beauty

A friend of mine is now selling arbonne.  For those not in the know, it’s cosemetics and creams and the like.  It’s supposedly good stuff, I’ve heard good things about it, at any rate this post isn’t a review of the products so its neither here nor there.

I am not a home-party or network party person.  In fact, it is unlikely I’ll even go to a home party unless 1. you’re a REALLY good friend, or 2. actually, there is no second point.  I don’t do home parties.

However, she’s a REALLY good friend, so I said I’d attend one party.  And I did.  It seems like lovely cosemetics.

During the “presentation” the head lady (top of network food chain?) talked about two skin care lines.  The one and only cosemetic I buy is face cream, so I’m willing to buy that from my friend instead of the store.  At least once anyway.  I questioned the difference between the two lines and was told that one was for 23 and younger, and the anti-aging line was for the 23 and older crowd.

Seriously?  We’re suppose to worry about aging at 23?  SERIOUSLY.  AT TWENTY THREE?

I don’t know about you, but when I was 23, I was hot.  Smokin’.  I also looked like I was 16.  When I was 23 I was thinking about my career.  I was thinking about my next big trip.  I was thinking about the rest of my life.  I can guarantee you I was not thinking about those wrinkles and sagging eyelids and grey hair.  BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE ANY.

A young man, at 23, is going through his last growth spurt.  A GROWTH SPURT.  Why is it that a woman is considered to be aging at 23?

Our society is so very, very weird.

The other day my Mom said to Claire “you’re beautiful” and Claire said “I’m not beautiful.  Everyone else is beautiful.”.  I’m not going to over-analyse this because I have no idea what she meant by it.  She might have just meant that she’s smart.  Or a super hero.  Or cute.  Who knows.  She’s 3.  But a part of me did wonder if a 3 year old would pick up on this shit?  Do they start to feel like they’re not something.  Do they start thinking that their looks are the end all and be all and that they are suppose to look like a damn mermaid in a coconut bra?

Do I have a point?  I don’t know.  I just know that I spent my childhood, and my 20s, thinking I was gorgeous, and that didn’t matter because more importantly I was clever.  And capable.  I hope and pray that my daughters will also spend their childhood and young adult life thinking the same thing.

I sure the hell didn’t think I was aging when I was 23 and felt I needed to take action.

To end this random tirade, a conversation with Claire:

Claire: When I’m in Kindergarten I’m going to be Wonder Woman for Black and Orange Day.

Me: Not say, Batman?

Claire: No.  Batman is Wonder Woman’s assistant.

Yo go girl!  (and ps: You’re beautiful.).

me time.

Steve and I are were chatting the other day and he casually said something like “well, we both get the same amount of downtime every day” to which I snorted. Or maybe said “ha!”. The conversation went something like this:

Steve: “What? We do.”
Me: “yeah, no. We don’t.”
“Once the kids are in bed, it’s our time”
“Once the kids are in bed, I am still folding laundry, tidying the house, doing dishes, etc, etc. I’m still working.”
“well, you need to make more me time.”
“True.”

And that is true. I am terrible at demanding Amber time. Then I started to think about it, really think about it. In that same conversation Steve mentioned how I had skipped several boxercise classes (my current exercise of choice) indicating that I needed to make that me time a priority. Right. I shouldn’t skip my exercise times, I absolutely agree 100%. Except you know what? The first one that I missed was because Steve forgot. I was ready to go, I had dinner on the table, had pre-washed every dish I could pre-wash. The house was clean*, but he didn’t walk through the door until after 6 and you can’t really show up half an hour late to boxercise class. I mean, you could, but then there’s no warm up and you’re in the middle of the routine and I’m not a show up in the middle kind of person. At least not to an exercise class. If it were a wine-drinking class then sure! I’d be late. To be honest I show up to everything late but an exercise classes. I called him the next day and made him put my boxercise class in his calendar, which he did.

The other two times? Anna was sick. Not just your run-of-the-mill the kid has a cold. No. Anna was super sick. She slept terribly for 8 straight nights. By that I mean I have been up in the middle of the night for hours. Two Saturdays ago she was basically glued to me and completely miserable. She wouldn’t sleep unless she was draped across my chest, she was croupy and was having a hell of a time breathing. By Tuesday night I was so damn tired and worn out that the thought of even putting on my running shoes just about made me cry.

So while I hadn’t been to the class in a while, I don’t think that makes me lazy.

This got me thinking about it all a little more. Exercise, for someone like Steve and many others, is meditative. It is stress relief, it might even be truthful to say that Steve looks forward to it. He has considerately arranged his schedule so that it has very little impact on my life which I appreciate tremendously. When he’s training heavily he is gone Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings, the rest of the training he does during his lunch hour. I give him a gold star for this (that isn’t sarcastic; I really do think it’s awesome that he has done that). But his training schedule doesn’t come with a consequence, mine does.

When I go to boxercise, I don’t come home, hit the shower, pour a bowl of cereal, and tell Steve about my day. I often come home and put a child to bed. Then I do the dishes. Then I tidy up the living room. Then I sweep the kitchen. Then I have a shower (if I’m quick enough and it is before Steve goes to bed). Even to get to boxercise I first have to time it so that dinner is ready and on the table and that I have all my shit together to walk out the door.

To which one might respond “so what?”. Right. I’m prepping to go work out while doing my day job. I work out to come home and finish up everything that isn’t maintained while I’m not at my day job.

