Tom Odell - Hold Me

I love this British singer/songwriter.  His whole album is amazing.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

My children all have attitudes.  How did this happen?  Is it something in the water?

Oh, I know, it's just something everyone goes through.  It's part of growing up, of becoming independent. Yeah, yeah.  That doesn't mean I have to like it, does it?

Somewhere my parents are laughing and talking about 'karma'.

The other morning, it was the usual mad morning rush to get out of the house, and Ryan didn't have his gloves on.

I yelled, "Where are they?!"

He responded, "Somewhere over the rainbow."

Really?  Where does he get these things?

(I'm going to try this at work.  Where is that report, you want to know?  Somewhere over the rainbow.)

Another day recently, the school called me to say that my daughter's pants had gotten soaked with snow during break and that I needed to bring a new pair of pants over.  I was at work at the time.  I asked to speak with her, expecting that she would be upset.  She picked up the phone and called pleasantly, "Hey, mom, how's it hangin'?"

She is six years old.  (She was obviously devastated.)

My other son likes to mess with my mind.  I'll say, "Colin!  You haven't put your dish in the dishwasher!"

He will run in, throw the dish in the dishwasher and then say, "What are you talking about, Mom?  There's no dish! I don't know what you're talking about.  Jeez."  and he'll give me a strange look like I'M the crazy one.

I need to get out more!

Is There Anything More Fun Than A Maple Syrup Festival? (Rhetorical Question)

Okay, I admit it.  I love maple syrup.  What's not to love?  And I love a good maple syrup festival.  I love being in the woods on a good day, but woods that also contain a horse-drawn wagon ride and maple syrup?  Perfection!

I Never Called You An Idiot...You Idiot

My boys love each other all the time.  It's beautiful to see, really.  So touching.  (This is sarcasm.)

We were in the car coming home from a hockey tournament.  We had been up late two nights in a row and we were all tired and cranky.  The boys were fighting.

Finally my oldest son yelled in an outraged tone, "Mom!  He called me an idiot!"

My middle son responded scathingly, "I did NOT call you an idiot.  I SAID, 'give it up', which is a FAR CRY from calling you an idiot."  He paused, and then continued, "You...IDIOT."

Best Lines in Songs

There are so many great lines from songs out there.  Here are just a few I've noticed recently:


"I want to tell you there's a very good reason why I came home wasted in the middle of the night." - Bambi, Tokyo Police Club


And it starts
Sometime around midnight
Or at least that's when you lose yourself
For a minute or two

As you stand
Under the bar lights
And the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano's this melancholy soundtrack to her smile
 - Sometime Around Midnight, The Airborne Toxic Event


The next time I caught my own reflection
it was on its way to meet you
thinking of excuses to postpone
- Crying Lightning, Arctic Monkeys


You give me miles and miles of mountains
And I'll ask for the sea
-Volcano, Damien Rice

Running In Your Head

I was doing a training run for the Around the Bay 30K race in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  It was hard.  Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was -19 degrees with the wind chill.  Maybe it was because I was doing one loop three times over.  I'd rather have new scenery the entire way.  Whatever it was, it made me realize once again how much of running actually occurs in your head.  When you're running for hours, you really have no place to go but in your own mind.  Sometimes it's not easy to have that much time to examine your thoughts.  Especially when your thoughts are going like this: "I'm so tired.  How much longer?  Why did I think this was a good idea?"  By the way, there is always a moment like this in a race, too.  It's how you react to it that counts.  You have to realize you're thinking negatively, and then try to change it.  Sometimes even closing my eyes for a few minutes and trying to focus helps me.  Then you start saying, "I am so lucky that I am able to run at all.  It's a beautiful blue sky.  I'm more than halfway done."
You have to do whatever you need to do to make sure your brain keeps making your feet move.  That's all it is really about, at the end of the day.  The ability to just keep going.

Always Vacuum Under the Ottoman

Note to self:  always vacuum under the ottoman while vacuuming for a party, because if you don't, inevitably someone will move it in a helpful gesture to accommodate seating for people, only for all the following to be exposed underneath it:  various potato chips, dice, a small lego figure, a marble, a veggie stick, and a barbie shoe.

Winter Scenes

Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

This book made me laugh.  Bridget is far from perfect, and it's refreshing, okay?  It's hilarious!  It helps all of us not-so-perfect moms out there.



"Just back from canal ride on bike. Went really well until someone threw an egg at me from a bridge. Or maybe it was a bird which went into sudden labour. Will clean off egg, not do Boris Bikes any more and go to Obesity Clinic on bus. At least will be alive and clean when sitting on arse instead of dead and covered in egg.” 
― Helen Fielding, Mad About the Boy

"Suddenly the upstairs window in the house opposite shot open and a pair of Xbox remotes hurtled out, landing with a smash next to the dustbins.

Seconds later, the front door flung open and the bohemian neighbor appeared, dressed in fluffy pink mules, a Victorian nightdress, and a small bowler hat, carrying an armful of laptops, iPads, and iPods. She teetered down the front steps and shoved the electronics in the dustbin, followed by her son and two more boys wailing, “Noooooo! I haven’t finished my leveeeeeeel!”

“Good!” she yelled. “When I signed up for having children, I did NOT sign up to be ruled by a collection of inanimate thin black objects and a gaggle of TECHNO-CRACKHEADS refusing to do anything but stare with jabbing thumbs, while demanding that I SERVICE them like a computer tech crossed with a five-star-hotel concierge. When I didn’t have you, everyone spent their entire time saying I’d change my mind. And guess what? I’ve had you. I’ve brought you up. And I’ve CHANGED MY MIND!”

I stared at her, thinking, “I have to be friends with that woman.”

“Children of your age in India live entirely successfully as street urchins,” she continued. “So you can just sit on that doorstep and instead of putting your ENTIRE BRAINS into getting to the next level on MINECRAFT, you can apply them to CHANGING MY MIND about letting you back in.”

- Helen Fielding, Mad About the Boy

I cannot relate in any way to any of the above.  Not at all.