blog

Apologies to everyone from SS who has already lived through this nightmare.

Symphony’s grandma manages a Salvation Army Thrift Store. This means she’s always bringing us stuff. ALWAYS. When I was still with Symphony’s dad and worked at the vintage store, she’d bring me bags and bags of fur coats and rhinestone brooches and weird old clothing for me to consign. Now she mostly brings down arts & craft supplies (I got the crystals I used on my rope light chandelier from her), and clothes and books for Symphony. Sometimes she brings down toys, and this past weekend she brought Symphony a doll.

But not

just

any

doll.

She brought us Sadie.

This is obviously a haunted doll, possessed by an angry and vengeful spirit of a murdered girl, just itching to come to life and kill us all in our beds by sucking out our souls. When Grandma pulled it out of the bag I gave her one of these O__o and said “ARE YOU SERIOUS???” and she said to me “It’s made of fabric!” The fabric of nightmares, maybe. Someone asked me if her face was wooden, but it’s actually cloth painted with the blood of the innocent. When the bachelorette party was here on Saturday one woman said “I think it’s lovely! Wouldn’t you rather have your daughter playing with a toy like that then with some Barbies?”

NO. NO I WOULD NOT.

Someone online told me I should shut it in the closet, but then all I could think about was the closet door skreeeeeeeeeeeing open and the tip-tap of Sadie’s little nub feet skittering across the linoleum as she comes to kill us.

Sometimes Sadie gets angry.

Sometimes she has too much redbull and gets really alert.

Sometimes she is filled with a rage that burns hotter than the fires of Hell.

(Or maybe she’s a harlequin ichthyosis baby, idk).

When Sadie is feeling EXTRA possessed she can see into the very depths of your soul and she wants nothing more than to just scrape it out and leave you a hollow, empty husk with a scorched inner landscape, howling with insanity.

hellllllllllllllllllllp meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

But like everyone, what Sadie wants most is to be loved. Sadie loves you.

WHY DON’T YOU LOVE HER BACK?

It’s my first. Back in the olden times of the internet, whenever I googled myself the only results would be in Polish, and I just could not figure it out until I plugged “Tanie” into a Polish-English translator and welp, this is what you get:

Perfect. I think it’s pronounced differently (my name is like Tammy with an N, not like Janie with a T or Tawny like Tawny Kitaen) but it’s spelled exactly the same. EXACTLY.

Nowadays if you google me you get results from my twitter followers and flickr contacts, as well as the list of people who donated to Vancouver is Awesome this year, instead of a bunch of websites of cheap Polish things (you still get that if you google just my first name though). However this morning I had a blast from my cheap past- a girl I know online only tagged me in some pictures on facebook. I’ve never met her in real life- she goes to school in New York and is currently spending a semester in Prague, so I was confused as to why she’d be tagging me in pictures.

OH! She’s visited Poland! lol thanks Lindsay 😛

This weekend has been hilarious!

On Friday night Rich and Jenn came over- my original invitation was for beer & Lethal Weapon, but we all ended up playing Apples to Apples with Symphony instead. I let her stay up until 11 to hang out. Bad mom! It was really funny, especially because someone kept getting mad that certain people made silly decisions when they were the judge.

Normally Symphony stays at her dad’s on Saturday nights be he had a big MMA fight so instead she went to her grandparents’ house for a spoil-fest. Grandma picked her up early Saturday morning, and after quickly getting ready I dragged Taylor out shopping with me. I had my friend Bonnie’s bachelorette party that night, and we were all supposed to wear black shirts. I only wear grey so my only black shirts are like, old faded tank tops I wear to the gym.

After going all over downtown in a futile search for a black shirt that wasn’t too skanky/tight/see-through/plain I gave up and just came home with a new rainbow-y measuring cup, a knife for cutting wavy shapes, a new garbage can for the bathroom and a cute little clutch from Club Monaco. That store drives me crazy- I worked there in 2006 before I started doing daycare and all the clothes were awful, but now that I don’t get a discount anymore every single thing is cute!

