Category: Uncategorized

This past weekend I picked up a new bubble machine. If you don’t know, a bubble machine is LITERALLY the best thing you can have if you need to be outside with kids on a sunny day. I used to have a bigger, fancier one that was given to me, but it used about 80 batteries and eventually stopped working, so last summer I was bubble machine-less. NOT GOOD. This one was cheap and only needs 2 AA batteries; you can get like, INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH party bubble machines if you have intense bubble needs but the little one is fine for us.

One good tip for bubble machines is you need to set up a NO POPPING ZONE around it (mine is outlined in blue chalk on the pavement), because otherwise kids (especially older kids) will just stand with their hands right in front of the machine, popping the bubbles as soon as their formed. WOW. WHAT A SUPER FUN TIME FOR EVERYONE.

Sym and her friend Ana Lucia also drew some chalk pictures of bubbles, from little individual ones…

… to this abstract representation of what it would look like if you were inside the bubble!

I think I had the machine going for almost an hour, going through an entire (small) bottle of bubble liquid. I really can’t recommend bubble machines enough, they’re a great way to make an ordinary afternoon into something extra fun.

Part of the reason for my recent blogging slump (in addition to “I don’t have anything to say” and “I don’t waaaaaaaaaanna”) and that I have been straight up E X H A U S T E D. I’m tired all the time, and some days it’s all I can do to get through a day of work, walk the dog and then collapse on the couch. Some days I’m too drained to even shower, and on the days that I DO manage to shower I end up falling asleep in my bathrobe with wet, unbrushed hair and my legs hanging off the side of the bed.

I find myself unable to finish anything (or even start anything, really) so I’m going to take a moment to appreciate some of the small things I’ve managed to accomplish this week.

Bought new tank tops. Tank tops are basically all I wear- t-shirts always look weird on me and almost anything with long sleeves STRESSES ME OUT. Like, I can have a panic attack from sleeves. I have to replace my tank tops quite frequently because I wear them to death. Last weekend I finally went out and got some new ones, so now I just have to get rid of the old shabby ones, but that seems impossible to me right now. Baby steps, okay?

Refilled the daycare kids’ soap dispenser in the bathroom. I don’t even want to say how long it’s been sitting there empty next to the refill bottle of soap. Now if I could just find the motivation to fold the load of towels that’s been chilling in my dryer for two days they’d be able to wash AND dry their hands.

Cooked a single meal. It was spaghetti. I had to defrost my homemade sauce AND go to the store to buy the noodles. IT WAS A LOT OF WORK, OKAY?

Finishing this blog post.

1. my jean jacket making it’s first appearance.

Obviously this is not appropriate for winter wear, so when I can move it from the out-of-season coat closet (which is crammed with 90% Taylor’s stuff btw) to the foyer it’s a definite sign of spring.

2. giant bees

I had my living room windows open for most of the afternoon on Tuesday and OF COURSE a huge fuzzy bumblebee about the size of a lime came bumbling in and started baffing around all the windows that weren’t open. I don’t like killing bees (who else is going to pollinate our food crops???) so I had to use all my bee-herding tricks to get it out of the house.

3. horrible smells

There are a lot of community gardens in my neighborhood, and every spring they all get big piles of manure delivered which the gardeners slowly spread on all the plots. It’s nasty.

I have this fantasy where I have my own house and in the mornings I let the dogs out into the backyard and they run around while I watch from the porch, drinking my coffee and wearing a sweet floral satin or silk robe. I have the dogs, but let’s be real: I’ll never have the house. I figured I might as well spend all my money on the only other attainable part of this dream: THE ROBES.

I saw this picture of Krysten Ritter on tumblr a few weeks ago and since then I’ve been officially ROBE-SESSED. I want to wear them all the time all summer, with a tank top and leggings or a little sundress. I will wear them to lounge around the house and walk the dog and run errands, I don’t even care. ROBES ALL DAYS ALL WAYS.

Unfortunately they seem to be harder to find than I thought they would be. I’ve been scouring shops and the internet and so far I’ve only found two: a purple on from etsy (which hasn’t arrived yet, pout pout) and a black one from this vintage clothing store I used to work at.

The problem is lot of the robes I’ve found are brocade, or embroidered, or have kimono sleeves, or cost $250, and these aren’t what I want. People keep telling me they know someone who has a lot of these, but they got them all while travelling around Asia. My friend Carleigh says she has the EXACT one Krysten Ritter has, but she got it in Thailand. So basically THANKS FOR NOTHING, CARLEIGH. And if anyone has any useful tips on where I can get non-brocade silk or satin floral robes that are reasonably priced with no embroidery or kimono sleeves, leave a comment!

I’ve actually raised & trained two dogs from being baby puppies: Dougal* and Georgie. I haven’t done a very good job though, because I’m lazy and prefer giving them lots of kisses on their doggy faces to disciplining them. Anyway, according to my Wikipedia research, spitz-type dogs “respond poorly to heavy-handed or forceful training methods,” so my kissy-face method is probably the best approach.

