Back in the day, I used to blog a lot about books. Way way back in the day, I used to consider myself somewhat of a fan, if not an authority, on Canadian Literature. So when I heard that CBC Radio was compiling a list of the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade, I knew it would make great blog fodder.

And then I actually looked at the list, unveiled today, and realized that I have read exactly three of them. And for an embarrassing number of them, I had heard of neither the book nor the author. Eek. Clearly I am not spending enough time with Shelagh Rogers.

But, I was so excited to have a blog post that required (a) brain use and (b) no discussion of moving, unpacking or septic systems, that I’m going to charge ahead with this one anyway. In fact, I’m going to make a meme out of it! Remember memes? They’re about as relevant as my knowledge of Canadian literature, apparently, as I can’t remember the last one I’ve seen. Let’s call this a celebration of the Canadian Blogosphere circa 2005, whaddya say?

Ahem, anyway, here’s the list. If you want to play along, copy and paste it into your own blog. The ones in bold I’ve read. The ones in bold and underlined, I’d recommend. The ones with an asterisk are on my “I swear, I will read it before 2012″ list.

Ready?

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews *

Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall

Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright

Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant

Conceit by Mary Novik

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

Drive-by Saviours by Chris Benjamin

Elle by Douglas Glover

Essex County by Jeff Lemire

Far to Go by Alison Pick

February by Lisa Moore

Galore by Michael Crummey

Heave by Christy Ann Conlin

Inside by Kenneth J. Harvey

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill *

Moody Food by Ray Robertson

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson *

Room by Emma Donoghue

Shelf Monkey by Corey Redekop

Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis *

The Birth House by Ami McKay

The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre

The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

The Fallen by Stephen Finucan

The Girls Who Saw Everything by Sean Dixon *

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe

The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart

The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden *

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

Twenty-Six by Leo McKay Jr.

Unless by Carol Shields *

Hmmm, not a single Douglas Coupland or Alice Munro? I suppose Will Ferguson is not exactly a novelist, but I am in the delicious depths of Beyond Belfast, and loving it as much as I loved Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw and Hitching Rides with Buddha. Looks like my tenuous claim to a passing knowledge of Canadian literature is as dated as my taste in music.

What do you think? Have you read any of these? Would you recommend them for CBC’s shortlist of the ten best Canadian novels of the decade? And do you think maybe it’s time for me to wade out of the wilderness and try something from this decade on my next trip to the library?

If you decide to play along and post the list on your blog, be sure to leave a comment so I can come over and admire your taste in Canadian literature!

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1. 100 Notable books from 2006
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Wow, can you believe it? Five years ago today, I dipped my toe in the Internet Ocean and have been dog-paddling madly across the sea ever since!

Five years! Wowza. And to celebrate, I dust off an old favourite meme that I’ve done at least two or three times before: the Time Traveler meme. Because that’s what anniversaries for, right? Taking a moment to look back down the path you’ve trod and shaking your head in wonder that you ever made it through at all.

15 years ago today I would have been:

• about a month away from meeting the man of my dreams.
• living in a rented room in a house on Holland Avenue. (It was supposed to be a shared house, but I never really felt like any space except the bedroom was mine.)
• scrambling to find a way for the government to transfer me back to London so I could be near my family.

10 years ago today I would have been:

• starting the first in a series of medical appointments that would result, in about two months, with our official “infertility” diagnosis.
• making arrangements to buy our tiny garden home off Uplands from the landlord we’d been renting from for a year.
• about to start an assignment with Industry Canada, my first official communications position and the first fork in the road that led to my current job.

5 years ago today I would have been:

• starting back to work after a one-year maternity leave with Simon.
• getting organized for Tristan’s first out-of-house birthday party at Cosmic Adventures, at age three.
• sending my very first blog post guilelessly off into the Internet!

1 year ago today I would have been:

• starting back to work after a one-year maternity leave with Lucas.
• coming back to a new job in an area of communications I hadn’t worked in before, in a newly-reduced four-day work week.
• publicly revealing my two-week-old 365 project!

