5:54 a.m.

It's really early.

Okay, so B wouldn't agree. He's used to being up and productive at all hours of the day and night, though, while I am more of the glazed-over, holding-slopping-cup-of-tea the sky isn't up yet? type.

I'm bleary in the morning. Especially windy cold days where the unfairness of being vertical makes me want to gnash my teeth and fall down weeping.

But...Productivity Ho!
Off to gather clothing and do the morning math, to shoo the cats away from where they've got the dog backed up in the corner (do they do this every morning? No wonder he eyes them with a terrible stare)

to find hairbrush and gargle, to be presentable.


Good morning! It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day.

cheese olive bread

adapted from a recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

You need:

1 stick butter
1/2 cup mayonnaise (NOT miracle whip)
2 green onions, chopped
1 can pitted black olives
1 jar green olives with pimentos
1 bag shredded Italian 5-Blend cheese
1/2 bag shredded mozzerella
Pinch paprika
1 loaf French or Italian bread, cut open as if for garlic bread

Mix softened butter and mayo together, add in green onions. Chop black olives and green olives, add cheeses. Mix together, shake in paprika. Chill for a few hours to let flavours blend.

Mound on bread (it will look like too much but keep going) and bake at 325 for 25 minutes until bubbly and beginning to brown.


This is one of my go-to recipes. It's awesome for potlucks, parties, and anywhere you need something gooey and good.

Enjoy!

hazy shades of winter

Last Tuesday:

I was waiting for an appointment, spending some time happily down by in the park with a coffee* and paperback. While it was too wet out (there was a drizzle) to really be in the park, it was just warm enough to sit in my car and happily glug coffee, listening to the radio and turning pages.

I was getting lost in the characters when all of a sudden I noticed an absence of sound, like the world was suddenly holding its' breath.

What was different?

I raised my head slowly and peered out over the river. Same scene, same glimmering expanse. It was still chilly....and.....

Something tapped on the window. And into that hush, as I watched, bemused and a little thrilled, the first snowflakes of the season came flurrying down. Beautiful, really, watching everything get coated in whiteness. Seeing everything so stark in late autumn get softened by snow.

It didn't stick, of course. The Atlantic is still too warm to have anything stay long.

So it cleared and we had some fine days, days where the kids ran around without coats, days when getting a few more days out of summer shoes wasn't a terribly foolish idea, days when going outside was a time of marveling This is December? and sniffing for burning brush.

Today:

The world is white. Which is misleading, because it's all slush under the prettiness. The kids have been outside and come back, wet to the skin, mittens sopping, and telling tales of snow sculptures and sledding - and I stand at the window, clutching my mug, and think

I don't wanna go out there before, say, March.

and

I'm really, really too old for this stuff.




*I think I've noted this before, but around here it's always I had a coffee or I had a cup of tea. By now it's habit and I only notice when I'm writing it down.

toy giveaway

I'm giving away a Mastermind toy over on my review blog! Leave a comment to win. U.S. and Canadian addresses can both enter!

george foreman's sweater

In the back of my closet, shoved into a wheat-colored lump, is a darned, patched, stained, bleach-spotted old sweater that I can't get rid of.

It grew like Topsy. Or something. I don't remember getting it or buying it or having it foisted upon me. Every year I swear I'll put it in the donation box, I will, but I just never have the heart to. It's so comfortable, you see. And while brown has never been my colour - I know it washes me out and makes me look even more sallow (although sadly I'm not so sure that's possible) - it's handy to toss on over a t-shirt or jammies and go outside to walk the dog or have coffee with the moms at Literacy class.

Lately, though, my sweater has been doing the unthinkable.

It's shredding.

I was poking the thread through the needle, saving it one more time, when I started musing about how long I've had my sweater. It's been years. But where on earth did it come from? Did I steal it from a roommate? Was it a Mom gift?

Maybe the label would tell me.

Comfort Zone, by George Foreman.

Ooookay. I had as many nights of partying and rock and roll as anyone else, but I know I didn't date George Foreman. Or steal his clothes.

Comfort Zone, by George Foreman.