Dougal is a muttly mutt of a dog, so I don’t know where his intelligence ranks, but according to Stanley’s Coren’s The Intelligence of Dogs, pomeranians are the 23rd-smartest breed of dog. They learn commands quickly, including things you don’t want to teach them. Some things I’ve inadvertently taught my dog:
– when I say “I have to go to the bathroom” or “I have to pee,” Georgie will get up and follow me to the bathroom. If I don’t say anything she doesn’t follow me.
– when we’re at the off-leash dog park I usually loop Georgie’s leash around my neck like a cool rainbow lanyard, and when I take the leash off my neck she knows it’s time to leave and will follow me out without needing to be called or chased.
– both dogs have learned the cat’s name. Dougal despises cats and thinks they don’t deserve any attention, if I even say “Claire” he’ll jump up and chase her out of the room, or at the very least make a bunch of weird moaning sounds. idk he’s crazy. Georgie loves the cat and wants to play with her all the time, so she’ll just look for her if I say “Claire.”

I’ve also managed to successfully teach my dogs some things that I wanted them to learn. Dougal and Kichou will both go in their crates as soon as I say “In your house!” even though Taylor didn’t think Kichou would learn from me (HA!). Georgie won’t; she hates being in her crate and I have to push her in. She also refuses to lie down on command, the little brat. HOWEVER, and this is my greatest triumph, if I hold a treat over her head and say “dance! dancey-dance!” she stands up on her hind legs and does little twirls. LITTLE PUPPY PIROUETTES omg it is so cute. Kichou does it too and sometimes I can get them both dancing together and it’s basically the best thing in the world.

*My ex was also around when Dougal was a baby but LET’S BE REAL I did all the work. All he did was teach Dougal to sit when you snap your fingers, which was very annoying since I CAN’T SNAP MY FINGERS, and after I trained Dougal to not sleep on the bed he UNTRAINED HIM argh.

Hmm. I don’t know if you noticed but I’ve recently been in a blogging slump. This is partly because I just didn’t waaaaaaanna post, and partly because it’s been so gross and grey and rainy here that I haven’t done anything worth posting about. Like, I could blog about how I laid on the couch for LITERALLY fourteen hours and watched The X-Files while eating potatoes but that doesn’t make for a compelling read.

Or does it. It’s actually been kind of interesting because the first five seasons were filmed here in Vancouver in the mid-nineties, so it’s kind of like a weird tv time capsule. One episode had scenes at the goth club I always went to when I first moved here (when I was 17, shh), another had lots of extras that I recognized from bars and raves (it was the nineties, okay!). One episode had a scene filmed at the store where Symphony’s dad works, another featured a not-yet-completed Rogers Arena (home of the Vancouver Canucks, if you didn’t know). One episode, set in Baltimore, had a shot where you can clearly see a #4 UBC bus going by (I was not aware there was a University of British Columbia in Baltimore).

ANYWAY. that isn’t what this post is about. This post is about I DYED MY HAIR.

DARK AGAIN! My hairdresser is probably going to strangle me, she spent two and a half years painstakingly highlighting my hair to get it blonde from this exact dark brown (it looks black but it’s not). This was another of my total hair whims- I had the idea one morning, picked up a box of dye and coloured it while the daycare kids were napping. It actually took me two tries to get it right- the first box only covered my five-inch grey roots and just looked like I had dark brown roots instead. A few days later I got a second box and added more brown through the midlengths and some of the ends. I left most of the ends blue/green, but they were stained by the brown and are more of a teal now. idk, I like it.

Some pictures I took of Sym and the dogs basking in a sunbeam the other weekend, these are especially nice to look at today because it’s all black clouds and pouring rain outside.

Sally Hansen Barracuda, Mint Sorbet, Lacey Lilac and Yellow Kitty; Essie Muchi Muchi; Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love topcoat

The idea behind these pastels with a matte topcoat is that they are supposed to look like Cadbury’s Mini Eggs. I’m not sure if I accomplished that, but they are spring-y and Easter-y enough I think.

While I like all these colours, the formula of these polishes was almost universally terrible. Except for the Lacey Lilac (a perennial favourite of mine) they were all really watery and required about a million coats for full coverage. Yellow Kitty and Muchi Much (the pink) were the worrrrrrrst and even with five coats they still aren’t perfect, but Mint Sorbet (which I feel I’ve complained about before) and Barracuda (the blue) are also pretty bad. I would say I’m never going to use them again but I already promised Sym I’d give her a matching manicure.

I’ve been pretty exhausted and crappy feeling this week so I don’t have a list of awesome or terrible things to share, so I’m just going to post about one thing: the best person in the world, my husband Taylor.

It was our 3rd wedding anniversary on Wednesday, although we didn’t do anything fancy to celebrate. I had given him his (top-secret) gift early (I’m bad at keeping secrets) and he brought me home flowers. He apologized that they weren’t my favourite kind, but you know what? They are. My favourite kind of flowers are the flowers he gave me (also tulips and hydrangeas, but that’s beside the point).

I could write up a huge post about all the kind things he does and how sweet and handsome and funny and handsome and tall and smart and handsome he is, but if you want to read that stuff you can just check out the Tanie + Taylor page. As for me, I’m just happy he’s mine 🙂

Just so you know, this week’s Monday falls on Tuesday.

Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Big Money*
I’d apologize for having dry skin on my thumb but I have a job where I have to wash my hands 350 million times a day and also I don’t care. Neither does Georgie.

She’s so kissy! Anyway I think this colour (pale gold & purple glitter) is the most popular colour in the Gem Crush line, based on reviews I’ve read online and the fact that it sold out in many of the stores I frequent. I was going to put it over a plain metallic gold (you know how I feel about glitter polishes over naked nails) but I forgot and besides, with three coats it actually gets really good coverage!

*I painted these nails a few days after being introduced to the wonder and the mystery that is Insane Clown Posse’s juggalo western, Big Money Rustlas, and now that’s all I can think about.