Umm, Exercise?

So, three kids into this life, and my body's definitely not what it used to be. I'm almost 30, always been really energetic, and never really cared nor had the time to care about my body all that much. I eat pretty healthy, not because it's a healthy decision, but because I'm really cheap, and why buy it when you can grow it yourself?
But with age, and help from being preggo with kids at diferent intervals, My body has begun it's quiet rebellion. For the past five years I've had to do the lean and stuff with my boobs, in a b-cup no less. Lately It's been more of a roll and tuck action, which is nice...
My cute little bubble butt is drooping, my feet have been swollen and deflated so many times that I have to roll my pinky toes under my foot to fit into any type of high heel. Sciatica is my frenemy, and my joints hate me at the least opportune times. I don't really mind any of this, it's a part of life, and all my aches, pains, and bulge-y bits show me that I've lived.

The reason I bitch is this.

I'm to be in a wedding this fall, and we ordered our dresses and shoes online. It's to be a pin-up style wedding, so everything is skin-tight and smokin-hot. I'm wearing this dress that's fit to burst the boobies out, and sizzle the attention. Also, these super-sexy three inch patent teal shoes that make drool burst from all orifices.

I had my third boy this past Christmas, and he took a real toll on me. I was a hot sweating aching mess the whole pregnancy. And after was a big blur, as the family moved, got the stomach flu, and other such fun things. So I've not really been paying attention to myself, other shit is going on.

Did I mention that with each of my pregnancies I've gained roughly 85 lbs each time? And that each time a year's combination of insomnia, illness, and too much work has gotten me roughly back down to what I was before, give or take 5 lbs. Lucky me. So I think I was kind of leaning on that fact to fit me into these clothes.

We got our dresses and shoes a month ago, and like the genius I am, I got everything in the size I was before the last kid. I bought spanx to help smooth everything out, and I've been running after kids 24/7-excercising regularly, so I haven't been worried at all. But I didn't try anything on until recently, as I knew it would be dissapointing so early in the game.

And I was very right. After a few sweaty minutes with my spanx, I had to conceed that even they weren't going any higher than midthigh. And after a  few minutes tottering around like a drunk chicken with my pinky toes shoved under the rest of my foot like they were frightened, I had to tell myself that wearing this stuff was going to take a LOT of practise and dedication. And Since I love the lady who's getting murried to pieces,and I'm too cheap to exchange everything( shipping prices to the states suck the balls!)  I had to try.

So I started running again.

I've never been a fan of  running on treadmills, My aunt calls them 'The long run to Nowhere', and I agree.
Plus, I live in a small enough town that really, the only option is outside on gravel roads. I've been going nice and fucking early in the morn, when my household still sleeps, and so does the town. I also go before the town running group. Yes there is one, but they're mostly comprised of older ladies that take a specific meandering route that ends in the town coffeeshop.

So my first morning out, blisteringly early, blearingly tired, with the last of winter slapping me in the face.(yeah we had winter until last week) I got outside. I'd made sure to wear my loosest, comfiest sweater, tightest and best ventilated yoga pants, and brand new runners. I stretched, and started walking. So far so good. I broke in to a light jog as I rounded the corner, and after 30 seconds or so, I realized someone was behind me.  At the next corner I stopped and pretended to stretch, and nonchalantly looked around, but whoever had been behind me must have turned into a house or something. I continued on, trying to keep my breath in check, trying to move my body so my boobs didn't get too excited, and wondering how red my face was. I also started hearing footfall behind me again, and as there was no one awake at that hour, I started to wonder if it was a dog or a maybe a cow or something following me. The oddest part? I think it was trying to keep time with me...I did that sneaky, over the shoulder check, almost tripping over my new fucking uncomfortable shoes, and again, nothing was there. I decided to head back to the house at that point, feeling a little creeped out, and the footfall started following me again. I ran faster and so did they. Then my little caffiene-deprived brain connected the dots and yelled at me, " It's your ASS. Your ass is following you, dummy. Look, it's trying to escape your fancy-pants.'
And there it was. My ass was trying to beat the back of my legs into submission, trying to tell me to stop. Lovely. That was when I noticed my shoelace had come undone, so I bent over, ass flapping in the wind, to tie up my shoe. And that's when my tit rolled out.

