Observations of an Idle Mind And Other Pointless Trivia

The camping culture is really weird if you sit around and think about it for a while. Our homes are too complicated and cluttered to relax in, and too full of computers and dishwashers and laundry facilities to create an uncluttered space. So we buy expensive homes on wheels, hitches for our vehicles, portable barbecues, bike racks, pie irons, special chairs, tables, blankets and things to keep our food clean and cold.

Then we drive great distances and park these houses in lots with neighbours roughly four inches away on each side.

So that we can relax.

And get away from it all.

 

Elderly people tell the same stories and questions over and over again. That must be indicative of their biggest worries, regrets, and reliefs in life.

I'm already plagued with repetitive dreams, so I can't wait to be old and bore everyone with my worries and obsessions. Out loud.

 

Sometimes I judge people based on what kinds of breakfast foods they buy. Frozen, prepackaged french toast and pancakes? really? Cereal in unnatural colours with marshmallows? When I want to eat trash, I'll buy trash. Not trash disguised as food. My favourite trash food? That white cheddar popcorn. If I'd ever tried crack, I would tell you that it was like that. But I wouldn't know.

 

I like spring.

Really, really like. My hands get rough and dry from digging around in the dirt and clearing out the old leaves and dead branches as I replace it all with new, optimistic flowers and veggies. Nothing like it.

I bought a phone cover off ETSY. It's not possible to describe to you how many times and how inappropriately loudly I have laughed while I study my new phone case. Likely its indicative of my fragile mental health. I"m okay with that.

Did I mention that I love spring?

I love yard sales in spring, shopping with an awesome friend who laughs really loudly at all my jokes, and buying the ugliest ever kitschy poster-sized cat clock for my daughter for two bucks.

There seriously is nothing more fun than laughing my way through a Saturday with a pocket-full of loonies, and unearthing very affordable treasures in friendly people's garages. Did I mention drinking coffee, eating yard sale platz, and cinnamon almonds, and parking illegally? Its so grand.

In fact, sometimes you go into a garage, and suddenly you've been transported to an entirely different realm. The host may even invite you inside to look at her zebra rug.

I didn't want to see her rug. Not even at all.

You might find those scented shoe laces you've been looking for. Cuz who doesn't love doing deep knee bends to smell your friend's shoes? It's all the rage- all the cool kids are doing it.

 

"Dirt cheap" is an outdated saying. I know that because I just spent ten bucks on four measly bags of dirt. Dirt bags. Then again, manicures are expensive too, and I never get those because I prefer ten dollar dirt under my fingernails. It smells great and its organic.

Hostas prefer sunshine and warmth before they want to stick their leaves up from underneath the ground. Rhubarb, on the other hand, is very cheerful, and pops up at the very mention of spring. Rhubarb reminds me of my childhood on the farm, living barefoot in the dirt, pulling out a stalk of rhubarb to dip into a bowl of sugar and crunch on at the picnic table.

I don't get the big uproar over cupcakes. Cupcakes bug me. The buzz about cupcakes bugs me. Want a good treat? Try a quarter pounder Reese peanut butter cup. I saw one at the gas station while I was garage sale-ing. I didn't buy it because I made the human error of looking at the nutritional information, saw the calorie count, did the math, and then exited stage left. But I'm completely confident that one quarter of a pound of chocolate and peanut butter would blow the socks off a cupcake with artery clog icing.

Not everyone should wear yoga pants. Yoga pants are tight, and technically they were designed to do yoga in. I have a lot more to say about that, but I wouldn't like myself if I went on about it. Beside. Now you're picturing me in yoga pants, just because I said no to the peanut butter cup, and you have an entirely inaccurate mental picture going on. Suffice to say, I wear pj pants.

And, finally. You can never have enough turquoise coloured vintage dishes.

I know this because I have too many, and I still want more.

Happy Monday, friends. I remember a time when I had things to say. It's a good thing that I wrote them down at the time.

 

 

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Wondering Where You Are

Touching, Wendz.

Apparently I've dropped off the face of the earth, by my utter absence here at the Chronicles. Wendz commented earlier today. I was touched.

I am.

OKAY. Really okay. And I'm glad it matters to you.

Right now, I am here. With my bowl of cocaine/ white cheddar popcorn, and my glass of Brian-made gin and tonic (Happy Friday!!), with my scissors, my vintage McCall's sewing book, labels for 53 bags4darfur, and a glue stick. I'm trying to imagine my day tomorrow at Ten Thousand Villages, celebrating International Fair Trade Day with my fellow Winnipeggers.

 

I've been doing a whole lot of this, in preparation for tomorrow morning.

Making these.

While intermittently listening to my kid's radio pop station (I know all the songs from travelling in the car with them) and CBC radio (which I switch away from when the interviewer has such a nauseating voice that I'd rather listen to songs about early twenties angst sex than subject myself to irritating voice any more) Although I did hear a happy story today on CBC about a woman who actually survived for two weeks in the wreckage in Bangladesh. Crazy.

I've been worrying about my strange offspring.

Cuz that's what mom-types do.

Sometimes I've been pinning really inappropriate stuff on pinterest.

Which actually relates to worrying about the kids.

Sometimes, to change things up a little, I go visit my geriatric parents. Then I find myself in the middle of conversations like this:

Dad: "You know the Winnipeg Jets Football team?"

Sister: "Dad, I don't know that much about soccer".........

And yes, I remember that I already shared that on facebook. But really. This is what my life is comprised of.

In my spare time, I've been texting my kids pictures like this: the blender in the sink at six in the morning when I distinctly remember telling the kid THREE F-ING TIMES the night before to clean up after her or himself.

And texts to certain other kids (I had four. I was strangely optimistic at the time) about what I find in the sandbox after they've done target shooting off the deck and not cleaned up their targets, which are in the sandbox the very next day when I'm trying to be responsible with other people's children.

I also spent some time catering with the husband. In an awesome house made out of straw bales (and other stuff, silly), while drinking some wine and cooking up some amazingly delectible stuff.

I spent a little time with a friend who had a newborn. She wasn't thinking at the time. Her other kid is almost five and she forgot what silly people newborns can be, so sometimes she comes to my house for adult daycare. She thinks its a break for her, but I haven't confessed to her that its fun for me to have a grownup and a wee baby in my house. It makes me happy but I prefer that she thinks I'm doing charity. Besides, she brings me cinnamon buns.

I've been making puppets with preschoolers. That's not as easy as it sounds.

And photographing cats.

And adding cats to other pictures. (guess which one is me).

I even took down the Christmas tree.

Well, it was already down, in the sense that it was out of the living room. I have a very special, very religious ceremony that I celebrate most January's in which I chuck the Christmas tree out the front door of the house. I leave it there until the snow thaws, which this year took nearly until the following Christmas. Then I pull it into the backyard and throw it in the fire.

First I have to remove the twinkle lights that I evidently invested $2.00 in at the thrift shop.

Maybe that's why I don't take terribly good care of them.

Hmmmm.

Works for me.

I've also been selling random stuff from around the yard. Stuff that I can't be bothered to repaint or relocate this year. I'm lazy that way. Speaking of stuff that I don't want to be bothered to fix. Anyone interested in buying our roof or our deck?

Or the dog?

So.

I've been busy with my terribly important life. And besides otherthinking aboslutely everything, worrying about the most obscure things, and pondering the meaning of my life,

I"m ok.

And here. Still here.

 

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