with his framing experience. It is stunning. It will go in the bathroom right above….
THE BATHROOM VANITY
I think it will look nice - simple and a good contrast with the very woody wood - but I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to sand it more, get it finished, then oil or varathane it. Am running out of days. Ah well it has to dry out anyway.
My brother is trying to cut a drain hole in an old enamel farm bowl so we can use it as a sink, but he’s convinced he’s going to mess it up. I think he’s just trying to lower my expectations; he’s actually going to do just fine.
THE KITCHEN COUNTERS
We bought an Ikea kitchen, the ‘Varde’ free-standing jobbie that I have always wanted in my house but could never ever have. We got the two big pieces as part of the ‘kitchen event’, and then when they were offering them at 15% off 42 days later we went in and got a further discount. The countertops are the basic cheapie ‘Lagen’ ones thank god, because I have had to cut them and couldn’t handle the pressure if they’d been more expensive. It took me forever to do these cuts, mostly because when I first tried I was sick and every time I’d start I’d get the sweats and have to stop again. We’ve had to shift gears and switch the sink and the stovetop locations because of the width of our stove, but I haven’t cut holes yet, plumbing and propane haven't yet been installed, so it’s still ok. All is well. I am thinking of sweet-talking Ben (the builder) into doing the cuts for me. The kitchen is rather large vis-à-vis the space so plans for a breakfast bar are on hold for the time being. I have to see what I’m working with first.
TOP SECRET NON-COTTAGE-RELATED PROJECT
OK not so top secret, I’m making Nora a play kitchen for her birthday. It’s in 3 weeks – and we plan to spend nearly two of those weeks up at the cottage where I am unable to work on this project. I am officially unprepared.
We have more projects in mind, for future years. The loft is going to need railings and some kind of stair system. We are going to make our own shower stall. We may, when Nora gets older, somehow build bunk beds in her room. I may still build the aforementioned breakfast bar, and the cottage will need flooring at some point. I will need to make curtains (or ha ha who am I kidding, it's a sewing project, meaning I will very much intend to make curtains but my mom will end up doing it) and have become, in my temporary insanity, obsessed with this seemingly-unobtainable fabric:
for our room
for Nora's room
This year, aside from making the screens for the screen porch, we are going to take it easy with fun smaller projects and landscaping (and that maybe in fall, or rainy days). It is a work in progress.
So these days are busy but as the projects wind down and the cottage gets done, the fun level increases.
I have been messing up at work here and there as well. Nothing major – it’s not like I failed to come up with adequate security two weeks before the Olympics or had to deal with thousands of people protesting my political decisions in the streets – but small mistakes that threaten to make me look bad in the long run. Add them up, it’s not looking so great. I have been very distracted. I am now hoping that a brand new month (August) and a vacation means I can turn a new leaf, leave that awful July behind me and restore my reputation.
But now for the fun stuff.
The cottage is nearly done. There’s enough roof on it that it’s dry inside, and the doors and windows are going in as I write this. I hope that by the end of the week, we have some interior walls, and on Monday we are all going up there to put together the kitchen and bathroom. It has come in pretty damn close to on time and on budget, barring some last-minute changes that may or may not have cost us some extra money. I haven’t yet had to call the bank and ask them to raise our credit limit - fingers crossed.
And last week I ignored my bank statements and went to Ikea. I had a whirlwind lunchtime shopping spree and spent $450 on fun but necessary stuff for the cottage – a nice duvet cover, kitchen knickknacks, small storage for Nora’s room, batteries, a garbage can, storage bins, a bench, curtain rod holders, all that stuff. It may not be everyone’s idea of a rockin’ great time but for me, Ikea is my happy place (to hubby’s dismay).
I realize, through the compulsive writing of 857 lists, that there’s a lot that goes into creating a new household, even a casual, temporary one. While life at the cottage should be simple, that doesn’t mean that we don’t also need batteries, a fire extinguisher, a broom, a dustpan, basic food necessities and the jars to store them in, a potato peeler, knives, a frying pan, barbecue lighters, propane tanks, lamp oil, bedding, mattresses, curtains, dog bowls, pens, hair elastics, a coffee thermos, cereal bowls, a soap dish, wall hooks, towels, first aid supplies, toilet paper… you catch my drift. It is a lot, because we are not camping, and we intend to leave all of it up there in the interest of not having to pack everything every Thursday night. Packing = fighting at my house, so all of this is to benefit marital harmony. From curtain rods to paper napkins and a seperate set of toys and things to amuse Nora during the evenings and rainy days, we have to think of it all unless we want to be driving back and for the whole damn time in search of stuff we forgot. Selection is fairly limited in Otter Lake, Quebec.
The goal is to go up there, unpack, put it all in its forever home, and relax.
We got loads of stuff second hand, at the Great Glebe Garage Sale, and from our own jam-packed household. We are breaking down and getting a used couch from kijiji (more like a loveseat, due to space considerations, but when do you ever fit 3 people on a couch anyway?). I’m not sure we’ll have many kitchen chairs but we’ll figure something out. Just means we can’t have any giant dinner parties in the near future unless we have a BYOBAC party (Bring Your Own Booze And Chairs).