At least it was early enough that only a couple farmers may have seen me do the lopsided walk of shame home.

I am a water Princess

My family and I just moved!
The move was fraught with complications, from cleaning out mouse-infested memory boxes caused by the Great Mouse War of 2012, dolled up to the nines in our homemade Hazmat suits(I should have taken pictures, we looked like we were in the middle of a chemical spill), to a round robin of the stomach flu the likes of which our plumbing (and the houses) will never forget.
But we made it through the wilderness. Yes, we made it through.
Our new home is Gorgeous.
It's spacious!
It's evenly heated!
It's got bedrooms for everyone!
It's got new carpet!
And Cupboards; Oh the Cupboards! You wouldn't believe!!! So much built in storage and doors to storage and closets, and- well, you get the picture. And for us to be excited about such mundane luxury items as space and storage and heat and carpet tells you the little I'm willing to share about our old crap-hole.

So what do we do to make this New Manse feel like home?
We flood it. Twice.
Well, actually neither of the floods were caused by me, you are supposed to find all the little faults in a rental property in the first month of living there, right?
We've only been here 5 days you say?
Well, kids, pets and Husbands are bound to find the faults a little faster, right?
Let me paint a picture:
Our first night, supper is being made, shiny tired happy faces bouncing around the basement play-room.
My husband goes to pour himself a glass of tap water(that's right! from the tap!) in the kitchen. He notices a trickle from the bottom of the nozzle.
'Oh, the washer must be off kilter, I'm going to get that fixed right now'
He gets his screwdriver, unscrews the lever, takes the cap off.
The kitchen explodes.
There is a 3 foot jet of water screaming out of where the tap should have been, my husband is soaked, hands frantically trying to plug the geyser, screaming at me to shut the water off. I scoot under his legs like some backwards game of leapfrog, open the cabinet under the sink and try to find the shut off valves. Only they aren't there. Well, they are, but they've been welded open. So I run downstairs, vaguely aware that he's yelling at me that it shuts off  UNDER THE FUCKING SINK and I'm in the area where all the pipes go, and I can't find a shut off valve, and I see a red tap, and I shut it down, and there's still water screaming out of the pipe. So I run back upstairs and yell at him that THERE'S NO WAY TO SHUT THE WATER OFF, WE'RE GOING DOWN!!!!! and he shouts at me to get over here and hold the water down, I'll do it myself, and then I'm holding a Fucking Cold gush of water, and I'm trying to use my hands to curve this fierce jet back into the sink while he looks under the sink, and then, he too runs downstairs, and then back up he comes and -CALL THE LANDLORD! CALL THE LANDLORD!
So we tag off on the water bending, and I attempt to dial the landlords number with freezing fingers on a TOUCHSCREEN PHONE because our landline isn't coming in for two more days, and I finally get the number right and call, and it rings once, twice, thrice, four times and finally he answers, and in my best professional voice I ask him how he's doing, and he asks the same,(while my husbands stares on through the water haze in his best incredulous look) and I say, well, I need you to tell me where the Water shut off valve is. And he says oh dear, what's wrong? And at this point I want to scream that I should be wearing my life vest right about now, but I just say that the kitchen tap has decided to stop working properly, and we need to shut the water down Now, here's my husband(since he was the one who started all this), and then I give the phone to him and grab the jet and push, and back downstairs he goes, and then the water slows to a trickle-hah-and then it is off, and my once clear kitchen is now quite sloshy, but I have just unpacked the towels and so I grab all of them, and thank-fucking-goodness we have a new HE Super Capacity washer and dryer right off the kitchen.
And then the doorbell rings. And in comes this old farmer and he asks us if we found the water shut off (I guess my husband kind of just hung up on our landlord), and he tells us that he got a call from the landlord (who happens to live on a farm 10 minutes away) and that since he was in town he could come over to check and see if we were okay. And then the Landlord himself shows up, and we all have a good laugh over us being all wet, and our silliness. One of the perks of small town living is that everyone knows everyone, and everyone is really helpful, but also they talk. And now we are not just the new people, but we are the new people who managed to flood our house the first night in. Right on.
Nothing got wrecked.
Nothing leaked.
Supper didn't even burn.
Husband went out at 8 at night and drove the 45 minutes into the city to get a new kitchen tap, since there wasn't much left of the old one, and the kids got to eat their first supper in the new house in our (now) Very Clean Kitchen.
We got the water turned back on around 10.
We started drinking about the time the kids went to bed.
There was a lot more swearing in that story than I let on, but I didn't want to frighten anyone.
Oh, and that red tap turned out to be for the water heater, husband managed to catch that before we broke other things.
Check back tomorrow for the Second Flood story.

