Because I’m such a good wife, I make George’s lunch up for him every night so it’s ready in the fridge when he leaves in the morning. Sometimes he gets some kind of cold cut, other times he gets canned tuna (though that’s probably out for most of the summer). When we run out and haven’t gone to the grocery store yet, he takes the good old standby of peanut butter and jelly.

Tonight, after getting the kids to bed – a nice and easy feat for a change, I am seriously loving the way soccer knocks both girls out promptly! – I went into the kitchen to make George’s sandwiches. I didn’t bother to turn on the big, obnoxious overhead fluorescent light, just using the little 60W bulb over the stove. I got out six slices of bread and spread three of them with peanut butter. Then I opened the jar of strawberry jam and dug a spoon in, and was about to drop it on the other three slices.

Luckily, I noticed at the last second that I was not scooping out strawberry jam. Good thing, because I seriously doubt George would be impressed if he pulled out his lunch tomorrow, took a big hungry bite, and realized I had packed him a peanut butter and relish sandwich.

I love these52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity. They’re somewhat obvious but we don’t always think about them.

Let’s play some “Jeopardy!”

I’ll take “That’s Unusual!” for $1000 dollars, please Alex.

Answer: Things you don’t see every day in an apartment complex in a fairly busy suburban area of Montreal.

Continue reading →

I’m going to share a random bit of information with you. When I was in high school I wanted to take a double course called “Law and Accounting”. So I did! And I was really looking forward to Law, thinking it would be exciting, and I was dreading Accounting, assuming that because it deals with numbers and I would rather remove my own leg hair one by one with tweezers than deal with numbers. Much to my shock, it was actually Business Law and was so deathly boring to me that I had to tape my eyelids open. To my greater shock, not only did I enjoy Accounting, I ended up getting grades in the mid- to upper 90s throughout the year. Who knew?

So between the end of high school and about six years ago, I bought a total of five accounting ledgers. I did this with the intentions of tracking my income, spending, and creating livable budgets. Each of those books has about three pages max filled in and a couple of pages ripped out where I had gotten frustrated. I am not that great with figuring out budgets and how to deal with money.

Which is why I was so happy to take part in the Mother Talk Blog Book Tour for The Big Payoff by Sharon Epperson. I was sent a complimentary copy of the book and I read it to see what I could learn. I admit that I wasn’t really sure it would have anything useful – for me. I think I always assumed that people who wrote books like this did it geared towards people who had a ton of money and wanted to know how to invest it. I was happy to have to stand corrected.

Continue reading →

Right. As I mentioned, I spent my weekend immersed in soccer. Since it was the Soccer Festival opening weekend, Hayley had four games. Saturday she had a game at 8 and 1, and then Sunday she had one at 11 and another at 3. On Sunday we actually spent most of the day at the park because our coach had suggested we could all do a picnic; it ended up being just our family, his family, and one other family, but it was still nice and it was probably better than coming home for two hours, just to go back again.

Something crazy happened to me this weekend while I was there.

Continue reading →

There are times when I worry about what it must be like to be the mother of a teenager because just parenting a toddler who doesn’t understand that there are limitations in her world is hard; parenting a four-year-old who already acts like a teenager sometimes is also hard. What is it like when they really are teens? And when I remember being a teenager myself, well, I may be in for it in about a decade, give or take.

This is a paid review – keep reading to learn more!

Continue reading →

Now that I’ve stopped laughing, you MUST read the hilarious story about how my sister ended up being rescued by the Coast Guard in the Bay of Fundy. And I thought MY long weekend was busy!

Totally pointless, really, but kind of fun nonetheless, I am featured on the front page of TopMama.com right now. You don’t have to, but if you’d kindly click on through it will help keep me there longer. And also, you may find some other fun moms to read about while you’re there.

Hi! It’s not quite 11:30 yet. I am so WIRED. Seriously. I don’t know what to do with myself, I have too much energy (I expect a crash around 5). I’ve been up since my cell phone alarm clock blasted “Fur Elise” in my ear at 6:30 this morning. I managed to drag myself out of bed by 6:45 and then had to convince both Breanna and Hayley that it was time to get up too; neither one was particularly impressed by that. I dragged myself down to the car by 7:30, and George dragged himself too since he didn’t get home until the middle of the night last night.

George dropped us off and I blearily wandered around the bigger-than-it-looked-on-Mapquest park, searching for tiny people in blue soccer shirts among the 8000 other kids and parents and coaches that were already there while also wondering where the Tim Horton’s was since every second parent seemed to have a cup of their coffee, and I cursed that we had apparently driven the wrong way since I was still uncaffeinated. Eventually everyone started arriving and things got underway.

And then I woke up. It helped that it was bright and sunny and not cold at all, but it was just so much fun that I ended up wide awake. Watching a team of 4- and 5-year-old girls run crazily after a ball is just hilarious and fun. I really enjoyed myself tremendously. At one point I got a good chuckle because during the warm up everyone had their own soccer ball, but obviously there was only one ball on the field at game time. At one point when Hayley was first rotated in, she was just sort of standing there watching the others run after the ball and I wondered why she wasn’t playing. Then she said, “I don’t have my ball” so she ran off the field and scooped up three soccer balls, then brought them out on to the field with her. It was so funny, and the coach had to explain to her that at game time, you only use one ball. I guess in her 4-year-old wisdom she had been thinking, “what a bunch of morons, why are they fighting for one ball when there’s a whole pile of them over there?!”

They were done by 9 and I called George to come pick us up. We got home by about 9:15 and I drank two cups of coffee, so between the early morning, the fresh air, and the caffeine I’m all buzzed. Whee! I have to make something to eat quickly now, because we have to leave here at 12:30 to get back there by 12:45 for the 1 pm game. I’m really looking forward to it.

Hayley kicking her ball during the warm up period: