Mind of a Mad Woman

No that’s ok Dad, don’t mind me

megmartin — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:06:06 +0000

It’s a Monday, and like all Mondays I am lagging behind most of the world. As a result of this unexplainable lag, I find myself musing over various things, cruising the net when I could be cruising the house-cleaning-highway, and I find the strangest things sometimes.

Take this for example. I’m all for spending time with your spawn (if you must) and getting them involved in sports, but there are some people who take it to an extreme. And I can only imagine how the poor kid’s mother feels. “Woot! My husband caught a foul ball. My life is now complete. The fact that he didn’t DROP MY CHILD ON HIS HEAD is merely a bonus.” This guy is probably the same guy who says he is “babysitting” when the children are in his care. Really, who the hell takes their baby to a baseball game, wearing a glove on one hand, with any hopes of catching a foul ball?! Obviously the answer is this guy. I don’t think Hotty Hubby would be brave enough to come home if he pulled a stunt like this.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

And then there’s this guy (are we sensing a theme here yet?). His parents must be proud. All the other boys make it over the itty bitty jump, but not their son. He decided to hinder his ability to ever procreate. This may be a good option. Note of interest:- The crowd watching this race doesn’t rush to his aid, instead they giggle. The other boys run OVER him probably while wincing to themselves. I don’t imagine he’s overly comfortable.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Just a couple of things for you to mull over.

Six and a half years ago…..

megmartin — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:10:08 +0000

Just over six and a half years ago, I was causing some concern in my little circle of friends. Hotty Hubby and others thought I was just a little bit crazy. They were right, of course, but not for the reasons they thought. I had been dreaming for weeks that I was walking down the road with a little girl. A blonde little girl. Strange, considering we had not yet had our spawn.

Two weeks later, I peed on that stick that forever changed our lives. Considering the fact that Hotty Hubby and I had only been together for about 3 months, and the fact that he didn’t want children til he was closer to 30, it took me 3 days to gather the courage to spring all sorts of wonderful on the man. Obviously, he stuck around. Whether he has ever regretted that decision is beyond me, but if my experiences with the hellions are anything to go by, chances are he’s considered the fact that trekking around Outer Siberia might occasionally be a better option.

Before I was a mother, I used to judge a lot. Now? Well. Those women you see in the shopping mall with two screaming children? That’s me. The kids that throw sand in your kid’s face? Those would be mine. They watch altogether too much tv, they eat way more crap than healthy stuff and they have an attitude that would rival the most devilish of teenagers. But they’re mine. They give me hugs and kisses at just the right moments, complete with snot trails and jammy fingers. They love almost unconditionally. I say almost because there are days when I wonder if they might walk out the door if I don’t get them that cookie.

It’s been rather a rollercoaster of emotions for almost 6 years, and it’s been totally worth it. There is no better way to experience life than through the eyes of a child.

It’s Mother’s Day today. A day devoted to me, my mother, my grandmother, and all of you other moms. My children have made breakfast in bed for me and I have some homemade surprise gifts sitting up waiting to be opened. I never thought I would be so thankful to see yet another piece of paper with handprints and a poem, but I am. I’m a sap.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you. I leave you with a slideshow of my darlings. They make it all worth it.

We all have skeletons in a closet somewhere

megmartin — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:02:08 +0000

Over the last few months, and the last week in particular, I have been making the rounds of hundreds of blogs and commenting on them all. This takes time, effort and often the ability to dig deep into the recesses of my brain for some witty comment that hasn’t been used in awhile. Occasionally I will get an email reply to something I’ve said, or (and this is even better) that person will come visit my blog and leave a comment of their own. So far, I have no come across anyone mean spirited…..at least until last week. It was last week that I very innocently clicked on the link for a blog and ended up reading my name in someone’s entry. Me? Mentioned in someone else’s writing? Let me don my kilt and do my own little happy jig right now. Oh wait - they aren’t singing my praises, they’re targeting me.