And the projects. The projects! There have been a lot of projects. I have (as always) bitten off a bit more than I can chew, but here’s the rundown of my projects:
THE TRUNK
We were wandering down the street at the Great Glebe Garage Sale when from across the road I spied an orange wooden trunk. It is old – very distressed – and the seller was standing there holding up the lid. When I got closer I realized he was actually holding up the trunk since it only had three legs, but I wanted it anyway – the colour and distressing are perfect. We got the trunk for 8 or 10 dollars, I can’t remember. Hubby talked him down for sure, as he always does. It is pretty big, and will be our coffee table. All puzzles and board games and extra blankets and that kind of junk will be stored in it. Trouble was, it only had three legs. I had it in my mind that I would restore the missing leg to match the other three old, distressed ones, even though hubby kept trying to convince me just to get something completely different, to be funny and wacky. Here is my result:
That leg on the front right is the new one I made (Nora was making Styrofoam art on top. The things I let her do in the interest of getting stuff done…). To achieve the proper level of distress, Nora and I rubbed it with rocks! She enjoyed her woodworking experience very much. I had to cut down all of the legs by about 1.5 inches to make it an appropriate coffee-table height, and I had to shore up a few of the others with some extra nails, but I am thrilled with the result. And for 10 bucks!THE MIRROR
We bought a very ornate gilt picture frame at the Great Glebe Garage Sale. It is very old, and gorgeous, and was a bit more than we’d normally expect to pay at the GGGS (a whole $15) but worth it. We then took it in to have a piece of mirror fit to it, and hubby installed it with his framing experience. It is stunning. It will go in the bathroom right above….
THE BATHROOM VANITY
A long time ago I asked our hippie wood guy “hey, do you have a piece of wood about 3’ long, 2’ wide, live edge, 2” thick?” and he said “yeah no problem! I can get that to you for about $50”. Last week he left on vacation but seemingly forgot to do it, because we got the piece in kind of a panic one night before he left (after having reminded him a week earlier). It is huge. It weighs 150 pounds I’m sure. It was all shaggy and hasn’t dried out yet, it has a big weird curved cut piece one one side and the live edge was sort of less than impressive. Anyway, I cut it to squarish and to size, sanded it, sanded it, fixed up the live edge a bit (removed some shaggy bark) and will sand it some more, and it will be our bathroom vanity. I had thought I would use these Ikea legs under it:
But discovered that they are much too wide, and on second thought they are also too bulky-looking, so I am going for two of these legs at the front, and bolting it to the back wall:
I think it will look nice - simple and a good contrast with the very woody wood - but I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to sand it more, get it finished, then oil or varathane it. Am running out of days. Ah well it has to dry out anyway.
My brother is trying to cut a drain hole in an old enamel farm bowl so we can use it as a sink, but he’s convinced he’s going to mess it up. I think he’s just trying to lower my expectations; he’s actually going to do just fine.
THE KITCHEN COUNTERS
We bought an Ikea kitchen, the ‘Varde’ free-standing jobbie that I have always wanted in my house but could never ever have. We got the two big pieces as part of the ‘kitchen event’, and then when they were offering them at 15% off 42 days later we went in and got a further discount. The countertops are the basic cheapie ‘Lagen’ ones thank god, because I have had to cut them and couldn’t handle the pressure if they’d been more expensive. It took me forever to do these cuts, mostly because when I first tried I was sick and every time I’d start I’d get the sweats and have to stop again. We’ve had to shift gears and switch the sink and the stovetop locations because of the width of our stove, but I haven’t cut holes yet, plumbing and propane haven't yet been installed, so it’s still ok. All is well. I am thinking of sweet-talking Ben (the builder) into doing the cuts for me. The kitchen is rather large vis-à-vis the space so plans for a breakfast bar are on hold for the time being. I have to see what I’m working with first.
TOP SECRET NON-COTTAGE-RELATED PROJECT
OK not so top secret, I’m making Nora a play kitchen for her birthday. It’s in 3 weeks – and we plan to spend nearly two of those weeks up at the cottage where I am unable to work on this project. I am officially unprepared.
We have more projects in mind, for future years. The loft is going to need railings and some kind of stair system. We are going to make our own shower stall. We may, when Nora gets older, somehow build bunk beds in her room. I may still build the aforementioned breakfast bar, and the cottage will need flooring at some point. I will need to make curtains (or ha ha who am I kidding, it's a sewing project, meaning I will very much intend to make curtains but my mom will end up doing it) and have become, in my temporary insanity, obsessed with this seemingly-unobtainable fabric:
for our room for Nora's roomThis year, aside from making the screens for the screen porch, we are going to take it easy with fun smaller projects and landscaping (and that maybe in fall, or rainy days). It is a work in progress.
So these days are busy but as the projects wind down and the cottage gets done, the fun level increases.
5/3/12
Cottage Life
Yesterday, May 2, 2012, work on our cottage began in earnest.
Nothing was built or anything, but the boys (my husband with our contractor and his 2-guy crew) went up and cleared the trees off of the building site. On May 21 a fellow is coming to install our septic system (yes, this cottage will have a septic system due to our being way too by-the-book and sticking to the letter of the law) and clear an access road down to the site. He will also be flattening out the site a little bit, so our cottage doesn't have to soar up into the sky on its piers.
Soon after that, we are having the piers put in. We will be using these things called 'Technopiers' as our foundation – they are like big metal screws that are drilled about 5 or 6 feet into the ground, with metal posts welded on top. Then you put wooden posts on top of those. It's relatively easy peasy to install; apparently it should take two days due to the welding.
After that, the floors go in. Soon after that, the walls go up.
Sheesh.
A few months ago all of this was giving me a slow-mo heart attack, like how on earth can I set myself back another 100k or so in debt when we've come so far in clearing what we've already got? I find it crazy. I think it's a bit irresponsible. I think we're flying by the seat of our pants a little bit finance-wise. But what's life without risk? Other friends of ours have risked more on their projects, gotten themselves deep into holes for various passions and outcomes. It's our turn now to leap into the void.
This cottage we're building is not to be a palace. I estimate it will be approximately 800 square feet on the ground floor, plus a sleeping/playing/storage loft. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a great room that comprises the kitchen, dining, living, and entry areas, a screen porch and a deck. Our floor plan is a sort of wide T-shape, simply because our hilly site makes it easier for us to go wide rather than deep. This plan was arrived at after I(and hubby) mock-designed about 658 different floor plans, finally made official by my architect brother-in-law, so if it works out I will feel a great deal of pride in my design. It will require a lot of elaborate stairs to get to, because of said hill, but it is my hope that we will eventually get to the point where one will be welcomed by lovely (natural, woodland – natch) paths and steps and plantings rather than just steep wooden stairs.
