As seen at About Miche and Raising WEG:
You are The Sun
Happiness, Content, Joy.
The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.
Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.
The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon’s Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
You are Spider-Man
You are intelligent, witty,
a bit geeky and have great
power and responsibility.
Spider-Man 90%
(Or, maybe the supervillan quiz is more your style?)
WWBD?*
So. Birthday parties. My parenting manual seems to be missing the chapter on birthday parties (I may have used them to scoop up the dog barf from the living room carpet last week) and I find myself a little unsure of the protocols.
First issue: other kids’ birthday parties. Now that Tristan is in school, he’s started to be invited to the birthday parties of kids in his class. This is fine and dandy for him, who gets to simply show up and play games and eat cake, but not so fine for his socially repressed and angst-ridden mother. First of all, he’s four (almost five) years old. I’m not so fond of the idea of simply dropping him off at some strangers’ house for a couple of hours, but I’m even less impressed at the idea of accompanying him and trying to make small talk for two hours with people I’ve never met before, people who are undoubtedly not going to be their very best selves what with a house full of junior-kindergarteners hepped up on sugar terrorizing the place.
Do I just drop him off or do I plan to accompany him? What if the party is not in a house, but at one of these Cosmic Adventures / Chuck E Cheese kind of places?
Second issue: the boys’ birthdays fall a little less than five weeks apart. Is there a precedent for joint birthday parties? Can I have the same cake at both parties, since they both say they want a “Cars” cake? (Their favourite part of a trip to the grocery store is pressing their noses up against the cake display and discussing the relative merits of each design, then following up with a free cookie.) And, horror of horrors, can I have a party for one and not for the other? (I imagine this will be the last possible year I might get away with this.)
Third issue: who do you invite to a birthday party? They’re too young to have natural sets of friends yet – when do you transition to inviting kids of your child’s choice from kids attached to parents you are friends with? Because Simon’s birthday is first (two weeks from yesterday), we’ve gotten organized enough to invite my cousin’s son, the boys’ godparents and their daughter, and my brother and sister-in-law are coming from out of town with their two kids . Perfect number of kids for a three year old, IMHO, and a great crowd because (a) the adults outnumber the kids and (b) I dearly love all of them.
My brother won’t be able to make it back for Tristan’s birthday at the beginning of March, and I worry that Tristan will notice that we had a party for Simon’s birthday but not for his. But I’m not sure I want to start manufacturing a party and inviting his classmates because I’m unfamiliar with all the protocol (see first issue above.) And I’m equally reluctant to either have a house full of sugar-crazed five year olds or fork over hundreds of dollars to let one of the party places host it for us. And if you don’t invite the whole class, how do you choose when it’s not obvious which kids your child is close to? And even if we only stick with kids at the daycare, there are too many of them and can I invite some without inviting them all? And do I have to invite the 18 month old little sister of one of his daycare buddies if I invite her big brother, one of the ones I would be comfortable inviting? And, back to question one, should I expect their parents to join us for the duration?
And all that before we even get into what kind of party to have, and what to do, and what to serve…
As you can see, I’m ill-equipped to deal with the trauma of birthday parties. Your input on any or all of the above questions (I think I’m wearing out the question mark on my keyboard) would be greatly appreciated. Don’t do it for me, do it for my poor boys, blissfully oblivious as they are to their mother’s haplessness.
*What Would Bloggers Do?
More post-scripts to the home-improvement frenzy
Apparently, I need to add still more post script photos to my home improvement extravaganza post. As if it didn’t have enough pictures already!
Claudette talks in the comments to this post about the idea for home-made marble magnets inspired by this post of Andrea’s. (Convoluted enough for you?) Ahem, anyway, I made these over the holidays out of some old Christmas cards following Andrea’s example, and I never did get around to blogging about it.
So easy, and fun! I’ll be playing around with new ideas for this as soon as I get another block of free time. (Sometime in 2009, maybe?)
And because I had the camera out, the boys started mugging. If you’re low on your adorable quotient for the day, get a look at Simono the Magnificent, resplendent and shirtless in with his magic cape (the quilt from his crib), his magic wand, and his magic toque. All the Canadian magicians are wearning them these days.
New blog toy: MyBlogLog
I’ve signed up for MyBlogLog. If you haven’t been there, it’s part stats and referrals, part blog widgets, and part online community. I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time over there lately. (As if I weren’t already piddling away enough of my time playing with the sitemeter, let alone bloglines, not to mention the blogosphere as a whole.)