What have I been targeted for? What has been inflicted on me in this horrible way? What is that I must do as a result?

Well, CanadaDad over at Average Life Spam has decided to tag me. Yes, I have been tagged again. And the thing I must do is horrible beyond belief. I am hereby forced (he’s twisting that rubber arm of mine) to drag out some of the skeletons in my closet and answer some incredibly personal questions. Please be advised that this will be traumatic for both you and me. You may want to visit your therapist after reading this and try and work out some of your own personal issues.

What makes this particular tagging so much worse than the last is that it is a fellow Canuck who did this! May I just say to you, CanadaDad - thank you for making me delve for the deep stuff.

And now, on with the show……………….

1) What is your favourite food?

- I think an easier question to answer would be something along the lines of “what foods do you dislike?”. No seriously. If you look at any of my weightloss posts you might be forgiven for thinking that I have been having a love affair with food. Fair enough assumption. Thing is, I’m pickier than a 5 year old hunting for the golden booger. I think most pasta dishes are relatively attractive, pizza (yes even shit-za) is fantabulous, and if you put a giant bowl of ice cream in front of me, I will eating every single drop of it even though it will make me incredibly ill later (damn lactose). On the other hand, if you put vegetables on my plate and they end up touching my meat, please start running because I will ram them down your throat when I catch you. The only exception to this is corn.

2) What is your favourite colour?

- I am going to channel the gay Teletubby here and say PURPLE all the way baby! Quite aside from its ability to cater brilliantly to my Queen Bitch complex with its regality, it’s just a freaking cool colour people. Pink is too girly and quite frankly scares the shit out of me. Do we women not go through enough crap with all our womanly “issues” without having to look like a giant ball of cotton candy?

3) Hair -

- While I do, thankfully, still have my hair…I am a little unsure as to what colour it should be anymore. For years I was very very blonde. Then I met Hotty Hubby and became friends with some slightly “edgier” girls and decided that my hair should be a different colour. Or even better, I could run the gamut of the colour spectrum and just experiment. After all, with skin tone like mine, when my hair is blonde I look rather like a tomato with mold on top. Attractive. This is of course just personal view, and Hotty Hubby (bless his heart) disagrees, but what does he know. My hair has been blonde, purple/black, red, brown, red & purple streaks through blonde, pink and blue. Oh, and orange. Lovely no? Trust me - while I think it looks better any colour but blonde, I’m not naive enough to think I can pull off the “rainbow head” look.

4) Recent DVD watched -

- “Atonement”. Um. Yeah. I cannot even begin to tell you how much this sucked. Mostly I can’t begin to tell you because I only made it half way through before I passed out cold from sheer boredom. Kiera Knightley might have been half decent in the Pirates movies, but even the skinny, square jawed boyish looking KK couldn’t save this movie. Awful.

5) Guilty Pleasure TV Show -

- I’m a little terrified to answer this one but here goes. “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila”. Take one tiny little, good looking Latina (??) girl and throw her into a twisted version of “The Bachelor”. 12 girls AND 12 guys compete for a shot at love with her. That’s right folks. I guess the censors wouldn’t let them name it “Nymphomaniac Lesbian Bachelorette”.

6) If I was a tree, what kind of tree would I be?

- Is this where I’m meant to say I’d be the mighty oak tree because it’s strong, or the willow because I could hide behind my boughs? Screw that. I want to be a bonsai tree. That way, when I grow too fat, I can be cut back to thin again. Sweet deal!

Ok. I have fulfilled my duties and hopefully these little skeletons of mine won’t haunt you for long. As with the last tagging and subsequent “meme”, I am under a moral obligation to tag one of my lovely blogger friends in return. As a certain few people (you know who you are dang you) have not fulfilled the last meme-ing, I shall pick just one new person.

I pick…um…hm…. Haha. I pick K over at the Mini Van Soap Box

And with that, I bid you Good Day.