This year I am:

• absolutely delighted with my new job as Web manager for the Army. (Didn’t see that one coming last year!!)
• still searching for that elusive balance between work outside and inside the home, but making progress.
• very, very busy but very, very happy.

Today I:

• am feeling like I’ve got the world by the tail.
• am preparing for a meeting downtown tomorrow with Google. Yes, that Google!
• am wearing a spectacular new purple (!) bra that I acquired this weekend from Bra Chic.

Next year I hope:

• to be a permanent member of the Army team (just waiting for the paperwork to get resolved) and stop feeling like a deer in the headlights every time an issue comes up.
• to continue having fun with my social media, blogging and photography addictions.
• to be doing more or less exactly what I’m doing now — but better!

(You like the vagueness here? Goal-setting was never one of my strengths!)

In five years I hope:

• to be thinking about looking for a four-bedroom house.
• to be more comfortable in a management role.
• to have all three boys in school full-time and finally be free of the trials and tribulations of daycare once and for all!

It’s fun to have a record of these year after year, and see the amazing twists and turns in my own life over the last decade or so. Let me know if you play along!

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I know, I know, everybody and his brother is doing the year in review thing. But I’ve done this in each of 2006, 2007 and 2008, and frankly, I got nothing else for today! Here it is again, a meme of review in the form of the first line of the first post of each month in 2009.

1. The problem with extended absences from the blog is all the posts I want to write that get tangled up in my head, so when I actually do get a couple of minutes to string together, I’m bloggily constipated.

2. My dearest darling Simon, You are five years old today.

3. I filched this meme from a couple of friends’ Facebook pages.

4. I’ve said before I’m a fan of Mabel’s Labels, and they just keep setting the bar higher with new and interesting products.

5. I’m glad I didn’t quit my photo-a-day project last week, and I’m kinda sorry I whined at you with all my artistic angst.

6. I’ve been working with the Mom Central network for more than a year now on various blog tours and promotions — from locks to board games to chocolate – and one of my only complaints would be the number of events and tours that were less convenient for or not available to Canadians.

7. Ten years ago today, in a tiny church in London’s Pioneer Village in front of 45 of our best friends and family on the hottest day of the summer, I said these words.

8. How bad can 40 be, when it starts out with a blissful day at the beach with some of my favourite people?

9. Every now and then, a pitch stands out from the noise that is my in-box.

10. Are y’all feeling a little freaked out by H1N1, the so-called “swine flu”?

11. This is an exciting year for Santa parades in and around Ottawa.

12. I‘m always glad when November turns to December.

Hmmm, birthdays, photos, giveaways, and memes. I hope the whole year wasn’t as, um, flaky as these posts seem to indicate! Note to self, start each month with substance and flake out from there.

Happy New Year to all of you who have taken a moment to stop by and read, and especially to those of you who toss in the occasional comment or observation. Almost five years in and I’m still humbled by your presence here. I wish all of you a new year filled with joy, laughter, and wishes fulfilled!

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This is the first meme I ever did, and I liked it so much I did it again the next year. I intended to do it every year, but — like so many of my great intentions — seem to have lost it in the shuffle. As Homer said about the roasted pig: “It’s still good!”

15 years ago today I would have been:

• finalizing my divorce (big, happy smile)
• unpacking boxes after moving in to my first “own” place, a room rented in a student house in the Glebe shared with five other people
• delirious with reclaimed freedom and terrified of being out on my own

10 years ago today I would have been:

• finaling the plans for our July wedding (another big, happy smile!)
• living in the Glebe a block away from that student house, in a gorgeous little bo-ho attic apartment with a balcony perched off the kitchen like a tree house
• a month away from finding Katie, the world’s best doggie and my first baby

5 years ago today I would have been:

• at home on maternity leave, with a newborn (Simon) and a two year old (Tristan) in the house
• massively, pathetically sleep-deprived
• a post-partum hormonal toxic disaster

1 year ago today I would have been:

• at home on maternity leave with a newborn, a four-year old and a six-year old in the house!
• coping with three much better than I coped with two, having just laid off our first nanny
• taking Lucas for his first visit to the Children’s Hospital

This year I am:

• thrilled with my new four-day work weeks
• obsessed with photography in much the same way I’ve been obsessed with blogging for the past four years
• very, very busy but very, very happy

Today I:

• forgot to buy my April bus pass (the driver let me ride anyway, bless him) and forgot my building pass at home. Sigh.
• will celebrate the early spring warmth by going for a photo-expedition at lunch time, perhaps behind the Parliament Buildings or over to the National Gallery.
• am worried about my dad.*

Next year I hope:

• to have a little bit more free time on my hands
• to have a little bit more control over the chaos and a few more projects checked off the to-do list
• to be doing more or less exactly what I’m doing now — but better!

(You like the vagueness here? Goal-setting was never one of my strengths!)

In five years I hope:

• to be thinking about looking for a four-bedroom house
• to be *this close* to having all three boys in school full-time
• to be rejigging my priorities to be putting a little bit more emphasis back on my career

This was really fun to do, and surprisingly difficult on the prognostication parts. It’s quite interesting to read the ones I’ve written before and see what I chose to note as important at that time, too!

Let me know if you play along!

* My dad is in the hospital with a subdural hematoma, and they’ll have to operate some time in the next few days to relieve the pressure on his brain. It sounds a little bit too much like an episode of House for my liking. They don’t know exactly how it happened, but suspect it came from a tumble down some stairs quite a few weeks ago.

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(I filched this meme from a couple of friends’ Facebook pages. According to the original meme, the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 important books here. Thing is, I went looking for the original source of 100 books, and couldn’t find it anywhere. There’s this BBC Big Reads list from 2003, but it’s not the same. But hey, since when do we allow a little thing that factual sources stand in the way of good blog fodder. On with the meme!)

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘X’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen *
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien Xish (kind of. I tried! Sooooo long in the Hobbity bits, though!)
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling X++
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee X+
6 The Bible Xish (see comment above re: Tolkien)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman X+
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare Xish (I own it, but havent read every word)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien X+
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger X+
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger X +++
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell X
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald X+
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy *
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams X+++ (Don’t panic!)
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis X
34 Emma – Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini X (and *hated* it!)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving *
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery * (Oh, the shame!)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding X
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel Xish (I’ve started it half a dozen times)
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley *
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon *
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding (I honestly can’t remember if I actually read this or just sucked it into my pores via osmosis and overexposure.)
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville X
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery X (In French!!)
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo X

I think that’s about 40 or so, not including the “maybes” and “sortas.” I sure hope that the BBC is impressed!

(I hate it when these memes suss out the really obvious gaps in my literary education. I really ought to read LM Montgomery before I fill out my next passport application or they’ll renounce my citizenship….)

Let me know if you decide to play along!

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It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to do this end-of-year meme. It’s not as lovely in narrative flow as last year’s seemed to be, but then again, this was a kind of disjointed year, from a bloggy perspective. A lovely, full, hectic, but ultimately wonderful year. It’s hard to imagine that this time last year, we were still a family of four, waiting (im)patiently for the Player to be Named Later to make his big entrance. So, for the sake of tradition, here it is: the first line of the first post of every month in 2008.

1. Those of you who know me well know I don’t usually bother with resolutions.
2. Okay, I admit it: it’s been fun dragging y’all along on this crazy ride with us.
3. The boys laughed uproariously when we watched a preview of Mr Bean’s Holiday at the theatre, so Beloved thought it would be a good Sunday-afternoon family movie to rent.
4. Lucas and Tristan have had a lot in common.
5. We’ve talked about circumcision and strollers, breast and bottle, slings and baby carriers.
6. Sorry about the downtime.
7. It was one of the hottest days I can remember, the steamy tropically oppressive kind of heat that reminds me of my childhood summers in Southern Ontario.
8. It seems mildly ridiculous to me that I have three strollers and yet am shopping for another.
9. You know how when you don’t have kids, and especially if you go through a period when you’re not sure that it will ever happen, you have these images in your head of what life with your kids will be like?
10. Not a day goes by that I am not amazed by the simple fact of their love for each other.
11. With Halloween barely put to bed (with a sore belly from all that candy, no doubt) we’ve nary the time for a breath of air before the season of Santa Claus parades is upon us.
12. Uh oh. Cue REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

Happy New Year to all of you who have taken a moment to read, to eavesdrop, and especially to contribute to the chatter around here. I wish all of you a new year filled with joy, laughter, and wishes fulfilled!