Once we got home and had something to eat, Taylor went to the gym and I started cleaning the house. I’d tidied up during the day on Friday, but somehow it got really messy again. Since most of Bonnie’s friends live in the suburbs, everyone was coming here to get ready/pregame, so I didn’t want it to be gross. As usually happens when I have limited time to clean I started a rearranging project. Since last fall I’ve had all these bits of wood and a frame from my unfinished library bookcase project lying around, and I finally decided to just scrap it. I had to heave it all out to the garbage room myself, and moving it reveal heaps of dirt and dust bunnies, but I’m glad I did it. I have some new ideas for the library, and now i can focus on other projects that I’m more interested in.

I managed to get almost everything done (Taylor finished it up after i left) by 4:45, which was good because at 5:15 I had to be across the bridge at Tantra Fitness for a pole- and lapdance class. I’ve always been kind of eh about pole dancing, and when my sister got really into it a couple of years ago I was not impressed. Well, let me tell you, I TAKE IT ALL BACK. It was so fun, and even the small amount of stuff we did kicked my upper body’s butt! My arms, shoulders and chest are super sore today. I am definitely considering going back and taking some actual classes there.

Before we left the gym we had a visit from the police- oh wait, I mean the exotic dancer in a cop outfit. Now, I’d never seen a male stripper before, only lady strippers, so I was kind of worried it would be really awkward, which it was, but it was also hilarious and kind of fun. I’m glad I wasn’t one of the women singled out to undo buttons or pull of boxer briefs, but I did definitely have a close encounter of the genital kind. And that’s aaaaaaall I’m saying about that!

We came back to my place just after seven- Taylor had gone out for drinks with an old friend so it was just us. Everybody had drinks (including shots of Baja Rosa, apparently this portion of the evening took place in 1999) and food and then got changed out of our pole dancing clothes into our club outfits. Since I hadn’t been able to find a black top I just ended up wearing a black dress over my jeans, haha. Bonnie wore a white shirt with a ~bachelorette~ sash and tiara. The SUV limousine picked us up, and we spent the next our driving around the city, drinking champagne and woo-ing. Taylor and his friend we one the patio of a sports bar near our house and they actually heard us go by!

At ten the limo dropped us off at the club, where we were given the world’s teeniest VIP area and a bottle of champagne. I don’t really like clubs but I still had an okay time. There were definitely lots of creeps there though! Luckily I’m like, skeezy nightclub dude Kryptonite so unlike most of the other girls I didn’t get danced up on. Oh, and there were girls on the dance floor with no shoes on. WHO DOES THAT? Ugh, so gross. Later on I had a huge panic moment- our VIP area was at the top of the stairs on and I dropped my new clutch (with my phone, keys and super-expensive Balenciaga wallet inside) down a gap between them and the railing. It went all the way down to the bottom floor and by the time I got down there it was gone! Fortunately the coat check girl had picked it up and I got it back but holy close call!! Also fortunately nothing inside got broken because I’d brought a little dish towel to help open the champagne in the limo and it cushioned everything.

The limousine picked us back up at one and we all came back here for more food and drinks and so everyone could pick up their stuff. Taylor was home but passed out in all his clothes in the bed- apparently he drank a pitcher and a half of beer, which is not usual for him. All the girls left at two and I tried to wake Taylor up to go get poutine but he was too unconscious. Then I tried cleaning up but I was too drunk to deal with half-full cups of vodka & grape juice. Ew! I ended up just leaving everything where it was and going to bed myself.

This morning Taylor and I both woke up around ten. I’d managed to wake him up enough to drink a bunch of water the night before but I didn’t drink any myself so I was really hungover. I drank a ton of water when I got up but the food and drinks from the night before grossed me out so much I threw up! So lame. However after that and a quick shower I feel much better and was able to o get some much-needed coffee and Advil. Taylor had plans to go meet his moms for lunch at the airport- they were flying home to Kelowna from San Diego and had a couple of hours between flights.

Unfortunately our lunch took a terrible downturn- right when we met up with them they got a text message about an emergency- it turned out that Taylor’s stepmom’s father had had a heart attack and was on life support but not expected to make it. Not the sort of news you ever want to get! He is in a hospital here in the Lower Mainland but they decided to go back home anyway and come back tomorrow.

They left to catch their flight and Taylor and I headed back downtown, although first we had the horrific discovery that the train which only cost $2.50 to get to the airport from downtown cost $7.50 to get back! What a rip off! The trip back sucked especially hard because I was less recovered from my hangover than I’d previously thought and we had to get off halfway home so I could visit a gas station washroom. Lovely.