If I could be half the woman….

megmartin — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:53:38 +0000

Beautiful. Courageous. Willful. Strong. Steady.

Those are just a few of the words that I have used to describe my mother over the years. That’s her up there in the picture. She’s on the left of her mom and little sister. Born to a military father in Toronto, Canada in 1953, my mother is one of the most amazing people I know. She is the eldest of 3 girls and gave birth to two girls of her own. Because of my mom, I am the person I am today, like it or not. The good, the bad, and the ugly…..we learned how to deal with it all because of the way my mom dealt with life.

(That’s mom pregnant with me at Circus World.)

In the late 80s, my mom suddenly found herself a single mom. I have known many people to end up in this position who don’t cope very well. Granted, I don’t remember much of those years, but from my perspective it was ok. We were ok. My mom looked after me, worked, went to school and held things together as best she could. Then she met a man who would take us away.

She was so in love. He was a smooth British man in the Air Force who knew all the right things to say and he said them. I have pictures of my mom sitting in a field full of daffodils and she looks so happy. I have always loved seeing my mom smile. She married that Englishman and we lived all over Europe. By the time I was 11, I had a baby sister and got to see my mom do all the things she must have done with me, and more. She was gorgeous when she was pregnant. She was rather the size of a barge heffalump cow gloriously pregnant woman with a large baby inside her, but she seemed to take it all in stride as was her way.

My mom helped me learn so much. I love to read. I remember that if I couldn’t immediately get an answer from mom or find her, chances were she was curled up with a book somewhere. I swear the woman would have lived in a bookstore given half a chance. Some of my best memories involve just sitting around with my mom - reading.

As I got older, and became that hormonal, bitchy, moody, horrible teenager that I dread having in my own house, my mom dealt with me. Sure, I spent many a weekend grounded. I had privileges removed, friends turned away from the door and tv viewing time suspended. I screamed, I yelled - she screamed, she yelled. We drove each other crazy.

My mother trusted me, and had that trust broken. She loved me and had that love thrown back in her face so many times that any normal person would have thrown up their hands in frustration and walked away, but she continued to love me. For years, I never understood it. Then I had my own children.

When I was scared, my mom was there to comfort and protect me. When I got my heartbroken by yet another boyfriend, she was there to offer sage advice and tell me it would all be ok in the end. In recent years, as I watched my stepfather walk away, I wished that I could do the same for her, or at least on the same level.

I am sure that over the last 29 years I have disappointed my mother in many ways. The day I laid my head on her lap and cried and she found out I’d pierced my ears again. The day I wrote her a letter to tell her i’d lost my virginity months before. The day my “friend” stole stuff from a house I was babysitting at, when they weren’t meant to be there in the first place. (Yes, I’m a moron).

I’ve disappointed her, I’ve hurt her, I’ve screwed things up time and time again and my mom still loves me.

She is one of the strongest people I know and is a daily inspiration to me in the way she deals with life. Sure, we have had our screaming matches ups and downs, but I cannot imagine my life without my mother. When I need advice, I ask my mom. When I need someone to tell me I’m an idiot, I go to my mom. When I need someone to tell me whether I’m right or wrong, my mom’s the person.

Amazing. Inspirational. Role-model. My hero.

Those are a few more words for my mother. I’m sure it would come as no surprise to learn that I’ve had some other choice words for her over the years either, but I’m pretty sure she’s had some choice ones for me too.

It’s my mom’s birthday today. Technically she’s 55 but while she has the wisdom that comes from the experiences she’s had over the last 55 years, she still has the heart of a young girl. And the face too. My mom is beautiful.

We don’t always see eye to eye but one thing is for sure - if I can be half the woman, half the mother that my mom is, I will be happy.

Happy Birthday Mom! I miss you all the way over there in New Zealand and I love you so much.

Love always,

Meggers

And the Bloggy goes to…..

megmartin — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:00:30 +0000

The list is out, the judges are making the rounds, the blogosphere is teeming with readers and people making comments all over the place.