And I’m doing all that to go out and do something that I don’t particularly enjoy. Exercise is not meditative to me. Exercise is just one more damn item on the “to do” list. Something I’m supposed to do because I’m supposed to be perfect. I’m supposed to be thinner, stronger, healthier (well, healthier is a solid reason). I’m supposed to have sweet kids, a clean(ish) house, figure out a way to provide some income, keep my kids safe, and GOD DAMMIT, I also need to be thinner.

Exericise is not meditative for me. Knitting is. When I’m moving heaven and earth to make this happen I would so rather sit on the couch and knit. Or create something new. Or draw. Exercise is work, both physically and mentally. It’s annoying.

So, yeah, I’m probably not going to move mountains to ensure that no matter what I get in that sort of “me” time, because it isn’t “me time”. It’s just another asterick on the to do list.

Although I might start moving heaven and earth to get in a little knittin’.

doesn't have a damn thing to do with this post, but here's Callum's cake. Cute, yes?

*it should be noted that Steve cares NOT AT ALL if the house is clean. I care. Actually, I don’t care if it’s clean. I care if its tidy. If I don’t pick up after our day I find that 1. things get out of hand remarkably fast, and 2. it prevents us from doing creative things. Clutter discourages creativity.

randomness

• Steve is wanting me to either password protect the blog, or prevent people from downloading pictures, or not post about the kids (or even just shut it down) so I am having a hard time being in this space.  I don’t really know how to prevent people from stealing the pictures, and I am not interested in password protecting the blog (because then, isn’t that just facebook?) and well, not posting about the kids seems ridiculous considering the whole at-home Mom gig and so what the hell would I talk about!  Hence the lack of posting.
• I had grand plans today to just sit, relax and create.  My girls have grand plans to climb all over my persons and whine.  It’s messing with my creative mo-jo.
• Callum’s birthday was a roaring successs.  Literally, he had a jungle safari (I know it makes no sense, safari animals don’t live in a jungle, but safari decore isn’t as interesting).  The cake was adorable.  I should post a picture.
• Actively working to get a handle on Christmas so I’m all organzied and ready to roll by the end of October.  We’ll see….
• The salmon are a running up the rivers.  Plan to go and take a peek tomorrow.
• It’s cold here.  It’s weird.

time, time, time. Where do you go?!

I can’t believe that it has been more than three weeks since I last posted.  It hasn’t felt like three weeks. Has it?  It really hasn’t to me.  Time is cruel.

tickled pink

It has been a delightful three weeks, at least.  We did this crazy road trip to Edmonton last weekend to attend my friend, R’s, wedding.  This meant that we got up early Thursday morning and drove ALL DAY, hitting Calgary around midnight.  The kids were traveling rock stars, something they obviously get from their Papa because I don’t car travel well.  In fact, I don’t understand why we haven’t invented that contraption from Star Trek where they just beam you up.  What the hell are all those innovators doing, anyway?  It’s not like they’ve cured cancer so get on it.  Invent me a beam-me-up machine.  But call it something cooler than that.

The phenomena of time doing this disappearing act on me has made me a sucky friend, too.  It seems I never have a decent chunk of time to get on the phone to say hi or whip up a decent email.  Weeks and weeks will go by before I even realize this.  I can’t even get it together to have coffee with my friend who lives up the road.  She lives UP THE ROAD.  How hard can that be?!

Honestly, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with my time.  Although at this moment my house is remarkably clean.  I am so glad that school is over tomorrow for Callum.  Hey Sun?  BRING IT.  The summer is bittersweet though, my little monkey will be in Kindergarten in the fall.   KINDER. GARTEN.   I can’t tell you how desperately I wish he wasn’t going.

In other news, we’re toying with the idea of getting some chickens.  Hee! Chickens!  No goats, though, no matter what Claire tells you.  Kid is lying.

summer love

summer love

When Steve decided to build a frame for the hammock to hang from, I envisioned lazing around with an ice cold cooler and a book.  Sometimes I’m stupid.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas.  I know.  Weird, yes?  I casually came across an old blog post about Buy Nothing Christmas.  I didn’t even read the article, but it has got me thinking about doing Christmas without buying anything.  Or rather, buying minimally.  How do you do that, and still make sure that the kids don’t feel cheated.

My kids are pretty good about it all so far, because they’re 4 and 3 and 4 and 3 year olds are pretty good about most things.  They get excited to get fake mail they intentionally left for themselves.  Fake mail with scribbles on it.  They’re an easy group to please.

There is always relational giving and I think in the spirit of Buy Nothing that could work, especially if the gift is a service (snow shoe rentals and a weekend with Papa, say or a fishing license and a set weekend to go fishing).

How else do you envision a Buy Nothing (minimally, realistically I don’t see it ever being Buy Nothing until the end is near)?  I’m looking for ideas.

I have also been thinking about Christmas because I’ve been finishing up a lot of the handmade items I had started last year but never quite got around to finishing in time for Christmas.  Some showed up at Easter.  Some just showed up.   If I’m going to be making things, I need to get on it and that means thinking about the winter just when summer finally starts to roll in.

I’m toying with the idea of making (possibly with thrifted materials) the kids quilts for their bed for Christmas this year.  Don’t worry.  Santa will bring something better than that for them. I’m thinking a spread that would bring their room together but could still be gender specific.  They are very big on their genders these days, and there are very set boy and girl colors.  This is reality.  I have choosen not to make too big of a deal out of it except to point out that yes, in fact, a girl can wear blue and a boy can wear pink.  The world will not end.  I promise.