That and the sad news at lunch aside, this weekend was super fun. I wasn’t really looking forward to the bachelorette party (I have kind of a hate/jealousy relationship with them, hate because I don’t usually have a good time at them and jealousy because I didn’t get to have one!) but it turned out to be a blast, seeing our friends on Friday night was great and I got to spend lots of time with Taylor, which is always my favorite 🙂

Is there anything better than getting a package in the mail? Answer: NO IT IS THE BEST EVER. A few weekends ago when I was sick and crabby, my e-friend Marissa offered to get me the matryoshka measuring cups I’d been coveting- I had looked in about a billion housewares/decor/blah blah blah stores with no luck, and I really didn’t want to spend $25 on shipping. I decided what would make more sense was spending $130 on other things from Urban Outfitters (mostly for me, one thing for her) so we could get free shipping to her house, and then she’d mail me my stuff. I paid for the whole order and the cost of her item covered the cost of her shipping to me. GENIUS. But what is even better is she filled the box with extra goodies!

My camera died half way through so some of these are photobooth pics.

Claire was very interested in the box-opening process. Cats love boxes.

My M-Cups! I can’t wait to use these, I’ve been wanting to make Peppermint Patty Brownie Cupcakes and now I have another reason (I actually bought the peppermint patties for these already but I didn’t have any of the other ingredients so I ATE THE WHOLE BAG omg).

Birds of a Feather rug for my library/music room. This is actually way prettier irl than I thought it would be. I just need to get one of those foamy underpads so it doesn’t skid around- right now it’s kind of treacherous!

Crepe V-Back Dress. I was really apprehensive about this dress- I’ve found that sometimes the online only items at UO are online only for a reason, and that reason is THEY SUCK. I really like this though- it fits well, even in the chest area (always a source of anxiety) and other than being super scrumpled I can’t see anything wrong with it.

So those are the things I bought, but here are all the extra things she sent.

Little birdy wall hook that completely goes with my house, jumbo gumballs & a Blow Pop, a pad of Comment Cards, WALRUS EARRINGS omg these are great, spiral earrings, a little Le Sportsac bag, a pin and a mini-bottle of Flowerbomb.

Grey & grey striped dress that is SO ME. So THANK YOU for everything Marissa, you are AWESOME!!

I think today is going to be a double exclamation mark kind of day!!

It’s Friday, the weekend is starting, AND Fridays are an easy work day for me- baby M doesn’t come and neither part-timer is scheduled so it’s just CT, B and then V in the afternoon. EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY. I swear, if every day was like this I’d NEVER complain about work.

Speaking of work, I was talking to B’s mom this morning, and when she has her baby this summer, she wants B to still be able to come here, part-time. I can fit her into the part-time space with K and CP, so I won’t lose her AND it’ll free up a full-time space for a new client. HOORAY!!

It’s sunny today. It’s supposed to get up to 18°, and while it’s not there yet I’m wearing shorts anyway!!

Lol this picture is SO awkward but it was REALLY hard to get one without B in the shot!! Anyway it’s supposed to rain all weekend so I figured I should wear shorts while I had the chance.

Also, look at how light my hair is!! I haven’t had it coloured since the end of January, before my birthday, so there’s a good inch of natural roots. The coloured part is light enough that it all blends together pretty well and idk, I find that even though there’s mad grey in my roots, I’m not hating it. Maybe I’ll grow it all out, or maybe I’ll highlight it again but I don’t think I’m going to do all over colour anymore.

I hope you are all having a great day too!!

So today started out with another healthy dose of grossness, this time with worms. As we were walking down to the Montessori to pick up V, CT stepped on this HUGE squishy worm in the alley. It has been worm central around here this spring and this guy was a juicy one- when CT stepped on it I heard a very distinct SQUELCH. “Ew” I said, “CT, why did you step on him (he’d done it on purpose)? That was really gross!” My question were rewarded by this speech about what happens when you step on worms:

You shouldn’t step on worms because you know why? They get in you. They go in your skin and climb up your body to your mouth. They go in your throat and you choke like you’re choking. You go *barf noises* and then you throw up from choking! Which is what happens when you step on worms

Lovely.