Hubby and I are not the kind of folks who enjoy clearing land and chopping down trees. On the contrary. We would have built a treehouse if it had been at all feasible. We want to leave a band of trees between us and the neighbors (our septic bed clearings are sort of beside each other) for privacy etc., but luckily the neighbors are family. The builders and septic-installers will need an access road in order to reach the site, so there will be some destruction there, but as soon as we move large furniture into the cottage (hopefully late July) I can start healing that land with small local tree transplants. We are fortunate in that no difficult decisions really have to be made with regards to trees; only one nice tree was taken down in yesterday's adventure: a maple that went super red every fall. Aside from that the forest in that spot is a dense mess of little trees that have choked out the light for so long that the only thing that grows there are mushrooms. We are trying not to clear too many trees overall but the reality is this: the trees we've got down there are kind of shitty. They are nasty birches – most of them dead on top – and a bunch of small hemlocks. Without some more cutting, that lot is going to be a nasty blackfly-and mosquito-infested mess and a safety hazard. The forest floor was just a pile of fallen branches and decades-old garbage from ancient campers. Once the building is complete, I am going to replace all that scrubby crap with some nice small white pines and junipers, abundantly available along the roadside that leads to the property, and lots and lots of blueberry plants. Near the water we have a stunning giant white pine tree that will be preserved (we aren't building at the water's edge) so as long as that's standing, I'm happy.
An interesting factor in all of this is that the cottage lot is off-grid. Not necessarily because we wanted it that way (though it is an advantage in my mind), but because nobody on our private gated road has power – the nearest hydro pole is 5 km away, beyond the gate. This impacts everything we do, both minor and major. All appliances we have to buy have to be propane, and man alive, propane fridges are freaking expensive. Hot water has to be supplied through a propane on-demand tankless heater, from water pumped out of the lake and stored in a tank. Lights will be propane, and we will read by the glow of solar lamps from Ikea. Eventually we want to invest in a solar panel to run some lights, at least 12v lights, but for right now the budget doesn't allow for that system. Having no power also means we won't be able to make normal decent toast, so we are currently looking into investing in one of these babies because we like toast with our eggs. There is, ironically, better internet and cellphone reception at our cottage than there is at our house.
The cottage will be an interesting construction project to watch: technopiers in the ground, then SIPS panels (dense Styrofoam/plywood sandwiches) become the entire floor, then on top of that go the walls which will all be interlocked square logs. They go up like Lincoln Logs – corners are simply chopped off with a chainsaw, windowholes cut out with a chainsaw and windows popped in – so my builder estimates the entire thing could go up in as fast as six weeks. The longest parts will be the roof and the ceiling, because the insides will all be tongue-and-groove and angles and this and that and it's finicky. My builder does fantastic work, though – he is a real wood artist. He's 26 going on 56 and I trust him to do a beautiful job.
So we are biting the bullet and building this thing. The idea is to have it paid off by the time I'm 45 or 50. It is to be Nora's inheritance and our Plan B, in case our everyday house crumbles into the ground or is carried off by ants someday. It is also to be a spot that we want our friends and family to enjoy, as the normal rigors of everyday living will hopefully be lessened – or at least that's the idea. It will need to be cleaned and maintained, secured and insured, like everything else but at least it's small, it's wood, it has no elaborate systems which can fail, it costs very little to run, and it's on a lake.
I want to go there right now. I have booked off two weeks in mid-August and our intention is to go there and enjoy ourselves. Some work will still need to be done, but hopefully by that time we'll also be ready to cook, eat, swim, play games, sleep, listen to the loons, talk, drink coffee, relax and stare at the water through the trees.
3/28/12
The Tyranny of Stuff
I have written before in these pages how I have an ongoing battle with the stuff that fills up my home. If it isn't food hiding in the back of my fridge or cupboard, it's junk accumulating in my basement or shed. I'm not quite sure why this happens, but I collect stuff like a damn magnet.
Every year around this time I get a kind of panicky frantic feeling, like I am getting short of breath and can't concentrate. I have to fight the urge to call up one of those construction debris places and rent a big garbage bin – the kind that has to be brought and taken away via flatbed truck – to park outside a window, and just start turfing. Imagine the freedom. If I could somehow be assured that someone will go through that bin at the other end and remove all of the re-useable and recyclable stuff, recycle it all properly and donate the rest of it to a good cause, I would sign up immediately.
I once read link after link after link about the phenomenon of hoarding. One thing stuck with me: that often the hoarding behavior starts with an uncertainty about how to properly dispose of something. I would add to that that it's not only uncertainty, but also laziness, because it often takes a lot more effort to dispose of something than it does to acquire it. Especially since in most cases, the bloom is off the rose; it's an object that we no longer want to deal with in any capacity, so we toss it into a corner and try to forget about it.
Sometimes I admire the people I see in magazines or whatever, who live in homes free of knickknacks. I think "wow how liberating, look how much space they have to breathe and think, how relaxed they must feel. Look at how much potential there is. Look at the well-placed objects on those mostly-empty shelves." But then I feel kind of sad for them, that they're not surrounded by the things they love or that make them happy to look at. I imagine they too must have closets or storage lockers full of old school assignments and stuffed toys missing eyes and clothes that don't quite fit anymore.