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I was stuck in traffic recently (please let this ridiculous transit strike end soon!) and this meme presented itself to me. Most of it was originally scribbled on the back of a coupon for dog food, braced on the steering wheel of the car while Lucas snoozed in the car seat behind me. Feel free to filch it for your own blog, or play along in the comment box!

There are so many ways to celebrate the season, and once a family gets locked into a certain set of traditions nothing can break the spell. How do you handle these ones in your family?

1. Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?

Since I was a kid, we opened all our presents on Christmas Eve. Santa brought one present and stuffed our stockings for Christmas morning, and even as grown children living away from home, my brother and I insisted on a Christmas morning Santa present!

2. Donner or Donder?

Ahem. As most of you know, I have a personal stake in this one. Let’s just say it was a proud moment this year when we watched Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer on CBS, and Simon spent the whole hour hollering “Donder!! Not Donner!!” at the TV whenever Donner was on screen.

3. Turkey or ham?

I was going to include goose in here, but does anybody really eat a Christmas goose anymore? I know, there are probably lots of people who have Christmas lasagnes and Christmas meatloaf and whatnot, but it seems to fall generally into ham and turkey camps. We are firmly turkey people. (**Waves and blow kisses to mother**)

4. Gifts opened all at once, or one at a time?

The first time I ever spent Christmas away from home with my ex’s family, I was openmouthed with wonder (and a hint of dismay) at the frenzy of gift opening. Everybody got their pile of presents, and everybody just tore in like a bunch of present-piranhas, wrap flying everywhere. I’m firmly in the camp of savouring the gifts one at a time and enjoying watching everyone open their gifts.

5. Christmas tree: live or artificial?

I’ve never had a live tree before, and I toyed with the idea this year. Beloved mocked me. I do love our artificial tree, though. It’s seven feet tall and still full and fresh looking even though it’s more than 15 years old. And it looks better and better each year as the handmade ornaments from the kids slowly replace the store-bought ones!

6. Cards: boxed cards, family photo cards, or e-cards?

I’m a fan of the boxed card. In a perfect world, I’d love to do handmade, but… yeah. One year, we put a fridge magnet made out of Tristan’s first Santa picture in every card, and I always wanted to do that again.

7. Christmas lights: incandescent or LED?

I’ve switched over to LED, but I’m not a huge fan. I think the incandescent have a brighter, warmer glow, but I’m doing my part to save the polar bears.

8. Re-gift or not?

Am a shameless re-gifter, but rarely have the opportunity… the people who give me gifts have impeccable taste, for the most part!

9. Gift wrap or gift bags?

I lean to gift wrap on this one, mostly because I think kids like tearing through paper more than they like lifting out tissue paper. The environmental aspect makes me cringe, but we do try to recycle it all.

10. Best Christmas song?

David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s Little Drummer Boy

11. Best Christmas movie?

A Christmas Story. I simply cannot believe I do not own this movie — I even have a “Fra-gee-lee” ornament on my tree!! — after years and years of dropping hints. It never goes on sale after Christmas, and I now refuse to pick it up for myself, so each year I have to comb the TV listings to make sure we catch it when it comes to broadcast cable. We don’t even have a PVR to record it. It’s one of the great travesties of the season, I tell you!

12. Favourite family tradition?

All of them. Traditions are the cathedral of life to a creature of habit like me!

Okay, your turn. Do play along!!