CT is three and a half, one of the new kids who started at the beginning of March. I have to call him by his first name & last initial because there is another little boy, a part timer, with the same first name. These are all the other kids I have enrolled currently:

V is four years old. He’s been coming here since April of 2007 and was one of the first kids to enroll after I got my child care license. Since last fall he’s been going to the local Montessori for morning preschool, so he’s only here in the afternoon now.

CP is also three and a half. He attends part-time, usually only one or two days a week. His mom is my friend/former neighbor’s ex-fiance/babydaddy’s sister (so complicated!) which is how I met her and how her son came to be enrolled here.

K is two almost three. He is my other part timer. His mom works a weird, four-week schedule so the days she needs child care on change every month. This fluctuating schedule makes it very difficult to fill the other part of the space and I kind of regret ever agreeing to it.

B is twenty months old, and is the sweetest, funniest, smartest little toddler I know. Her mom is expecting a new baby in August (CP’s mom is also expecting in August), so I guess she’ll be leaving here, which is SO SAD because she’s such a great kid.

M is the baby, one year old. She started in March with CT, and it’s been difficult. Since she’d never been in child care/away from her mom regularly, it was a huge adjustment for her which has involved a lot of screaming. Screaming, screaming, screaming. She’s definitely more comfortable and happier being here now, but it’s been pretty rough getting to this point.

Yesterday I woke up in a really, really good mood. I thought, FINALLY! I was feeling so great that nothing was going to get me down, and it’s a good thing too because oh my goodness yesterday was a total GROSS OUT.

One of the daycare kids had this terrible diaper and it made my whole house smell like a horse barn. What does a baby even eat that would smell like that??? It was sick, I had to open all the doors and windows to air the place out.

My bathroom sink had been draining really slowly and although I’d tried everything to try and clear it nothing had worked, so yesterday I very very bravely took a straightened out paperclip (hooked on one end) and just pulled out all the stuff clogging the sink. It was so sick, I couldn’t even look what I was doing or I’d start gagging. It’s draining much better so it was obviously worth it, I just hope everyone else who lives here appreciates my sacrifice.

After work I walked my dog, and when we got back to the house I let him off his leash in the yard to try and get him to chase Symphony. Instead he bolted towards this scraggly flower bed next to the gate and started eating what turned out to be poop! The worst part it I don’t even know what it’s from- it was too big to belong to any of the neighbor dogs and I never let my dog do his business in the yard. He was eating MYSTERY POO OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

This is less gross and more traumatic, but last night for dinner we went for Japanese and in a fit of spasticity I dumped an entire bowl of scalding hot miso soup on my lap. I mean, SCALDING HOT. Plus, once all the liquid part of miso soup soaks into your jeans, what’s left looks less than appetizing. I had to get a damp cloth from the waitress and scrub my thighs clean and when we went home my jeans were all cold and wet and clammy. Not my finest moment, but I laughed my face off about it. I think Symphony was pretty pleased- a couple years ago in that same restaurant she knocked over a pint mug of ginger ale all over me, and every time we go back I remind her “Don’t spill your ginger ale on me!” but now, I’ll have to remind myself “Don’t pour miso soup on your lap!”

The Dragonbone Chair, 26/104; The Stone of Farewell 27/104; To Green Angel Tower 28/104

These are the books I bought to read on my flights/vacation, and although I read a lot it took me until last night to finish them all. Why? They are CRAZY LONG. The first two books are about six- or seven hundred pages each and the third one is like 1,100 pages. When it was originally released in paperback it was split into two parts because it was too long for one book, and this is something that pissed me off, but the kindle edition (or at least, the only one I could buy) is also in two parts! So stupid since it doesn’t matter how many pages a kindle book is, but I still had to pay for two books to get the whole story. Lame. ANYWAY.