A lot of our problem lies in knickknack acquisition. When you have interests and those interests are made public, people latch onto them and that becomes the thing they know about you. And they shop accordingly, for all birthdays and Christmases forever into eternity. Take, for example, my husband's love of fishing. Hubby is a world-class fishing nut. He thinks about fishing about 78.5 times a day, I'm sure. When people meet him and talk with him for more than an hour, they come away with the knowledge that he is a man who loves fish. However, this does not mean that he necessarily loves fish boxer shorts, fish notecards, fish xmas lights, fish carvings, fish poems, fish pens, fish keychains and the BigMouth Billy Bass™. A short list of fish things that he actually likes could include: nerdy vintage fish science textbooks that are impossible to find, actual smoked fish, fish t-shirts that he picks himself (to wear fishing), very very very specific fishing lures that are also impossible to find, and fish taxidermy. Similarly, people know that I like dogs (more recently) and cats (formerly). So I have a ton of humour books about cats, cat notepads, a Crazy Cat Lady doll set, etc etc the list goes on.
Here is a list of things that I am actually into: storage containers, household organizers, high-end vacuum cleaners, garbage cans, and my kid.
I have recently discovered a whole new angle on this stuff-acquisition problem: having a child. People LOOOVE to shop for kids, myself included. Every week at least one new thing enters our home, aimed at Nora. Admittedly a lot of the stuff I acquire is clothing – I never in my life imagined how much clothing we could go through. Sometimes I think "enough! She has 1,800 pairs of pants and that is enough!" but then all of a sudden I go to get a pair and there are only 2 in the drawer, both of them too short. Then I feel the pull of Old Navy tugging at me. The seasons change and I realize that for this short in-between season we actually need hoodies, cardigants, splash pants, bigger rain boots, a rain coat, and toss in an umbrella for fun. Summer is coming. Great right? Smaller clothing, less of it? Nope: new bathing suit, life jacket, water shoes, sandals, sunscreen, a larger sun hat, etc etc etc.
I also realize that about half of all clothing I got for her before she was born is redundant and fits the wrong season. A lot of the things we received as gifts have never been worn or worn only once, because it was too big last summer and this summer it'll be way too small, or it just never suited her at all (too girly, too squat, etc). That's the way it goes. I kind of have to get her clothes 'à la minute' because I never can tell when the spurts will happen. I feel badly that a lot of these things have been wasted. It keeps bringing to mind the big question of 'will I have another one?' but that is another topic for another day. I save the clothes in case I or someone very close to me has a(nother) baby, and it makes me weepy and sentimental to go through them, but some of the less-special things can be given away. Because, after all, it is super fun to buy new baby clothes.
However, the toys are officially out of control. She's starting to get to the point where she can't possibly play with them all and some of them are being forgotten. The cottage is the solve-all for this and other storage issues – she will need to have a small set of toys to play with up there during quiet times away from the lake and the great outdoors. Stuffed toys for her room, a ride-on toy for the deck, a selection of books - I am not hauling toys back and forth so this venture will inject some novelty into the whole thing. Some of the toys are really 'baby' toys and can be put away under the cover of night, when she will never notice they are gone. Lately all she wants to play with are rocks and pinecones anyway.
Ultimately, I think this is the answer to my problems: forget the spring cleaning. Wait for the cottage. Stock the cottage full of stuff I've already got, that we've been hoarding for years in anticipation of this moment, and then re-assess. In the fall, rent that garbage bin and be mercenary about the whole thing. Stick to my guns. Donate household stuff to the local community centre's second-hand 'shop', clothes to value village, books to the library. Pitch the old computer. Recycle old magazines I'm not going to 'get to later ' and cancel the subscriptions (keep Martha for inspiration). Make a pact that when we buy a new thing we get rid of the old thing, don't just put it downstairs and forget about it. Try on clothes before buying them so I can see if they really don't fit or flatter. Buy good products instead of many products. Don't acquire things we won't definitely use within a year. Don't buy anything without assessing whether or not I already have that thing or something that can be used in its place. Don't pick up other peoples' garbage. I am going to make a list of these points, print it out, and leave it all over the house.
It's going to be an uphill battle but I think we can do it.
3/15/12
Helloooo Internet
So the thing with having a blog is that you actually have to WRITE in it once in awhile.
I'm not going to apologize for not showing the love to my blog lately. I have been busy. I have been a busy little bee and you know what? I have also been sick for 48 years. Never mind that I am only 36, they are 48 figurative years. 48 long, long, figurative, very sick and snotty years.
I knew Nora would get sick a lot, and she has (she is sick again right now, as a matter of fact!) I was smug enough to assume that since I'm an adult with an adult immune system and I go to work every day and do adult stuff (not that adult stuff), I wouldn't get sick as often. I was partially right, because while I haven't been sick often, the illness I did get has had a stranglehold on me for about 3.78 weeks now. And that's no exaggeration. I think I have actually had three colds in that time, that keep cycling through my bent and battered body. My immune system has started to wave the white flag, the flag that says "enough! I know you are self-righteous enough to believe that the medical establishment is kind of up to no good, but girl, it is time to seek out antibiotics!" The left side of my face wants to be rescued. I want to taste food again, and my coworkers want to stop hearing the sounds of snot exiting my body.
Through this illness, I managed to host a 'jury' at work. When I say I'm in jury people get excited and expect me to give juicy details of gory trials or something, but really they are meetings at which groups of artists decide which other groups of artists get to have money for their projects. They are, nonetheless, intense experiences, where we sit in a darkened room for 8 hours at a time, 5 days in a row, and discuss/debate/lightly argue about art and I am tasked with the duty of keeping pace and keeping peace. Also tasked with the final process of who-gets-what. I like it, but this time around, I was so sick that already on Monday afternoon I was picturing what it'd be like if one of my committee members (who I'd only just met) had to suddenly give me CPR. I could not breathe. I had to take frequent bathroom breaks to blow my now-raw-and-zitty nose, and in the dark I was holding my forehead just so, to try to 'break' the pain somehow. It was kind of miserable.