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Been getting a lot of blog fodder from CBC these days. Last week it was the top 10 TV shows courtesy of Q, and today’s post comes via old Spark podcasts I downloaded to listen to on our road trip this past weekend.

According to the artificial intelligence at GenderAnalyzer.com, there is a 76% probability that Postcards from the Mothership is written by a man. I found this rather curious until I scanned down my own current home page and realized I have three large block-quotes, at least one of which I know *is* written by a man. I got curious, and started dropping individual category pages into the analyzer:

We guess http://danigirl.ca/blog/category/mothering-without-a-licence/ is written by a man (54%), however it’s quite gender neutral.

We guess http://danigirl.ca/blog/category/it-is-all-about-me/ is written by a man (55%), however it’s quite gender neutral.

We think http://danigirl.ca/blog/category/the-wee-beasties/ is written by a man (71%).

We think http://danigirl.ca/blog/category/life-the-universe-and-everything/ is written by a man (75%).

We guess http://danigirl.ca/blog/category/ottawa-bar-harbor-2007/ is written by a man (57%), however it’s quite gender neutral.

Hmmm, my manliest writing is on random topics and when telling stories about the boys, and writing I do specifically on mothering is my most gender-neutral. Interesting, in a passing sort of way. Go ahead, go plug your blog in there, then come back and tell me your results. You know you want to!!

Speaking of “you know you want to…”, it’s that time of year again. Even though I had to resign from my position as an organizer of the Canadian Blog Awards (just not enough hours in the day!) I will still shamelessly whore myself for your votes. I am proud to say that Postcards from the Mothership has once again been nominated for a Best Canadian Family Blog award, and I will milk it for all it’s worth!

You can vote any day this week, but you can vote only once per category so choose well, as there are several excellent blogs nominated. Don’t make me beg. Well, you’re right, I’ll likely beg anyway. But don’t let that stop you! VOTE!

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Alternate title: Reason #746 I won’t be voting for Sarah Palin.
Or Stephen Harper.

You are a Social Liberal (61% permissive) and an… Economic Liberal (25% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

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There is no end to the things I’ve learned through blog. Like, how to parse PHP and SQL on the fly. And also, why slings are better than baby bjorns and some great places to shop online. And about a thousand other things.

In return, I try hard to send quality information out into the Interwebs. Say, for example, you need to know “What are cheesies?” Turns out blog is the number one search return. Yeah, baby. Educating the universe about snack food, that’s my higher purpose.

(I still can’t believe “cheesies” isn’t a universal term. “Cheese puffs” just doesn’t cut it.)

Used to be weight watchers and tim hortons, but I’ve been dethroned on that one. I think I’ll keep my cheesie crown.

(Speaking of cheesies, I’ve been thinking of dredging my archives for fodder. That post is a fun place to start: Buttertarts, cheesies and poutine.)

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Jody at Raising WEG always finds the coolest things! I first saw the wordle word cloud at her place. I made this one using Lucas’s birth story post.

Neat, eh? Click on it to see the full-size version in the Wordle gallery, or to make yer own.

Edited to add: that came out so cool I did it for Tristan and Simon’s birth stories, too!

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Filched from Raising WEG, a meme of fives:

What were you doing five years ago?

We had just found out that I was pregnant with Simon, and were getting ready to move into this house. I had only been back at work after my maternity leave with Tristan for about five months, and had come back to an entirely new job, my first real “communications” job. I was in way over my head in trying to manage some aspects of our departmental communications about SARS — and trying not to be freaked out about it. It really was a transitional point in our lives, one of those hinges that divides everything into “before” and “after”.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?
(Five? Only five? I could probably give you fifty.)

• laundry. and more laundry. then some laundry. and some more laundry.
• scour the kitchen to try to combat the ant infestation and look into some baby and pet friendly chemical solutions.
• get out to Home Depot to get a new hose and an extender-thingee to get our faucet to a more convenient and reachable location that is not buried deep in behind the shrubberies.
• hang the baby swing for Lucas I picked up on UsedOttawa.com for $5.
• do some online research about our multi-generational family trip to Lake Placid next month.