Not so long ago, the wonderful Danny over at Dad Gone Mad opened up his comments to his minions and invited us to whore ourselves out and post the link to our blog in his comment section. Naturally, we were all far too timid and respectful of his space to even consider doing this, so the list is made up of a mere 150 plus blogs that are totally worth reading.

The other day, Dee Dee over at Random Ramblings spent countless hours compiling a lengthy list of all the blogs shared, and posted it on her blog. Shortly thereafter, Heather at KelticKaos challenged Dee Dee to leave a comment on each blog on the list. This plan of hers backfired of course and she was challenged right back. The natural reaction to this return challenge was to spread the love and propose that all of her readers do the same.

So, Backpacking Dad and I started working our way down the list. It was a race. I had every intention of winning. I have no life after all. I don’t work (right now), I don’t go out very often, and clearly I never clean my house. Ha! Of all the weeks for it to happen, some higher power (thanks Pokemon) decided this was the week for me to have other duties to fulfill. Fine. I concede defeat and Backpacking Dad beat me to the end of the list but I am pretty sure I came in a distant second.

I have read some phenomenal blogs in the last week and have somehow increased, however temporarily, the traffic on my own. Yay me!

Tasty Tuesday - Prepare to buy new pants

megmartin — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:27:35 +0000

You may have noticed a teensy tiny trend in my Tasty Tuesday posts as of late. Dessert like, if you will. Yes, I will admit to a fondness for desserts which is really a little odd considering my love of all things savory. While I may not sit and eat bags of M&Ms (huge ones) like Hotty Hubby does, or large bags of chocolate almonds like a friend of mine, I am drawn to foods of the dessert nature.

And so, purely because I feel the need to make Backpacking Dad go out and buy new pants, I give you….

Frozen Snickers Bar

1 litre Cool Whip - thawed
1 litre Vanilla Ice Cream - softened
1/4 cup Chunky Peanut Butter
1 small Chocolate Pudding Mix

Mix softened ice cream, peanut butter and pudding mix. Add Cool Whip.

Place in a 9 by 13 pan sprayed with PAM.

Freeze

Cut into 16 pieces (or just 4 really big pieces).

Seriously people, this treat should be illegal all over the world.

Bob the Gorilla needs more to do.

megmartin — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:56:47 +0000

I climbed a mountain today. Not only did I climb it, but I reached the top and then dug away at it til it was gone. No more mountain. Take that Sir Edmund Hillary.

Of course, when I say mountain, I am of course talking about Laundry Mountain. There are many mountains in this range but my house is built around just one. The size of this changes from day to day, and often from hour to hour, but it never ceases to amaze me how insurmountable the task of conquering it seems.

I think that my neighbours are sneaking into my house in the middle of the night and piling clothes in my laundry room, dirty dishes on my kitchen counters and papers on every other available surface. There really can’t be any other explanation. The spawn are little neat freaks whose rooms are never out of order, Hotty Hubby has never been known to leave his socks and underwear on the floor and me, well I am like the not so famous version of Martha Stewart. I just cannot figure out how they are getting into the house.

As I ran my 10th load of clothes through the machine (yes yes, it’s been that long since I did any laundry), I had yet another load in the dryer doing it’s second round. There seems to be some sort of issue with the heating element (??) and it takes 2 hours to dry one load of clothes. Bloody ridiculous if you ask me but at least it gives the gorilla that lives in my laundry room something to do.

My goal today, given how much I adore goals and the impossibility of meeting them, was to get my entire house clean. For any normal person, this might be achievable. For me? Far too many distractions. But I did my best. I even decided that for extra motivation, I would challenge a friend to a house cleaning race. This would have been fantastic if the traitorous wretch she hadn’t thrown me under the Molly Maid bus given up. Really Alison? One kitchen and you think you’re done cleaning. Ha! I laugh in the face of your intelligence.