So far, I’m intrigued. I like the stats page, with information about where people have come from, what they read and what they click on while they’re here. I even installed a little widget that keeps track of the most popular out-clicks every day and gives a little pop-up window when you hover over a link, showing how many people have clicked that link today. (Try hovering over the comment link from yesterday and you’ll see what I mean. The top 5 outclicks box is waaaaaay down on the sidebar, near the bottom.)
But there are a couple of things I am less sure about. Another widget you can get shows an avatar (photo you upload) and the name of the most recent visitors to your blog. So, if you’ve signed up for MyBlog Log, and the blog you are reading is also registered, even if you are only quietly lurking, your avatar and name appears in the “recent visitors to this blog†widget.
That, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, freaks me out a bit.
I have always liked the anonymity of blog surfing. You can peek in, take a look around, and leave without saying a peep. Yes, your IP address leaves an electronic signature for those who are tech savvy or simply persistent enough to know how to trace it, but it’s a long way from an obscure character set representing my internet service provider to my name and photo right there under the ‘recent visitors’ column.
(I still haven’t figured out whether you can turn off the recognition thing, or whether you have to be logged in for it to work, or whether it follows multiple IP addresses. One of the reasons I actually signed up for MyBlogLog is because they are sadly lacking in useful FAQs and so I signed up out of curiosity to see if I could figure it out as I went along.)
And then there’s the whole community aspect. I’m wondering if I’ll be any better at this one than I am with any of the other social media sites. I’ve got my Flickr account, and a Linked-In account, and I’m still terrible about the ‘friends and contacts’ part of it. (This would probably be why I’ll never have a MySpace or Facebook account!) If I know you and you ask me to make you a contact, I’ll happily do so, but I never actively seek out contacts.
I’m shy about approaching people. MyBlogLog makes it as easy as a single click to join a blog’s ‘community’(you don’t need to have the community owner’s approval), and when you do your avatar and name are shown on that blog’s community page (here’s mine). I wasn’t too sure about that whole aspect – I was more than content to grab the outgoing-click widget and play in happy solitude on my stats page when one blogger I’ve never encountered before joined my community, and my courage to be social was bolstered. I even ventured out and joined a few communities of my own, mostly because I’ve had personal contact with the blogger. But my barely-repressed inner 14 year old worries that maybe these fairly popular bloggers don’t want awkward me attaching themselves to their blog. (Terrible the scars that high school leaves on you, isn’t it?)
What do you think? I’ve temporarily installed the ‘recent visitors’ widget so you could see what I’m talking about, but I don’t think I like it. Do you also find it vaguely unsettling to be ‘outed’ every time you drop by for a visit? And of course, if you have an account or you sign up for one, let me know while I’m still in a social phase and I’d be happy to join your community!
As requested
The only picture I didn’t include in my home-improvement extravaganza this weekend was of these metal bars I got at Ikea – and of course, that’s what you’ve been asking me about!
(click to embiggen)
You can find them here.
Recommendations from the kid lit shelves
I’ve often thought about reviewing a couple of kids’ books here. Trouble is, by the time you get 10-pages-in, you’re mostly done. Maybe I should switch to a 20-words-in format for kids’ lit? We struck gold on our last trip to the library and through random luck ended up with quite a few books that were clever enough to engage me while still appealing to the boys.
In university, I took a Canadian Literature course that eventually became one of my favourite courses of all time. The first day, the prof asked us to contribute, anonymously, a few books we would like to study. I don’t remember which books I said I did want to study, but I do clearly remember him laughing as he read out loud my plea: “Just about anything is fine, but please – no more Margaret Atwood.” I’ve since changed my mind about her, and Margaret Atwood is in fact one of my favourite authors, one whose prose I savour and whose writing I hold as a standard to strive towards. I have not, however, warmed entirely to her poetry.
With the charming book Up in the Tree, even her poetry is appealing to me. (The fact that I am only drawn to poetry for beginning readers must surely say something about my level of literary sophistication.) The book was recently released to the US for the first time, and the new edition contains a small note from the author says that in 1978, when the book was first published, it was considered too risky to publish a children’s book in Canada. To mimimize costs, Atwood not only wrote and illustrated the book herself, but she hand-lettered the text and used a simple two-colour process of red and blue ink. Between that and the thick, glossy pages, I think I enjoyed the tactile experience of reading Up in a Tree as much as I enjoyed the words themselves.