(Sigh, I don’t think I’ll get to all five.)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

• BBQ chips – just like Geddy Lee on BNL’s Snacktime CD!
• Oatmeal choco-chip cookies that have been nuked to make the chips melty.
• Tostitos ‘hint of jalapeno’ bite-sized rounds with Jack’s Garden salsa.
• Fundips.
• Oriental rice crackers.

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

• How about I just say “everything” and be done with it?

What are five of your bad habits?

• Eating out of boredom or stress.
• Dropping things wherever I lose interest in them, instead of taking ten seconds to actually put things away.
• Reading e-mail and then forgetting to reply.
• Procrastinating.
• Stopping by the Tim’s drive-thru for coffee every time I have an errand to run.

What are five places where you have lived?

I’ve only lived in two cities (London, ON and Ottawa), but here are five different living arrangements I’ve had:

• Renting a room in a house, which I lost when they kicked me out because a friend had lost her apartment and needed a place to live.
• My own tiny apartment in a sixplex in old Ottawa South.
• Renting a room in a seven-bedrooom student slum, even though I was a full-time worker and only going to school part-time.
• Renting a couple of rooms with a friend in the attic of a mansion in Sandy Hill, from a man we later found out was under observation by CSIS for suspicion of running guns to Iraq.
• Sharing ownership of a triplex in the Glebe with my ex-husband, his parents, his aunt and uncle, and his cousin. Yes, all SEVEN of us were on the deed.

What are five jobs you’ve had?

• communications advisor
• video store clerk
• assessing and correcting income tax returns
• ice-cream scooper
• computer systems tester

I’m supposed to tag five people. (I hate tagging people. I want to tag everyone, because I love to be tagged, but then I forget to do the meme and I feel guilty and I don’t want to add to anyone’s stress levels. I know, I just have to get over myself sometimes.) Um, okay, I know Theresa has a new blog, so she might like to be tagged. And Alison and Miche are always up for a meme, right? And Chantal might like to play along. And I’ll leave the fifth space open for anybody else who wants to give it a go.

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You know I love you, right? And as my mother taught me, “if you love me, buy me things.” Well, I haven’t exactly bought something for you, but I do have some freebies and a great deal to offer, too.

First, the great deal. Remember when I told you earlier about how my friends at Smugglers’ Notch gave me my first writing credit for their resort magazine? Well, at the same time we worked out a special deal for any of you who might have been inspired enough by my most excellent and unbiased travel reporting to plan a family vacation at Smuggs for yourself.

Book any FamilyFest Summer Vacation Package at Smugglers’ Notch for this summer (June 13 – September 1, 2008) and tell them you want the “Postcards from the Mothership” deal, and you’ll get a 20% discount! In addition to the fun I blogged about last summer (remember the segways, the excellent day camp for kids, the waterslides and pools and mini-golf, not to mention the endless canoe trip?) this year they’ve got some cool new stuff like chocolate tasting and bike-boards (three-wheeled scooters) and adventures in kayaking and rock-climbing, plus a whole lot more.

If you go, let me know! I’d love to hear about it. And, as a self-appointed bloggy ambassador to Smuggs, I’d be happy to answer any questions about our trip. For more information and to make a reservation, visit the Smuggs website. Don’t forget to tell them you want the “Postcards from the Mothership” deal!

And now the freebies: the nice folks over at Hachette publishing sent out Mothers Day book packages to a handful of bloggers recently, and I’d like to share mine with you. These are the books they sent (minus a few I’ve already given away):

1. Your Best Life Now For Moms by Joel Osteen
2. How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger by Charla Krupp
3. Bobbi Brown Living Beauty by Bobbi Brown
4. Sew U Home Stretch: The Built by Wendy Guide to Sewing Knit Fabrics by Wendy Mullin & Eviana Hartman
5. Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50 by Michael Cunningham & Connie Briscoe
6. On Becoming Fearless: …in Love, Work, and Life by Arianna Huffington
7. Days: From the Heart of the Home by Susan Branch
8. Starting Your Day Right: Devotions for Each Morning of the Year by Joyce Meyer
9. Ending Your Day Right: Devotions for Every Evening of the Year by Joyce Meyer
10. Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles by Gloria Feldt and Kathleen Turner

If you’d like to win one, leave a comment… but not just any comment! Leave me a comment recommending a book that you have loved, or think I must read. Also, if you have a particular preference for one of the books listed, be sure to let me know.