I think I'll go hide out under there. I just made you say...

The worst part of underwear shopping is the prejudice you get for certain places. Like in say, Lasenza, you see 5 pairs of undies (thong or full-bum, lacy, racy, cute or sensible, and in a rainbow of colourful butt fashion)  for 25 bucks and you think 'what a steal!' and you start sorting through these trays of messy piles of missorted and random sized gotch like an Adventurer looking for the Golden Panty.
But say you go into Walmart. Or Target, name your box store, and that switch gets flipped, from deal-finder and savvy shopper, to the person who is MOST CERTAINLY NOT an insane cheapskate and crazy sweatpant-catpee-talk to yourself maniac, just a person who sticks.to.the.list. GODDAMMITT!! (but there's always room for chips and Catfancy). Somewhere deep in the recesses of your deal-savvy brain, a signal gets lost in translation, the signal being that somehow 6 rolled-up, pre-packaged hanes-her-way undies for $15.00 is Not a better deal than the(probably) same underwear that has been touched by countless ladies, not to mention store clerks, boys who think they're being funny, uncomfortable or even turned on boyfriends and husbands, etcetera, for ten more dollars.
Because all the sudden you feel a little uncomfortable buying your unmentionables in this massive store surrounded by people, wailing children, security cameras and Muzak. You feel like maybe although you know your family is on a budget and that is the only reason you have made as an acceptable excuse for being in such a store, that buying your chicken, shoes, tub stoppers, and then Underwear in the same place is below you.
I have to admit when I list those things together, Chicken, Shoes, Tub stoppers, Underwear, and then Video games, books, kids toys, fishing gear and transmission fluid-It is just a list that Should require more than one store. Ingenious really on these stores behalf to offer a little of everything and a lot of nothing.
But it still makes me uncomfortable to think that the boyshorts currently riding up my crack are on the same receipt as my new thermostat, my son's winter boots, and a weeks worth of meat and random produce. Maybe I'm just paranoid and read into this stuff too much.
Maybe I have a tiny version of my father on my shoulder repeating over and over in a comically high-pitched voice exactly what my aversions are.
Maybe I'm just regretting the choice of underwear and making other excuses. Who knows. But I do know one thing. This is the first article of clothing in my entire wardrobe(hair elastics and nail polish included) since I've been in charge of dressing myself, that is Pink. So that's something.

Yam, bam, thank-you ma-am...

I love the holidays!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, all those fun little holly days in between. Not for their religious value of course, not for the child-like intrinsic quality these holidays bring,
but because I
like
to
Feed
people.