The same day, we also got Judith Viorst’s Just in Case. It’s a lovely little book about a little boy named Charlie who likes to be prepared “just in case”. He does things like making 117 peanut butter and jam sandwiches just in case the food stores are all closed and bringing a net and some oars to the beach “just in case” a mermaid grabs him by his big toe and drags him off under the sea to play. It’s quite charming, and the prose has a lyrical quality that makes reading it out loud a pleasure. And the repitition at then end of each section works for both the almost-three year old, who hears it coming and likes to say it along with me, and the almost-five year old, who recognizes the words and likes to say them along with me.
Also on the same day, we got a silly little mystery book by Karma Wilson and Jack E Davis called Moose Tracks. The narrator wonders, in perfect verse, who has left the moose tracks all over the house. The bear hair is explicable, the wood chips are from the beaver, and the chipmunk is responsible for the shells. But who has left the moose tracks? We also enjoyed the witty, cartoonish illustrations in this book.
Care to share a few recommendations?
(Edited to add: for a comprehensive list of toddler-approved books from a toddler who happens to be the daughter of a librarian, not to mention a “cultural nationalist in training”, be sure to see this post from the Mad Hatter!)
Worlds collide
I have a confession to make. I wanted to tell you before somebody else did, or before you figured it out for yourself. I knew I couldn’t keep it a secret much longer.
You see, I’ve been cheating on you. I have another blog.
*waits for gasp of dismay and betrayal*
Don’t worry, you’ll always be my first bloggy love. But I needed somewhere to put my ongoing research into the field of government communications and social media, and no amount of non-sequiturs and failed segue attempts could bridge that in with Tristan’s potty adventures and #26.
I wanted to tell you about it because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to lead this double bloggy life. I went to this absolutely fabulous meet-up yesterday of people who are interested in public relations and social media, and I was having a massive identity crisis the whole night. I earned my blogging “street cred” here, but my professional blog stuff is over on the other blog. Every time I joined in the conversation, I vacillated between veteran mommy-blogger and newbie communications blogger. As if I don’t have a hard enough time keeping track of just one identity!
And then there was the sharing of information. I have government of Canada business cards with the standard contact info on them, but no URL; and I have my funky little Moo cards with pictures of the boys from my Flickr account and this URL. (Love love LOVE my Moo cards!!) Which is more likely to give me professional credibility: a biz card with a URL scrawled across the white space in the middle, or a picture of Simon colouring Easter eggs or both boys in the bathtub with my blog title and URL on the back? Of course, I went with the Moo cards, because in the end it’s all about my boys, isn’t it?
So I figured I’d let you in on my secret bloggy life now, because it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep the two blogs separate. I have no intention of linking back here from there, as the goal of the blog is more to be used as an internal collaboration tool, but if you’re interested in the intersection of government communication and social media, feel free to stop by for a visit.
But, um, please keep in mind that many big bosses above me, who are responsible for important things like my paycheque and my computer access, will be following the comments on that blog. As opposed to here, where they probably also read but with a lot less scrutiny and a lack of proprietary interest. I’m just sayin’.
So, without further ado (and you know how I love the ado), I present for your link-surfing pleasure, the Canadian Cybrarian.
Ms Fix-It
I went on a home-improvement tear this weekend.
First, I decided our kitchen chairs were long overdue to be reupholstered. I’ve never actually reupholstered furniture before, but that didn’t stop me.
I got some fabric at Bouclair. I remembered to choose a fabric without a complicated pattern (too hard to centre) but with a nice, thick weave that won’t easily pull or fray. In the end, this navy denim was on sale and I got more than enough for the whole project for $13.
I also picked up one of those fancy front-end staple guns at Home Depot. It was much easier to use than the rusty clunker we inherited from god-knows-where.
In one of my home improvement books, I found basic instructions for reupholstering a dining room chair. I had a little bit of trouble making neat corners, but the denim was fairly forgiving and in the end it was close enough.
I’m happy with the finished project.
It only took me about an hour and a half to do all four chairs, and the navy is nice in my yellow-and-white-with-blue-accents kitchen.
After that, I decided I needed to fix Simon’s dresser. I bought it second-hand at a garage sale long before I was even pregnant, in anticipation of the need for a kid’s dresser some day. Tristan used it when he was a baby, and Simon inherited it when he was born.