I’ll leave this open for comments until June 15.

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More fun filched from About Miche:

Your Thinking is Abstract and Sequential

You like to do research and collect lots of information. The more facts you have, the easier it is for you to learn. You need to figure things out for yourself and consider all possibilities. You tend to become an expert in the subjects that you study. It’s difficult for you to work with people who know less than you do. You aren’t a very patient teacher, and you don’t like convincing people that you’re right.

It’s all true, except for the fact I’ve been told I’m actually a pretty good teacher, and my thinking these days is pretty much along the lines of, “Where was I? Oh right! *pause* Erm, where was I?”

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Chris over at Smartmouth Mombie tagged me for her most excellent Mother’s Day meme. She said:

I think the Moms/Mommies/Mamas in the blogosphere spend more than enough time admitting our shortcomings and not nearly enough time celebrating our strong points. So, I’m suggesting that on Mother’s Day, or the day after, or at least some time in May, you take a moment and make a list of three things that you do well as a mother and either post it in the comments here or in your own blog.

She’s so right. We really have to find more time to celebrate the things we as mothers are doing right. Confident as I am in my mad mothering skillz most days, I still found it surprisingly difficult to write this post – and not only because I am trying to write it while stuffing the soother back into Lucas’s mouth every two minutes while he fusses on the swing beside me. Three things I’m doing right, in no particular order:

1. I’m fairly consistent with rules, routines and discipline. I set limits and impose structure, and stick by them so the boys always know where the lines are drawn and even what to expect from daily routines. I’ve recently begun to perfect my hairy eyeball, a gift from my own mother, so that I can often convey more effective threat of consequences with a single look than I could with 100 words. But I strive to be reasonable, and try to see things from their perspective before meting out discipline.
2. The boys know they are loved, by me and Beloved and their extended family and friends. I never miss an opportunity to tell them how much I love them and how wonderful they are. Tristan and Simon both made Mother’s Day ‘stories’ in their classes with fill-in-the-blank statements like “My mommy’s name is” (Simon said, “just mommy”) and “My mommy’s favourite food is” (Tristan said “coffee”). Both of them ended with a variation on the same sentiment: I love my mommy because: she loves me.” Reading that, I felt like I was doing a good job as a mother. Come what may, I promise to always love them and always stand behind them.
3. I let the boys play, and I play with them — sometimes. I think I strike a pretty good balance between letting them entertain themselves, inspiring entertainment (nothing like the sudden appearance of fresh bubbles to improve an otherwise boring afternoon) or joining in on the fun. I like adventures as much as they do, and love family walks, visits to the museum, the park or the pool.

Phew, that was harder than I thought. First, all modesty aside, I thought I wouldn’t be able to narrow it down to three — and then once I got going, I found it hard to find three good ones!

Now it’s your turn to share with the class. Consider yourself tagged and play along, either in the comments or back at your place. Name three parenting things that you do well.

(Edited to add, after two days with ZERO comments: Really? Nobody can think of three things they’re doing well??)

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Filched from Suze:

Sheesh, I took the test three times, thinking maybe I was exaggerating my responses a bit the first go around, and I keep getting the same result. I’m not THAT neurotic. (Am I?)

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You know I love my iPod. You know I love memes. You know I love quizzes that compel you to comment. How could I resist an iPod-shuffle-meme-lyric-quiz? Thanks to Alison for this one!

The Rules:

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 50 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing. (I got to 35 before the baby woke up)
Step 3: Bold out the songs when someone guesses both artist and song title correctly.
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like the game post your own.

And, after seeing what the iPod coughed up, I am adding Step 6: Do not mock my taste in music!

