Wordless Wednesday

This is my most favourite place in the world, even if there isn't a pot of gold.

If it's Tuesday, it must be random ...

• Yesterday I did four loads of laundry which included counting boxers as a result of reading Sane Without Drugs post suggesting that all mothers should do an undie count to aid in their son's personal hygiene. Her count came in at one, count 'em, one pair for the week. Mine was 14 which even if divided by three boys over 4 days is high.
  

• We have bats getting into our chimney which then squeeze through the closed flue, pop open the glass doors and come upstairs into our bedroom where they wake us up with the echo location squeaks at around 4:30am.
  

• I need to go up to the barn to get manure for the garden and as much as I love my horse I am not looking forward to loading his poop into the back of my Suburban.
  
  

• I have something in common with British food babe, Nigella Lawson. She is quoted as saying, "My own children won't eat my food. If it's not plastic or out of a box, then they are not interested."

• Apparently "Eau de Dead Seagull" is a canine aphrodisiac. Last night our dog went crazy chasing a lovely yellow lab around in circles after she rolled in one.

A Well Balanced Diet Makes for a Happy Mother

Ah yes, Number Three Son knows me all too well.

Exhibit A: Page 3 of his Mother's Day booklet all about me.

I can't think of a more well balanced meal than "wine and salad and fish," can you?

Yeah Me!

In the immortal words of London Tilton (you'll get it if your kids watch The Suite Life of Zack & Cody)

I finally did it - jumped to the next level of blogging and figured out how to imbed My Playlist. I love it, now there's music to go with my ramblings. It is just like making mixed tapes for friends back in high school ('cause blogging is nothing, if not high school, right?) I used to spent hours making the perfect "Mellow Mix" or "Road Trip Mix" or "Make Out Mix." Wait, that last one was my boyfriend's idea. Might have to dig around and find it and see if it still works.

When my mother sold our family home I rescued all my old cassettes and I kept telling myself that I would go through them, replace the music that was lost in translation from record to tape, tape to CD, CD to MP3.

Et voila! Enjoy this little mix that is nothing if not totally random.

Wordless Wednesday

This is what we call accessorizing in our house.

Can't quite make it out?

Here's a close up.

Still can't see Anakin?

He's third from the left.

Talking about the Blog in Real Life

Cindy over at Figs, Lavender & Cheese (one of my favourite blog names) wrote a post about getting together with some fellow bloggers in San Francisco and heading out to wine country for a little nature, food, wine and blog talk. The photos of their meals will make you salivate but the fun they had getting to know one another in Real Life just made me jealous. The comments people made about the post were telling and many echoed exactly how I feel about telling people in my RL about my blog.

One astute commenter said "It is often awkward to start a conversation- "this woman on this blog I read--" so I have started saying "this woman I know", hoping I don't hear "from where?" because the answer "online" sounds a little creepy."

That is so true. I read so many interesting blogs and very opinionated comments that it is hard not to repeat them in RL conversations. The first couple of times I made mention of my blog I mostly got, "Really, I don't even have the time to go on facebook." (That's a slam from another mother if I ever heard one.) Then I would get "Really, what is it about?" My explanation usually goes something along the lines of, "Well, it is my way of getting back into writing after an 11 year hiatus," or " It's a way to have contact with the outside world while sitting at my desk all day doing mundane things for our family business." You can just picture the glazed over look this provokes.

Why is it so hard to explain to the non-blogging world what it is like to wake up itching to see what late night rants Dr. Monkey Muck has written or what toils and tribulations One Glass at a Time has been through over the weekend or even what gorgeous photos of Paris Simply Photo has posted. Every day I add another to my Must Read list. I am disappointed when there isn't anything new to read. What's the deal? Did you have to go and make dinner or get to work on time or something?

I have to admit that I also rush in from running errands to see if I have any new comments on my most recent, and what I considered, most brilliant post. I make notes to myself all the time - while I wait to pick up the boys, while I am in the car (I pull over, usually) at night while I am reading or watching TV. My family has noticed all this but so far everyone seems to ignore it unless they see a photo of themselves on the screen and then you'd think they were famous, they get so excited. Don't want to break it to them that they are known only to 13 followers, one of whom is their great aunt.

I hesitated using the term "Real Life" in the title of this post since I consider what I write about to be very real and I am sure what I read is all too real for many bloggers. Just because it is online doesn't make it any less so. We're not having sex or gambling away our kids' university fund or drinking ourselves under the table. No, we just talk/write alot about doing those things. Why do we still consider things done online creepy? The bastion of middle-aged men who live in their parent's basements and play war games in their Stormtrooper Helmets.