Also, we have been pushing through to the end of winter. It's decently warm outside (some would say dangerously unseasonable but I'll take it this year, I hated winter so hard) and the snow is melting, and I feel like the end is in sight. The last bit has been a tough slog, as Nora went through a stomach flu, a cold, then gave me the cold, then got the cold again (along with my father and hubby), and now she's getting over THAT cold but I am still sick. Or sick again. I have been taking care of illnesses for what feels like forever.
We've been making some progress on this cottage project, however, despite the illness. Through February, we've been meeting with our builder and have finally settled on a bunch of things that needed to be settled before we begin (cost, timeline, final design). I have also received the septic evaluation, so we can move forward with the building permits etc, which (fingers crossed) are ridiculously easy to get in our municipality. Rick, the guy in charge of that sort of thing, is super affable and knows me from my brother-in-law's build, and he likes me. So that should go pretty well. I have a meeting with the bank tomorrow, and have made some adjustments to my insurances etc. to save some dollars here and there. I will present this project to you in full detail once we're further along. We hope to get started in May.
I have discovered, in the past few months, the joy of carpooling. It has its drawbacks as well, of course – I am less flexible when it comes to leaving work early, taking days off, and running errands after work - but I carpool with a super nice gang of locals and we have formed our own little group. For a couple of us, it has sadly become our social life, this coming and going from work. Other advantages include reduced cost of parking, reduced gas usage, reduced mileage on my car, and we get to take the carpool lanes, which allow us to zoom past traffic and get to and from work pretty quickly. I love my carpool. Highlight of my day (my workday, that is). Our kids all kind of go to daycare together too, so it's a double-nice community thing, this carpool.
And then there is Nora. Sweet Nora, who can now talk quite a bit and is really super hammy. I love the personality she has become. She is small and feisty and stubborn and knows what she wants, but at the same time she's quiet and has a wisdom about her that I appreciate. She isn't noisy. She doesn't complain much. She sort of quietly processes stuff and then throws it back out at you later, when you least expect it. She has the wisdom of the ages that one. You get the impression, when communicating with her, that she doesn't suffer fools and can see right through your crap. She definitely sees through all the tricks I use to try to get her dressed and fed. She is also currently embroiled in a deep love affair with Elmo. Elmo has been helping us motivate Nora to do things she might not otherwise want to do, like eat her supper, or have her diaper changed. It's often the first thing she says when she gets up in the morning ("Elmo?" as in 'are you there Elmo?') often followed by "Oma?" because my mom bought her an Elmo doll. So now it's "Elmo? Oma?" and then when I explain that yes, Oma gave you Elmo, and Oma is at her house with Buppy (my dad), she says, nodding, "Elmo. Oma. Oma Buppy?" She is starting to sound like David Letterman hosting the Oscars – "Uma – Oprah – Uma – Oprah."
I have been spending lots of time online, even though I haven't been good at this blog-writing thing. I discovered Pinterest, which holds my attention for about a half hour a day. I use it mainly to collect ideas for this cottage we want to build. I have also been spending time on facebook (of course, mostly chatting with my mom. Hi Mom!) and on Gawker, which is where I choose to get my news. My snarky news. I surf Etsy quite a lot since I discovered it has a vintage section. It is way more up-market than Ebay, which is now like the equivalent of those flea markets full of people who sell bags of socks and bootlegged DVDs. I read a great blog on www.Babble.com written by Samantha Bee and Alanna Harkin called "Eating Over the Sink", and March Fug Madness has begun on www.gofugyourself.com. That, in addition to all the regular news and gossip sites, pretty much makes up my internet profile of late.
That's a snapshot of me at this moment. I am wearing a grey-striped boatneck sweater, black dress pants with an awkward and unfortunate tie-belt situation in the front, and black socks, and am sitting at my desk with my legs folded under me, chewing gum because I forgot to brush my teeth this morning. My hair is up in an "I need a haircut" clip, disguised as a messy French twist. I have no makeup on, as it would interfere with the aforementioned nose-blowing. Pretty huh? So that's where I'm at right now, internets. See ya next time.
2/10/12
The glory of speech
It's finally arrived: the phase I've been waiting so impatiently for: Nora is talking. I mean, she's had words for awhile now – mama, daddy, Sasha, and random ones like knee, door and moon – but lately she has so many words that I feel like she will soon start stringing them together, that she's merely being coy and economical with them.
For a long time now, she has eerily understood everything we say. She will pick a word out of our sentences and go with it, like if she recognizes a word from one of her books she will run and get that book. If I say "do you see that caterpillar?" she will solemnly nod and then scamper off, returning with her Ten Little Caterpillars book. If I quote a line from Dr. Seuss, which I do with some frequency now that Dr. Seuss is being drilled into my head many times daily, she will run away and come back with that exact book. She recognizes them by the spines even, and will with one precise finger pull the correct book off of the shelf.
But lately she has really started to get conversational. I mean, they are short conversations, to be fair. I say a bunch of stuff to her and she will say one relevant word back at me, often the last word I said. If I ask her a question, she will either (and usually) say 'no', or she will repeat the last word, which is a vague indication of yes. She doesn't actually say 'yes' yet. Sometimes a fuzzy little 'yeaaahh' will come out but it's still not definite. So if I say 'do you want a bottle?' she will either say 'No', or she will say 'Baba', usually urgently, eyebrows raised.
The other day she was looking into a little evening bag I'd given her to play with, and when her Daddy asked her 'what's in your purse Nora?' she replied, clear as day, 'nothing!' And it was true – there was nothing in that bag.