I honestly had no idea how much dust one cat could create. I have come to the conclusion that the basis of all my home cleanliness problems boils down to this furry little creature and the two rugrats. Cat hair everywhere, it took me 30 minutes to clean CJ’s room. The rest of the house looks significantly better, but I really do wish I’d been as smart as my buddy and given up after the kitchen.

I think either I need to give my laundry loving gorilla something more to do, or I need to hire a cleaning lady. Either way works for me.

Anyone want to come keep my house clean for me so I can sit on my ass be productive in other ways?

Warning: Use of the five letter “B word” ahead

megmartin — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:05:45 +0000

Oh my lovely readers, if you could be where I am today. Or rather, where I was today. Although many of my fellow countrymen are still buried under inches of snow, and freezing their nads off in the cold, the weather here on the Island tends to be, well, a little temperamental. And yet, even on the wettest days, it is still nice.

Today, the weather forecast promised me sun. Did I get it? No. Of course not. That would just be far too lovely. Instead, it rained. More to the point it drizzled. Nothing really worth getting the umbrella out for, but enough to make the grass too wet to sit on, the playgrounds too wet to play in and the swings to wet to swing in. Unless of course you have no objections to a wet ass.

What is not too wet though, on a day like this, is the beach. Yes, that’s right, you heard me. Beach, beach, beach. I said it. And I’ll say it again - beach beach beach.

A friend and I took our clan of kidlets down to the beach this morning to explore the rocks and the waves and the gross seaweed. The beach is phenomenal place in the wet weather. Little tiny crabs scurrying all over the beach, purple seaweed washed up everywhere, and beautifully exquisite driftwood arrangements. As the kids played in the waves and combed the beach for seashells, my friend and I busied ourselves snapping pictures. When you have four children between the ages of 3 and 6, it can be incredibly difficult to get a good picture at times but when they are busy with that new shell or piece of beach glass, you get some amazing shots.

Sadly, the endless drizzle wears on the patience of the adults and kids alike and after 40 minutes of wetness, and having seemingly acquired every glass and shell that the tide had washed up, we were all ready to leave. We decided to brave the fast fading fuses (oooh alliteration) of the kidlets and go in search of ice cream. Clearly not the best plan we’ve ever had. Nor was the plan to go to McPuke’s to obtain said cold treat. I have recently discovered that when the young Barbie dolls at the golden arches do not feel like making anything that requires being within 2 feet of their ice cream machine, it rapidly becomes “broken”. (That’s right people, I’m onto you!) Today was one of those days, and we were informed it would be at least 25 minutes before we could have ice cream.

Oh crap. Brace yourself. We have 4 kids who all want ice cream and these idiots minimum wage flunkies people can’t be bothered making it. Alright, there’s a Timmies across the way, let’s go get a donut! My kids, thankfully, were all over that idea. Sadly not so much for the my friends children who were busily demanding french fries. I left her to the battle and sidled over to Timmies. It was at this point that my children were possessed. I’m serious - absolutely possessed by some evil, screaming, powerful force. As they bounced around the restaurant to the sound of my muted threats, I clenched my fists, gritted my teeth and promised myself that by the time we hit the front of the line everything would be peaceful.

I’m not entirely sure when I turned into this naive boob, but I do know that I refuse to be intimidated by anyone under four feet tall. Somehow I found myself dragging two screaming children out of Timmies and out to the car. The possession continued. They screamed non stop for the next 20 minutes. I have never in my life been so tempted to sell my children on eBay.

I’ll start the bidding at $200…any takers??

This evening, after much needed naps on the part of both children (yes, they still nap occasionally even at their ages), we dropped Ash at a friends house for a sleepover. I am still firmly ensconced in denial thank you very much. It just simply isn’t possible that my daughter is now old enough to be sleeping over at other people’s houses. She packed her own bag, got in the car and off we went. After hanging around like the anxious parent I’m not for about 20 minutes, she looked me straight in the eye and said “Can you go now?”. WHAT?!? No I can’t go. I can’t leave my baby at someone’s house and go home.