This blogging thing is very hard to explain - the connections, the friendships. I did have one friend who was very interested and I told her all about the women who flew from across the continent to attend the funeral of another blogger's daughter. None of them, as far as I know, had ever met in RL. Or the outpouring of support, emotional and financial for Braja in India who was in a terrible car accident. The friendships are real, as are the connections and in this somewhat fragmented world where we may or may not live close to family that counts for alot. So I, for one, will continue to read about your children and spouses. I will feel better knowing that I am not the only one who loses it with either of the above and I will live vicariously through the bright young things who blog about fashion and style. I will continue to make notes on the fantastic recipes and drool over the food photos and be inspired by the elegant rooms in the many design blogs. It's a strange and wonderful world out there and even if I can't explain it very well it is a real part of my life.

My Date with five 9 year olds

Amy over at Bitchin' Wives Club did the best vblog about her Saturday night date with her nine year old son. Now, not that I am competitive and I know I am not quite up to doing a vlog but I can top her dinner and a movie with Captain Chaos. I did movie and dinner and sleepover with Number Two Son and four friends - on my own - at my father's house.

First off, I decided that holding the sleepover at my Dad's place was a good idea since a) he is still down south and b) Sons Number One and Three would stay at home with my Other Half.

So Number Two Son was thrilled with the plan, a sleepover at the Resort, as well call Dad's place complete with swimming pool, hot tub, basketball net, pool table and two big screen TV's (I commandeered one for myself to watch Before Sunrise) The gang met at our house and piled into the truck and I just drove and listened to the conversations between the five boys. Mostly they went like this:

"Have you got your iPod?"

"Yeah, iPods are sick."

"Put on I'm on a Boat."

"Yeah, that's sweet."

"Yeah, but my Mum hates the bleeps, so I downloaded the one without the bleeps and then she said it wasn't the bleeps she hated."

Me: "Right, I don't like the word the bleeps are covering, ergo I don't like hearing the bleeps."

"Put it on!"

"What movie are we going to?"

"Not Wolverine, my Mum said no."

"Wolverine's sick, I love it."

"It only came out today."

"Yeah, I know, it's sick."

That was pretty much the entire evening's conversation, kind of like being stuck on a hamster wheel with a bunch of boys trying to out do each other in cool factor. Of course, we didn't see Wolverine, we saw 17 Again and yes, I did have a cougar moment when Zac Efron took off his shirt, even though he is too skinny and pretty boy for my taste. And poor Matthew Perry, well let's just hope that the bags under his eyes were prosthetics.

After 4 large bags of uneaten popcorn, five large Cokes, "We can have Coke - with caffeine, my Mum said so!" Numerous trips to the washrooms. The worst thing about being a Mother of Boys as they get older - having to hover outside of the men's room glaring at every guy/potential pedophile who walks in.

We headed back to the Resort and the boys went straight into the hot tub and even the swimming pool which is not heated. I broke out the Pizza Pops, Cheetos, Doritos and Root Beer.

Outside the conversation continued along these lines:

"I'm the first one in!"

"I've got shrinkage!"

"That's sick."

"Me too."

"No you don't."

"Yes, I do."

First off, do they even know what shrinkage is? Second, only 9 year olds can turn it into a competition, as in who's got the most shrinkage.

After they dried off and barely touched the junk food fest I had so lovingly prepared for them, they cranked up the iPod and had a dance party (who knew 9 year olds boys loved to dance?) After shakin' their booty and doing "the Michael Jackson" which consists of dancing while grabbing their crotches (perhaps due to shrinkage), they took their Sleepover Survival Kits, ie. more junk and headed up to play pool and watch The Hulk. I took my kit, ie. a bottle of Pinot Grigio and my movie and headed to the opposite end of the house.

The Hulk didn't keep them enthralled for long so they switched to Yes Man. And while I had checked out Wolverine on Common Sense Media, I did not look up Yes Man. Here, from the review, is what I missed:

Sex: Kissing (some chaste, some fairly passionate); a man shows off his backside while wearing a hospital gown. An elderly woman propositions a much younger man and pleasures him orally; she takes off her dentures, and then the man's face is shown on camera morphing from overwhelmed to shocked to ecstatic

You can imagine the conversation after that.

And so the evening continued. At 12:30am I turned off the TV, put away the pool cues and told them they could talk quietly.

at 1am I went back in to put away the billiard balls.

at 1:30am I separated their sleeping bags, they looked like a litter of puppies and kept farting in each others' faces (which apparently isn't sick.)

at 2am I threatened to put them in separate rooms

at 2:30am I threatened to make my son sleep with me

at 3am I threatened to drive them all home

at 3:30am I yelled loudly from my bed

at 6:30am, I heard the click of the billiard balls

at 7am I got up to put the Eggos in the toaster

at 7:30am I collected all the wet towels on the way to the hot tub

at 8:30am I asked the boys to pick up their stuff

at 9am I picked up their stuff

at 9:30 am I drove them home

at 8:30pm I went to bed

Number Three Son's birthday is in 26 days.