Mistergone’s Neighborhood

I'm taking this as a sign of ReRe's budding sense of humour, rather than him finally finding the instruction manual on how to push my buttons.

(night before)

Me: "Time for bath, honey..."

ReRe: :"Huh?"

Me: "We don't say 'huh', honey. Say pardon."

ReRe: "Pardon?"

Me: "It's time for your bath....."

ReRe: "Pardon??"

Me: "Funny. Now get upstairs."

ReRe: PARDON, Mummy????"

Me: "Get upstairs."

(next morning)

ReRe: "Mummy! Where are yooooooooo"

Me: "Right here, honey. Are you ready to get up?"

ReRe: "PARDON, MUMMY??" (I'm standing right in front of him)

ME: "I said, are you ready to get up?"

ReRe: "PARDON??"

Me: "Fine, let's go tell Daddy your new word."

(go find Daddy in the bathroom)

Me: "Now, honey, tell Daddy your new word."

ReRe: "Huh?"

Me, about to lose my mind at 6:38am: "Tell Daddy your new word. PARDON"

ReRe: "Huh?"

Me: "Oh my God."

ReRe: "Mummy?"

Me: "Yes..."

ReRe: "That's funny."

And for Junkii......got wings?

New-Q

After several years of cobbling together the replacement parts on our old BBQ, we decided this year to just go for it and get a new one. Isn't it purty? All shiny and stainless.

Works like a charm too. Last night we had chicken wings and they were oh so good.

It's gonna be a wonderful summer.

The-BBQ-er

Not sure how long these will stay posted on the web, but check them out. Some wonderful photoshop work here merging Muppets into Movie Posters. Really brilliant! I think this is my favorite, but there are many greats.

Rowlf as Ray

Ma Ma Sisterhood

Do you feel that your experiences (work and otherwise) and/ or education has prepared you sufficiently for motherhood or should their be some kind of additional/alternative training for those women who choose to be mothers? What aspects of your previous experiences, jobs, or education come in handy in your day to day mothering? Do you think that women desiring solely to be stay-at-home moms should forego education and/or careers and focus on preparation for motherhood?

This is my first post to the Ma Ma Sisterhood Group. I feel that, of all my life experiences, it was my upbringing that prepared me the most for motherhood. School, especially high school and university, prepared me to be anything but a mother. If anything, becoming a mother would be a diversion for The Plan, which was all career, all the time. I was told I could be a successful engineer, scientist, teacher, or politician, but never a great mom. I chose a career that was very hard to square with having kids, since it required traveling around the world, which I loved, and hardly being beholden to my marriage, let alone kids, for when or for how long I would be gone. The only part of my work that prepared me for motherhood, really, was getting to work on an early childhood education program in East Africa, where I learned about the benefits of ECE, and influenced my decision to put my son in a montessori school. Nope, it was the example set by my mother that most greatly influenced the type of mother I am, so I think I can say that, without my education and career, I'd pretty much be the same mom I am today. I honestly didn't value the skills and knowledge I had learned from my mom until I was a mom myself. Where I saw value was in my advanced education, my career progression, and my knowledge in my field. But it has done very little for me as a mom; conversely, not having felt a great value for motherhood before, and having been so career driven, has made the adjustment to motherhood much more difficult than it would have been, had I valued both motherhood and career equally.

So today was check up day for both Jake and Josh.  Josh had never been to the dentist before but had heard Jake talk about Dr. Rubin non stop for 6 months now (since the last check up).  So this morning when I mentioned that we were going to the dentist there were cheers and laughing and 2 very excited little boys to say the least.  In fact, for over an hour I had to listen to Jake ask "Is it time to leave yet?"  

When it comes to these two cooking reality shows, honestly, there's no comparison. We watch both of them, but really, only one of the shows has any real merit.

Hell's Kitchen is pure trash. It's about backstabbing, dirty laundry, and cheap editing tactics to extend the show to a full hour. The chefs never create their own food, and they can barely cook the menu given to them. It just seems so contrived too - any time they start to get ahead, have chef Ramsay shout and swear at them to get them flustered so they'll mess up. It's a simple recipe, but thankfully, it's fun to watch. It's like junk food. We love it, but we know it's bad for us.

Top Chef Cookbook

On the other hand, Top Chef is like a fine dining experience. There's a bit of drama, but the focus is really on the food - with 15 chefs who actually know what they're doing in a kitchen and who continue to stun us with their creativity as, week after week, they make new dishes from the most obscure ingredients. We don't get it in Canada until a few months after it airs in the US, but when we do, we like to savour it. We're only about 5 episodes into the new season - which is already on episode 10. But no rush. This is like a good wine, and it only comes around once a year.

Last week at Costco, we stumbled on the Top Chef Cookbook, which has some of the best recipes from the first three seasons, plus loads of info about a really great show and the contestants. Haven't tried anything for it yet, but you can bet we'll be using it the first chance we get to do some fancy cooking.

The sleeping styles of Jake and Josh are so darn different.  Jake is a great sleeper.  He lays his head on his pillow and his legs and body are nicely covered up- and in general, he stays like that all night.  Josh on the other hand starts off with his head on the pillow and his legs and body nicely covered up, but after he is asleep, you never know where he will end up.  Last night, I found him with his feet on the pillows and his head towards the bottom of the bed with no covers on a all and a fan blowing on him.  He sleeps across the bed, diagonally, upside down, but rarely do I ever see him sleeping with his head on his pillow.  This is part of the reason sleeping in the same bed with Josh was so hard on our recent trip to San Antonio- because I kept getting kicked in the ribs or the nose.  I just hope he grows out of this- otherwise, I feel terrible for his future wife.

Sideways Josh

One of my new year's resolutions was to turn an overgrown flowerbed into a vegetable garden, so this past weekend I tore everything out (as best as I could, there is still a stump I couldn't get rid of) and planted some seeds and seedlings. Here are my before and after shots:

Garden before.....

The garden had an old catoneaster bush, and some lemon mint and garlic chives that I replanted along the edge (since both act as pest repellents). The far right-hand side was completely overgrown, and had been for years, since the rock wall had completely disappeared, and I had to dig it out from under the soil, and then rebuild it.  

....Garden after

I think the former owners were also dumping their potted annuals in here, as there was a lot of potting mix, and some crysantemums who had rooted themselves, but which I pulled out anyway.

Terrible angle, but bear with me....

....that's better

Part of my motivation came from buying my very cool Toronto Gardening Journal, which had a lot of helpful information, and dates when certain things should be done for our Zone 6 conditions. The journal also has plan pages, so I could design my garden plans while it was still too cold to get the garden established:

Gardening journal

So, I've planted heirloom varieties of the following: Mammoth Sugar Snap Peas; Baking Pumpkins; Roma Tomatoes, Jaunes Flamees Tomatoes; mixed bush beans; lettuce and mesclun mix. I also planted some scarlet runners. I did buy some english lavender and lettuce (green leaf, red leaf, salad mix) that were already sprouted, since I was going a bit nuts waiting to see something grow. Next year, I'm going to get as many sprouts going early as I can, unless the direct cultivation of the seeds turns out to work just fine. So far, I've fertilized with an organic mix called Carbonitite that I got from Urban Harvest, and organic worm castings. This is my first veggie garden, so I really do not know what the soil is like, and what supplements it needs, but I'm looking at this as a learning year. I'm a little concerned about what sort of damage the wildlife around our place will do (squirrels, rabbits and raccoons) but as yet, I haven't taken any steps to protect the garden. I might as well put a Salad Bar sign up!