But back to the topic of 'No'. I knew it was inevitable, I know that all toddlers get into a 'no' phase, but I don't think I expected it to hit so soon. Everything you ask her (almost) is answered with a 'no!' but it's not only the word itself, oh no. She says it in a tone and body language that indicates that I am being completely ridiculous even asking her that silly question. She scrunches her chin into her chest and rolls her eyes up and smiles and goes 'nyoooo'. It's pretty cute. I don't usually internalize her 'no's anyway, sorry to say. I realize she says it constantly (indeed she can often be found walking around just yelling 'NO!' at the top of her lungs to nothing in particular, and very often she chases the dog around yelling 'NO!' at her), and sometimes I suspect she means 'yes' but says 'no', so I usually just proceed anyway. If I get a second 'no' then I back off somewhat. In our house, right now, no doesn't always mean no.
I will admit that while she is speaking, I suspect that I am the only one who fully understands her. A lot of her words sound the same – Daddy and doggy require context to untangle, and movie, monkey and Mommy are pretty close. Movie is 'moo-me', monkey is 'mah-mmy' and Mommy is 'mummy.' In that category we also find mango, which is 'may-mo.' But she is trying, she is trying so very hard. She is chattering and vocalizing and figuring it all out. I know when she points to her sled and says 'wheee!' she wants to go for a ride, and I know that water is 'wa' and more is 'mo.' Also she knows most animal noises. What more does a girl need?
This comes at a very interesting time for me, because I took up my employer's offer to take American Sign Language classes, for two hours once a week. Not only has it been really cool to realize that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks, but it has given me a small perspective into Deaf culture, which I'd never before stopped to consider, I'm sad to say. Learning about all the ways in which humans can communicate non-verbally has made it really interesting to come home and watch Nora, who is starting to use all of the tools available to her to make her needs known. We never taught her baby sign language – mostly because I never really felt we needed it, we understood each other from day one and between pointing and early words we are doing just fine – but I guess I can see how it would be beneficial with pre-verbal babies. I think it would benefit the parents almost as much if not more than the kids, because it really teaches you to pick up on their cues and pay close attention. I admit to having a bit of a problem with teaching babies sign language because I do feel that if they are able to be verbal, it behooves you to reinforce using language so that they pick it up and it doesn't become optional. I wouldn't want my three-year-old squeezing her hand together to ask for milk if she's perfectly able to say 'milk.' At a time of life when language skills are just being formed, I do feel it's important to encourage their tongues and palettes to work at forming words, as it takes practice practice practice to get those motions right.
All that aside, Mommy is loving sign language. Nobody around me seems interested in it, so I find myself signing in the kitchen, in the bath, on the toilet, in the car, etc. I hope I get to use it and the knowledge doesn't fade away like an unused muscle, because I feel it's been a real mind expansion learning about this exciting culture and way of being. It definitely takes you out of your comfort zone, and teaches you to consider language as being not only things that come out of your mouth but also your body language, actions, facial expressions and relationships. The first class was daunting, realizing that my instructor is Deaf, wondering if I would ever get the hang of it and be able to understand anything she's talking about. The hardest part of it for me has been learning to fingerspell, and making those movements flow naturally. I think it takes a ton of practice and I wish there was a way I could keep it up, a way that also fits my lifestyle (living far from the city, home with a baby, always tired). I don't want it to become another one of those interests I've had in my life that have come on with some intensity and then faded away. Like crochet and Vikings.
So Nora and I both continue to learn how to speak, and every day we take for granted how much we've learned and how far we've come.
1/9/12
I Don’t Like Mondays
It's 9:04 a.m.
I am at work, sitting in my office in comfortably low light, looking at a photo of my beautiful daughter taken back in the summer. I have just finished a bowl of oatmeal, garnished with blueberries, dried cranberries, and coconut.
So far, this has been one of those days that I will think about later on when I'm wrestling with the work/life balance question. When I look back at "that January when Nora was 16 months old."
Nora has been sick lately. She caught a cold right after Christmas and this manifestation came with a croupy cough and morning stuffiness. I feel for her, because I have been fighting it as well. The cough is now going away (two weeks later) but she still coughs for a bit after waking up – understandable, as all that snot from her nose has likely run down there through the night. Last night, she woke up screeching at 1 a.m. and could.not.be.consoled, until I realized that the whole front of her sleeper was soaked in pee – another diaper breach, which is happening more and more lately. She doesn't like it. After struggling to change a hysterical twisting Nora in the dark, and hubby getting her a nice little bottle of water (I know, counterintuitive but she loves it), she settled back down. Half an hour, all told, which isn't too too bad.
I hauled my butt out of bed four and a half hours later, after hitting snooze a couple of times. Had my shower, and then went to the basement to get the second half of my outfit, which was still in the dryer. I saw a red blob at the bottom of the stairs and was concerned, since I knew it had something to do with the cat (the dog can't get down to the basement), and she's diabetic with recently questionable health. By the time I got all the way to the bottom of the stairs, I realized it was a barfed-up half-digested mouse. I know this, because I found its face, staring up at me whiskers and all. I pulled my clothes out of the dryer while suppressing my own barf, and tiptoed back upstairs carefully avoiding the pile of yuck.
Next I prepared a bottle – a bit larger than normal, maybe 1.5 oz more than she usually gets in the morning - and went up to Nora, who was still sleeping in full jellybean mode (on her tummy, hands tucked under, bum in the air – it is the cutest thing and getting her out of it breaks my heart). I pulled her out of bed and gave her her bottle, which she took eagerly. Her stomach was making hungry groans and her slurping was noisy, mostly because her nose was stuffy. She finished the bottle fairly quickly, and sat up, still sleepy. She does this cute thing where she sits up, rubs her eyes, then puts her arms around me and her head on my chest. It melts my heart. So I held her for a delicious minute, smelling her hair, then picked her up and took her downstairs to change her diaper and get her dressed. I always lay out her clothes the night before, so I have the time to wrestle her into them, which lately takes a good 15 minutes all told.