But I did. Hotty Hubby, CJ and I heading to yet another beach (beach beach) and sat around a bonfire with a bunch of wonderful friends who I haven’t seen in a while. My dear friend Jen was turning 35 and this was how she wanted to celebrate. CJ decided this was the opportune moment to wade into the water up to his knees and then promptly sat in the sand. That’ll make for some fun laundry.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening at the beach, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, eating a scrumptious chocolate cake and carrying on mostly enjoyable conversation. We ended up with a lot of wet sandy kids, and had one small child fall into the fire (but Matt to the rescue!!) with no burns, and by the time we all went home we were fairly confident all the kids were tired enough that there would be no more evil possessions.

Happy Birthday Jen!!

I’d like a broom and a blender please

megmartin — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:02:07 +0000

As I sat here this afternoon and tried desperately to continue working on my book, I found myself distracted by just about everything else around me. After losing interest in staring out the window, I turned to those little fliers that come with the local free paper twice a week.

I don’t actually read the articles in the paper most of the time, if I’m interested in the news, I’ll read it online. But the fliers hold a special place in my heart. I am not a shopper. I can happily walk through a mall and only venture into one or two stores. If there is something that I am looking for, I’d like to be in and out as fast as possible. Of course, this philosophy goes right out the window if you take me into a shop that sells yarn, but that is beside the point.

So I’m sitting around shuffling through this pile of fliers (have you ever noticed how much junk we get with our papers now?) and I notice they’re all labeled with something along the lines of “Perfect for Mom!”. I’d like to know just who determines what is perfect for me. Perhaps I could spend some time with this person. Sure, there’s the fliers that are full of jewelery, but the majority of it runs in the thousands of dollars and frankly Hotty Hubby is not the jewelery buying type. The rest of it though, is housewares.

I’d like to meet the woman who would happily smile and appreciate the new broom and dustpan set that her husband took the kids out to buy. Oh! A new apron. You shouldn’t have. Really.

I’m a firm believer that unless a woman specifically asks for a household cleaning item for their birthday, Mother’s Day or Christmas, that you should not take it upon yourself to purchase it. And even if it has been requested, there should be verification sought at least twice a week until the time comes to purchase. For instance, I once requested an upright vacuum cleaner for Christmas. You’d think the bottom had fallen out of Hotty Hubby’s world. Was he brave enough to follow through? At the time, my mother was visiting and he was able to seek reassurance from her that I did indeed want this. Even then, I think he was petrified to present me with the gift on Christmas morning. It was almost as if he’d sooner be giving a bull an enema - as if that might be the safer option.

It occurred to me today that there are likely many other men sitting at home flicking through these little brochures that claim to be a glimpse into the female mind, wondering just what circle of hell they would have had to enter to get something like this past their wife without a specific request. Also, how many women are thinking the same thoughts as me, and polishing their frying pans? I pity the poor man that brings a beautifully wrapped, yet unsolicited vacuum cleaner home to surprise his wife.

I imagine the reason that these companies think they can get away with such advertising is because on Mother’s Day, these men can use their spawn as shields. “But really, it was Little Johnny that wanted to get you the new apron and spatula. He just loves your cookies.” Yet they persist throughout the year.

Just once, I’d like to see a hot shirtless guy posing with a duster and a can of Pledge. I might be persuaded to buy more useless products if I was able to harbour any delusions that they came with said man. Instead, the images we see more resemble this:

Well, really. Who could argue with that? I’ll take a broom for Mother’s Day and a blender for my birthday.

Foto Friday - Random

megmartin — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:06:44 +0000

I wanted to see what would happen if I typed “random” into Google images. What would it come up with? I was shocked to see this beautiful picture pop up on my screen. It’s haunting, yet beautiful. I’m quite amazed.