I first read these books in high school. One day I was just really itching for a new book so my parents and brother and sister and I took a family trip to the bookstore, but I couldn’t find anything I liked the look of that wasn’t part of a series. Afterwards we went to the library, where I picked up The Dragonbone Chair. I’d seen the paperback at the bookstore, but the library edition was hardcover and didn’t say “book one of an enormous series that will eat your life” anywhere on the front and I couldn’t remember why I hadn’t bought it. Trickery! So I read it and I loved it and just when it was getting really epic and exciting it. just. ended. I thought there was another chapter but it was an appendix with lists of characters and locations and translations of the made-up languages. I was so mad! I had to wait six months until the second book, The Stone of Farewell, came out in paperback, and then it was another year and a half before the final book, To Green Angel Tower, came out. My then-boyfriend bought me the thousand-page hardcover as a gift with the stipulation that I was not to read more than one hundred pages a day, although I finished it in a week so clearly I didn’t stick to that! A friend of mine was reading the series at the same time and I remember us at a party sitting behind the couch discussing the last book for hours. At a party, you guys.

After that I reread these books every year, but I kept having to buy new copies because people would always borrow them and not give them back, or straight up steal them and move to Halifax. The last copies I had, which were old and crack-spined fuzzy around the page edges, I lent to a girl I worked with at Club Monaco, but when she got hired for a job I’d applied for at a different company she felt awkward and stopped talking to me so I never got them back. Consequently I hadn’t read them in a few years before now, but you know what? I STILL LOVE THESE BOOKS. Maybe fantasy novels with princesses and dragons and what-have-you are cheesy, but I don’t care. These ones are good, and in a surprising departure from the Song of Ice and Fire books Taylor is reading (and which owe A LOT to these books), there are likable characters and NO RAPING. I know, it’s crazy!

Since it took me so long to finish this series I was worried I would be behind in my goal, but this is the 14th week of the year and I’ve read 28 books, so I’m actually keeping a perfect pace. Also, with finishing The Dragonbone Chair, my 26th book this year, I am one quarter of the way to my goal! I think for my next book(s) I’ll choose something a little shorter though.

Sorry about the lack of posing recently. I’ve been having a pretty crummy month so far and I’m sure no one wants to hear me whine more about being sick and having to deal with frustrating people. I’m going to try and get back to my stay posi self this week though 🙂

After having a particularly awful day yesterday, both health-wise and emotionally, today I was ready to just have a nice time with no sadness or stress. I slept in a little and then Taylor and I went for brunch at Glowbal. The service there is so ridiculously good- today we got our food before we got our coffees!

Taylor wanted to go shopping for new gym pants- he only had one pair he liked and he’s been going six days a week (luckily I also do laundry six days a week). He made a deal with himself/me that if he worked out five days in a row he could get poutine from La Belle Patate on Thursdays aka TV Night, and he’s really been sticking to it! It kind of makes me mad that I haven’t been able to go with him, even though I’ve wanted to, because I’ve been so sick, but I’m almost completely well so hopefully I can start this week.

Before going to the sports store I made him cut through Holt Renfrew with me so I could look at purses, and I am very proud to say that although I found two adorable and almost-affordable grey bags that I liked, I didn’t buy any. We might be going to Seattle in May for the long weekend and I’m going to try to hold off until then since (if the loonie stays up!) they’ll be cheaper.

Another thing I didn’t buy today is a new couch, although I think I found one that I really like. Currently we have this sectional of leather Ikea Kramfors pieces, but one of the chaises is totally ruined. Whatever the finish or coating they put on the leather melted. It’s so weird, like first it started looking all dull, and then you could see it was drooping and sliding down the surface of the seatback and now it’s all peeled off in patches. Gross. Luckily you can’t really see it because my couch it basically just a mass of throws and pillows, but I still hate it and want to replace it. I could just get a new chaise, since the two other pieces are in perfect shape, but it pissed me off and I just want to sell them and buy a whole new couch.

This is the one I’m thinking of. I saw it on the store’s website last week but I didn’t like it because the colour was so blah and oatmeal-y, but in real life it’s much nicer looking and a little darker. Also, it’s basically the PERFECT size for our living room- the “couch wall” is 3 meters long and this couch is 294.64cm. Obviously it’s fate! Now I just need to find some money, haha.

To make me feel better since I’ve been sick, Symphony drew me this picture of the Moon Princess

I am actually starting to improve- the cough is still hanging around but I don’t have the crippling aches and fever anymore- knock on wood! Even the world seems to be feeling better- for the past week it’s mostly been grey and rainy but today it’s clear and windy. It’s still cold but to me there is nothing more wonderful than a clear, windy spring (or fall) day!