Its shallow drawers are perfect for small baby clothes, but over the years, the sides have bowed out just enough that the drawers in the middle were falling off the runners. Every time you pull open a drawer, it slips off the runner and tips into the drawer under it. Rather than buy a new dresser, I’ve been puzzling idly for months on a way to increase the width of the runners by half a centimeter or so, so we could get another couple of years out of it. (As if six years out of a $25 dresser isn’t enough!)
I went to Home Depot, and they recommended a little strip of wood that is ordinarily used in laying hardwood floors, called a ‘slip tongue’ (snicker). It fit perfectly! I tried two different iterations, one to thicken the drawer runner and one to make a wider shelf to sit on the runner. To my great surprise, they both worked. A little bit of glue, a couple of C-clamps, and we’re good to go.
I also bought two under-bed storage boxes from Ikea, and put up some metal bars over the boys’ work table, so they can display their artwork on a rotating basis with magnets instead of masking tape.
What, you might be wondering, was the inspiration for this flurry of activity? Remember how inspired I was feeling by that single lost pound last week? Yah. I found it again. All that hard work last week, and I’m back up a pound. Gah. So if I can’t get my weight under control, I’m damn well going to wrest the rest of my life from the chaos.
I even bought a plant. Poor thing doesn’t stand a chance.
In which my four year old outwits me
For the most part, potty training Tristan was a breeze. He waited until he was three and a half to be ready for it, but when he was ready, the transition was quick, painless and relatively dry. From the last day of diapers, we’ve had a total of maybe a dozen accidents at most. A year and a half later, however, one hurdle remains.
He refuses to wipe his own butt.
We’ve tried cajoling, reasoning, bribing and ignoring him, but he outwaits us every time. And for reasons I’ll never understand, the vast preponderance of the time, he likes to go when we are sitting at the dinner table.
Tristan, from the bathroom: “I’m done.”
Me, at the table: “Good.”
(pause)
Tristan: “Are you coming?”
Me: “No. Wipe yer own butt.”
Tristan, whining: “I can’t!”
Me: “Yes, you can.”
Tristan: “I don’t want to!”
Me: “Well, that’s probably closer to the truth. You have to learn to wipe your own butt, Tristan. Big boys wipe their own butts.”
(pause)
Tristan: “Is this Monday?”
Me, unfazed at the non-sequiter: “No, it’s Saturday.”
Tristan: “Well, I only wipe my own butt on Mondays.”
How do you argue with logic like that? He may have won again today, but you can bet he’s not getting away with it come Monday!
(Edited to add: and by God if he didn’t wipe his own butt on Monday. By his choice, mind you. He called from the bathroom, I reminded him it was Monday, and he said “Oh, okay” and did it. Who knew??)
Food, glorious food!
As I mentioned earlier this week, I seem to have overcome my inability to plan meals.
Since I’m so grateful to you for all your mealtime suggestions, and since I frankly can’t think of anything else to blog about today, I thought I’d share with you my week of dinners. Many of you said you were stuck in a dinnertime rut, too. Maybe this will inspire you – or, more likely, you’ll realize that you like your rut just fine, thanks.
Sunday
Meatloaf, recipe stolen from here (Yummy!)
Sweet potato French fries
Baked beans cooked in the slow cooker
Mixed green salad with mandarin oranges, slivered almonds and Toasted Sesame dressing
Monday
Quesadillas made with low-fat refried beans, cheddar, and diced onions, tomatoes and red peppers, topped with salsa and home-made guacamole
(Does anybody have a good salsa recipe? I’ve always wanted to try making salsa.)
Tuesday
Pasta with stir-fried chunks of red pepper, zucchini, mushrooms and snow peas, tossed with pesto sauce. (I usually make rotini with this, but thought I’d try farfalle this time. Blah. I’ll go back to the rotini for next time.)
Wednesday
I worked late, so Beloved was in charge of dinner. Pizza and wings from the place at the corner. Oh well.
Thursday
Lasagne (from a box)
Mixed green salad with feta, dried cranberries, walnut chunks and home-made dressing
(The boys ate Scooby-Doo pasta from a can.)
Friday
Home-made bean soup (frozen leftovers from last weekend)
Fresh bread
Cheddar cheese slices
Saturday
Chili (one of my specialties – lots of beans and tomatoes, and very spicy)
Toast
Devilled eggs
Repeat for the next 51 weeks and I’ll only have to think of new dinner ideas once a year.
(Stay tuned next week, when I blog the contents of the bottom of my purse. Citizen journalism doesn’t get any more scintillating than this, folks!)