George Foreman had a clothing line? When, in the downtime between pummeling people and hawking the grill? I was turning the ludicrous picture of George Foreman in all his burly glory strutting down a London catwalk over in my head when I was struck by a horrible thought. This meant that my super comfy, long in the arms, ultra-casual, always-go-to sweater? Is a man's sweater.

And honestly, I don't know which I find more disturbing. That I'm now running through all the Lean Mean Fat Reducing Machine commercials in my head, trying to remember if I saw him dressed in brown,

or the fact that I stitched it up and wore it back out again today.

review

cross-posted from my review blog:

My review for Green Works

Go, read it. There's a survey at the end that will send money to a shelter in Toronto.

blowin'

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

equating

I hate math.

Really. Loathe the stuff.

Well, actually, that's not quite true. I really liked geometry. But algebra? Pah. There was no helpful visual, no absolute rules - just a bunch of letters mixed up with addition and subtraction signs, arranged whichever way to encourage maximum confusion.

But I know that math persists (like an evil rash) and that like it or not, my children would be learning it.

(Pah.)

When Cass was a baby, I used to (oh, the shame! The misplaced-but-ever-so-earnest novice parenting! The determination to make my baby the best he could be!) whisper the multiplication tables to him as he fell asleep. (It beat croaking out another rendition of Blackbird all hollow.)

I don't kid myself that it did anything for him. It didn't give him some secret boost, some indefinable leg up in the grand scheme of things.

It did, however, keep me from falling asleep. Usually.

I'm pretty sure he has no memories of me hanging over his crib, hissing numbers at him, and that's probably a good thing....

So now we just practice. I'll be in the kitchen, and I'll holler.

'Cass! What's 120 plus 53?'

First there'll be some mumbling (and some grousing) and he'll think about it a bit and whip out the answer.

After awhile, he'll get tired and start shouting math problems at me. Usually of the 'One hundred million billion plus...lemme see....six hundred and forty-two. Plus three.'

Then he's amazed when I call out. 'One hundred million billion, six hundred and forty-five!' (He hasn't yet figured out that bigger numbers doesn't always mean harder math.)
'How did you do that, Mom? Did they teach you in school?'


And I think back to those nights when I'd watch his wee little eyes feather shut and lovingly whisper:

'Eight times six is forty-eight. Eight times seven........'

Oh yes, baby boy. In school.

double vision

Yesterday was H1N1 shot day.

My two had their seasonal flu shots a few weeks ago, and C reacted badly, so we'd been working on tensing up all his muscles, blowing out his breath, and then relaxing his arms so he could have the shot over and done with quickly.

It worked stupendously until the actual moment the doctor came in the office.

And then all hell broke loose.

And I practically had to pile-drive the poor kid again.

Rosey the Roo watched her brother folded in a sobbing mess on the floor, then got up and re-settled herself in the chair next to the doctor. She flopped her arm on the chair and watched (watched!) while the doctor gave her shot, huffing in her breath only when a tiny bead of blood welled up when the needle was removed.

Why do I keep forgetting they're so different?

Before she was born, I thought having two kids would be easier than one - in some ways, am not entirely deluded - but it seems as if the second go around ought to be easier - you're not so stymied by the stages, you have a better understanding of bottles and breastfeeding and toilet-training (or at least it's not a total wander-in-the-wilderness)...it just seems...like...it should be...simpler?

Oh, how the gods laughed.

But sometimes - just sometimes - when they're playing together and giggling over the same things....when their laughter rings out like bells......and their dark heads bend over something....

It's like they're halves of the same whole.

don't tell my husband I posted...

Ssssh! He thinks I'm studying.

I've been taking a course online, and it's been going gangbusters - except that most of the tests seem to be for People Of Very Little Brain (Really? One of the exam questions was on the proper attire for an office. How hard can it be to remember to wear a bra?) and I thought I was through the dumb 'let's learn how to study bs', I did, but tonight I had to listen to an audio file that not only had a redneck ax'in and fixin' and golly-gee-ing all over the place to SLAM HOME the point that GRAMMAR IS GOOD, accents are BAD.....

it also featured the music that plays on the Peanuts specials when CHARLIE BROWN IS WALKING AROUND TOWN.

If I end up wearing a yellow argyle sweater and NO PANTS to the office, I swan - I'll know who I'll be fixin' to blame!


Must get back to 'studying'........