And not just a meal either, not just a feast, not just a Gourmet feast, but something more like a Big-Yummy-Little-Old-Ukrainian-Grandmother-Style-Stuff-You-Til-You-Puke-And-Then-Make-You-Another-Plate-And-Complain-About-How-Skinny-You-Look Gourmet Feast.

I like to cook. lots.

So, I'm on the web this morning looking for side dishes to make, cuz wouldn't you know, I don't think that Turkey, Ham, Chorizo stuffing, mashed taters, broccoli and cauliflower bake, Red pepper salad, corn muffins, cinnamon buns, 2 kinds of pie, and homemade breadsticks and buns are going to be enough. Plus, I totally forgot about Yams! My poor little tubers! Now how could I do such a thing?

So I look up the fated tuber, and up pops all these icky sweet desserty thing to do with yams. Really? eww. candied yams? Saw a picture and it looked like upchucked peach slices. yuck. Baked in a pie? with marshmallows?
I remember a friend tried to do that once for a dinner I went to , but he was poor and didn't have marshmallows, but amazingly enough had marshmallow topping, and he wasn't really a good cook either, cuz the crust was burnt, and the eggs had separated from the yam mixture so there was hard baked egg bits in it, and he put the topping on after baking the pie, and cuz the pie was still hot the marshmallow topping started melting and it looked like somebody sneezed on the pie, but that's not the real reason I have a substantial fear of cooking with yams, nope...

Anyways, I thought that the sweet desserty thing was the sweet potatoes job. What? they're the same thing? No... really? You wouldn't believe how many recipes I found where the chef thought it was the same thing! you probably wouldn't even care!

Well I looked it up, cuz I was Really Confused. and No. For all you fantastic would-be chefs out there, The Sweet Potato, and the Yam are two completely different tubers.
Idiots.

So I spent the next hour or so reading up on why these two tubers are so different, how a yam is actually naturally sweeter than a sweet potato, and how yams are actually tropical, and can grow to be 7 feet tall (takes a backhoe to get it out of the damn ground), and all about the amazing health benefits of each tuber, (I Really like the word Tuber), and where the word Yam even comes from (for all you geeks, it's from the african term njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat,". who knew?)

and basically wasted my morning without finding a single recipe to cure my side dish blues.
well...

whoa!! long time!!!

hokay...
HI!.....
it's been a long time....
how's it going?
yeah, yeah me too. really busy.
no time really to even scratch my ass or pick my nose.
yep.
busy.
that's me.

uh-huh.
eeyeeahh......
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Okay, okay, I lied, I've been doing nothing but scratching my ass and/or picking my nose, but I can explain.

I was, at one point,*insert dramatic sigh* too poor for internet.*insert 'pity me' sob*

Okay, okay, that's a lie too, I'm obviously rolling in the "dough", but really I'm sure if you're patient enough with me, I can come up with some kind of excuse you can be happy with, just hold on.
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nope, nothing. oh well.

And now for something completely different....

I'd like to take a moment to go completely off topic here, and talk to you about something that has great importance to the world today. Something that, in my personal viewing experience, has gotten completely out of control as of late.

As you all know, it is Winter. And, in most cases up here in Canada, it gets very cold. Sometimes it's very, very, very cold. Such as this past week. The temperature's been stuck somewhere in the range of -30 to -40something, so, yeah. chilly. As you might Not know, here in Saskabusch, there happens to be an abundance of old people. And particularly in my work environment, Old men. some creepy, most harmless, but still, unavoidably present.

Which brings me back to my issue.

If it's so damn cold, why must I still be subjected to an abundance of hairy old man chest? I mean come on!

Lemme give an example, just to bring an image to the horror that I've faced lately.

-Scream richie, go on! scream like the little girl you wanna be!

That scary enough for you

X-mas Closure

Ready?

Ok!!

All together Now!!!

IT'S ALMOST OVER!! IT'S ALMOST OVER!! IT'S ALMOST OHH-VHEE-EEE-ARE, OVER!!!

Thank you for your time.