I put her down on the change mat and got her diaper off, wiped her bottom, and she coughed. Just a small cough, nothing crazy, but it caused a bit of spit up to come out the side of her mouth. Understandable, ok, I go to wipe it up with the arm of the pyjamas I was taking off. I was halfway to her mouth when a bit more came out. Uh oh. Then BLAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH the stream issued forth, out of her mouth, her nose, and possibly even her ears, I can't be sure. Barf has now sprayed all over the mat, her hair, the books that were lying nearby, a couple of toys, and the adorable clean outfit I'd prepared. Curdled milk all over everything, puddling on my nice wool rug. I'm pretty sure the entire bottle ended up outside of her body.
So she is very (understandably) upset, I'm flipping her over trying to clear her airways while also selfishly trying to keep her barf off of my own clean work outfit. She is giving me a horrible "mama help me!" face and I make her sit there, miserable, naked, while I run for some clean washcloths to wipe up the mess but I don't really take the time to make the water hot, so I had to wipe her with a cool washcloth, which I imagine feels miserable at 6:45 on a January morning. The poor little bean. I wiped off her books and propped them up to dry. I managed to diaper her and put her undershirt on and thankfully Daddy woke up at that point and came down to be with her while I went up to pick out new clothes. I bundled all of the barfousness (change mat, pyjamas, cute fresh outfit, two washcloths, 6 oz of barfed up milk), and headed back down to the basement, around the mouse face, and tossed everything into the washing machine, set to wash. Back upstairs, upstairs again to get clean clothes, and finally dressd Nora who protested – as usual – and would only put her pants on when I convinced her that she can't go outside and visit Frosty (our snowman) without pants.
I bundle us both up and am heading out the door when hubby yells that we have no water. No water. No freaking water. Here is the sum total of the water used so far today: I flushed the toilet once. I had a 7-minute shower. I soaked two washcloths, and started a load of laundry. It's my feeling that our well ought to have enough water in it to handle these small tasks. What this means is A) we have a plumbing issue somewhere or worse, B) we need a new well/our well drilled deeper, as well as C) the load of barf laundry is sitting there with only a drizzle of water on it, for the entire day. In the mouse-facey basement. This also means that hubby has to go over to my parents' place to shower, since he has not cleaned himself since Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, I dropped a pretty-cheerful Nora off at Oma's, then encountered a huge asshole driver on the road to wakefield, where I met my girlfriend in pretty good time. We got in slightly late, but the roads were a bit greasy and traffic was bad. I had my oatmeal, and got an email from a friend with some nice news. I am almost ready to greet my day.
My hand still smells a bit like barf, so I am off to the washroom. I do not like Mondays.
1/1/12
Cleansing vs. Cleaning
I have a number of facebook friends who, on this New Year's Day of 2012, are proposing cleanses, lifestyle changes, resolutions and the like. I applaud them! I really do, I really hope they can make positive changes in their lives if that is what they are inclined to do. And if I were a different, more motivated kind of person, I too might take this opportunity to make some kind
of statement of intention to make positive changes in my own life. Only I know myself too well.
I once did the stereotypical join-a-gym-in-the-new-year thing. I signed up, bought running shoes and loaded up my mp3 player, and gamely went to work with a gym bag of dopey clothes and good intentions. I think I lasted 3 weeks. My problem wasn't that I didn't enjoy it (ok I found it boring as shit to tell you the truth, I think there's nothing at all interesting about staying in one
place trying to move constantly), but that I hated my gym clothes and felt phony. Every time I put them on I thought "I have the ugliest old gym clothes in this place" but I was unwilling to invest any more money in the venture, and I felt like a fraud in anything more jazzy/lululemony. I am not an athletic person and I do not feel comfortable dressing like one.
So I found various reasons to quit. I'm not sure what my exact justification was.
And I often come across lists (because I like to make lists, and I have books of them) of foods that I at one time or another pledged to eat or not to eat FROM NOW ON. None of these lists were adhered to. I have similarly found lists of budgets that I should stick to, books I should read, and activities I should take up. Once I came upon a list I'd made of things to do before I die, where I'd written numbers 1 through 50 down the left-hand column, but only came up with about five or so activities. I aim low.
So I resolve once again to make no resolutions this New Years. Phew it feels so good to be let off the hook by myself so early in the game. Oh sure, I vaguely pledged to worry less, be nicer to my husband, and keep my house cleaner but we all know that none of that is likely to change overnight. I yam what I yam: a messy paranoid meanie.
However, I did kick off the new year by doing one onerous cleaning task: I sorted out my kitchen cupboard. It's the cupboard (actually two doors, covering three shelves) over my main prep area, where I keep basically all of my smaller ingredients, spices, baking stuff, etc. For years I have just piled things on top of other things and let them accumulate, wedging miscellaneous spices and crap into the front one inch of shelf space as it came along. See? A mess. So the other day I was irritated by it and I tackled it.
In addition to discovering that many of my herbs and spices no longer had any recognizable scent besides "dust" and that I was storing a few empty jars in the cupboard, I found the following ridiculousness:
- two near-full bags of shredded coconut
- 4 bags of dried thyme
- 3 bags of icing sugar
- 3 bags of rock-hard raisins
- 2 full cartons of molasses
- a HUGE jar of 'ground amchur' (mango powder?) that I bought once for
an Indian recipe that required, like, a teaspoon of it. I have had
approximately six pounds of mango powder hanging around for 11 years.
- 2 full jars of instant coffee (we do not drink instant coffee)
- a big jar of green flakes that I at first suspected might be someone's
stash of marijuana, but turns out to be a pile of real green loose-leaf tea
- no less than 5 jars of honey. For this I blame the Austrians and the Germans - every time they come and leave whatever place they have rented/occupied, they bring us their unused food, and they like honey. We always get the leftover honey (and pasta, pounds and pounds of it). Same with pesto - I must have 7 jars of pesto in my fridge.
I also found about four half-bags of rice so old that it had yellowed, about 7 different kinds of lentils, various jars of mystery powder (don't get excited, most came from the bulk barn), and two unopened boxes of salt that are hard like bricks. There were a lot of 'what the hell is this?' moments, where I sniffed a jar or a bag and set it aside.
Here is a shot of my cupboard, taken AFTER the great cleanse. Hubby says "this still looks like a 'before' shot." har har. Note: shelves are still sagging, though they are propped up behind that middle bar. Don't worry, my lentils are safe.
of statement of intention to make positive changes in my own life. Only I know myself too well.
I once did the stereotypical join-a-gym-in-the-new-year thing. I signed up, bought running shoes and loaded up my mp3 player, and gamely went to work with a gym bag of dopey clothes and good intentions. I think I lasted 3 weeks. My problem wasn't that I didn't enjoy it (ok I found it boring as shit to tell you the truth, I think there's nothing at all interesting about staying in one
place trying to move constantly), but that I hated my gym clothes and felt phony. Every time I put them on I thought "I have the ugliest old gym clothes in this place" but I was unwilling to invest any more money in the venture, and I felt like a fraud in anything more jazzy/lululemony. I am not an athletic person and I do not feel comfortable dressing like one.
So I found various reasons to quit. I'm not sure what my exact justification was.
And I often come across lists (because I like to make lists, and I have books of them) of foods that I at one time or another pledged to eat or not to eat FROM NOW ON. None of these lists were adhered to. I have similarly found lists of budgets that I should stick to, books I should read, and activities I should take up. Once I came upon a list I'd made of things to do before I die, where I'd written numbers 1 through 50 down the left-hand column, but only came up with about five or so activities. I aim low.
So I resolve once again to make no resolutions this New Years. Phew it feels so good to be let off the hook by myself so early in the game. Oh sure, I vaguely pledged to worry less, be nicer to my husband, and keep my house cleaner but we all know that none of that is likely to change overnight. I yam what I yam: a messy paranoid meanie.
However, I did kick off the new year by doing one onerous cleaning task: I sorted out my kitchen cupboard. It's the cupboard (actually two doors, covering three shelves) over my main prep area, where I keep basically all of my smaller ingredients, spices, baking stuff, etc. For years I have just piled things on top of other things and let them accumulate, wedging miscellaneous spices and crap into the front one inch of shelf space as it came along. See? A mess. So the other day I was irritated by it and I tackled it.
In addition to discovering that many of my herbs and spices no longer had any recognizable scent besides "dust" and that I was storing a few empty jars in the cupboard, I found the following ridiculousness:
- two near-full bags of shredded coconut
- 4 bags of dried thyme
- 3 bags of icing sugar
- 3 bags of rock-hard raisins
- 2 full cartons of molasses
- a HUGE jar of 'ground amchur' (mango powder?) that I bought once for
an Indian recipe that required, like, a teaspoon of it. I have had
approximately six pounds of mango powder hanging around for 11 years.
- 2 full jars of instant coffee (we do not drink instant coffee)
- a big jar of green flakes that I at first suspected might be someone's
stash of marijuana, but turns out to be a pile of real green loose-leaf tea
- no less than 5 jars of honey. For this I blame the Austrians and the Germans - every time they come and leave whatever place they have rented/occupied, they bring us their unused food, and they like honey. We always get the leftover honey (and pasta, pounds and pounds of it). Same with pesto - I must have 7 jars of pesto in my fridge.
I also found about four half-bags of rice so old that it had yellowed, about 7 different kinds of lentils, various jars of mystery powder (don't get excited, most came from the bulk barn), and two unopened boxes of salt that are hard like bricks. There were a lot of 'what the hell is this?' moments, where I sniffed a jar or a bag and set it aside.
Here is a shot of my cupboard, taken AFTER the great cleanse. Hubby says "this still looks like a 'before' shot." har har. Note: shelves are still sagging, though they are propped up behind that middle bar. Don't worry, my lentils are safe.I realized a few things during this process: 1. I am a food pack rat, and 2. I have weird friends. How many friends do you have who have gifted you with strange bundles of herbs for asian soups and packets of agar agar powder? A giant bag of loose green tea from China? Three different friends. Lumps of cane sugar? Part of Christmas gift 2006 from friend #2, may have come with the agar agar powder. I feel like some kind of minor deity, with all these food offerings. I guess my friends also know that I am a food pack rat. I was just given several lovely foil-wrapped packets of Korean tea and from this paragraph you may surmise that I am into tea, but actually I am not. Sorry friends. I drink really mundane coffee from a crappy percolator, hate to disappoint.
As I write this I am plowing through a baggie of Christmas-issue jelly belly jellybeans. Just ate one that tasted suspiciously of barf.
So I am not making any resolutions, just taking this break as an opportunity to start fresh with certain things, get some chores done, try not to disgust myself anymore with my gross food hoarding. I may make a minor promise to get through the 7 jars of pesto and 18 kilos of pasta, to prepare all of those lentils somehow and to stop buying things in bulk and forgetting
to label them.
Here's to 2012. I promise to follow all of your exploits in self-betterment with mild fascination from my spot on the couch. Cheers to you all.
As I write this I am plowing through a baggie of Christmas-issue jelly belly jellybeans. Just ate one that tasted suspiciously of barf.
So I am not making any resolutions, just taking this break as an opportunity to start fresh with certain things, get some chores done, try not to disgust myself anymore with my gross food hoarding. I may make a minor promise to get through the 7 jars of pesto and 18 kilos of pasta, to prepare all of those lentils somehow and to stop buying things in bulk and forgetting
to label them.
Here's to 2012. I promise to follow all of your exploits in self-betterment with mild fascination from my spot on the couch. Cheers to you all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)