1. Baby we can talk all night But that ain’t getting us nowhere: Meatloaf – Two out of three ain’t bad

2. My friend assures me, “It’s all or nothing.”
3. Love makes me treat you The way that I do: Billie Holliday – Baby Ain’t I Good to You




4. Come out Virginia, don’t let me wait: Billy Joel – Only the Good Die Young
5. Summer has come and passed The innocent can never last: Green Day – Wake me up when September Ends
6. Throw away the radio suitcase That keeps you awake: Our Lady Peace – Clumsy
7. This thing called love I just can’t handle it : Queen – Crazy Little Thing Called Love
8. love I get so lost, sometimes: Peter Gabriel – In your eyes




9. Bill Barilko disappeared that summer: Tragically Hip – Fifty Mission Cap
10. Wake up maggie I think I got something to say to you: Rod Stewart – Maggie May
11. And the men who hold high places will be the ones to start: Rush – Closer to the Heart
12. Sundown in the Paris of the prairies: Tragically Hip – Wheat Kings
13. I can see her lyin back in her satin dress: Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown
14. The heart is a bloom, shoots up through the stony ground: Beautiful Day – U2
15. How do you document real life When real life is getting more Like fiction each day: Rent soundtrack
16. I’m trying to tell you something about my life, Maybe give you insight between black and white: INdigo Girls – Closer to Fine
17. Take me out tonight, Where there’s music and there’s people: The Smiths – There is a light that never goes out
18. Stayed awake all night toss and turnin’, Now my blood shot eyes are burnin’
19. Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go: Ramones – I wanna be sedated
20. Standing in the dock at Southampton, Trying to get to Holland or France: Beatles – Ballad of John and Yoko
21. Everyone who sees you thinks you should be smiling: TPOH – Hard to Laugh
22. When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school,
    It’s a wonder I can think at all: Paul Simon – Kodachrome
23. Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you’re never coming round: Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart
24. At home drawing pictures of mountain tops with him on top: Pearl Jam – Jeremy
25. I I will be king And you You will be queen: David Bowie – Heroes
26. I’m so cool, too bad I’m a loser: BNL – Falling for the First Time
27. Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick, and think of you: Cyndy Lauper: Time after Time




28. Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord that David played: Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen




29. There is freedom within, there is freedom without: Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over
30. I can’t stand to fly, I’m not that naive. Five for Fighting – Superman (It’s not easy)
31. She’s got a smile that it seems to me, Reminds me of childhood memories: GNR – Sweet Child Of Mine
32. Here they come, walking down the street: Monkee’s Theme
33. 1 2 1 2 3 Yeah I was working part time in a five-and-dime: Prince – Raspberry Beret




34. Music is a world within itself With a language we all understand: Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke




35. Well, I don’t hate my parents, I don’t get drunk just to spite them: TPOH – I’m an Adult Now

I found this one way easier than the movie quote quiz. What do you think?

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Filched from Toddled Dredge, deep in my unexamined Bloglines account:

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark

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Filched from Alison at Party of 3, the movie quote meme.

The rules:

* Pick 10 (or so) of your favorite movies.
* Find, remember, or look up a quote from each movie.
* Post them here for everyone to guess.
* Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
* NO googling or cheating by doing an online search. Cheaters never prosper.
* Share the fun and only guess one movie.

Edited to add: They’re all outed, but this was so much fun we’ll play again soon! I can’t believe it took less than 24 hours to get them all! Let me know if you do the meme so I can play along, too.

1. You just got lesson number one: don’t think; it can only hurt the ball club. Kate guessed it! Bull Durham, best sports movie evah!
2. You know, there’s a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don’t all bring you lasagna at work. Most of ‘em just cheat on you. Natasha and Reluctant Housewife guessed it: Clerks. As Natasha notes, it’s Silent Bob’s only line in the whole movie.
3. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. And then, one not-so-very special day, I went to my typewriter, I sat down, and I wrote our story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But above all things, a story about love. A love that will live forever. The End. Mad Hatter guessed it: Moulin Rouge! Although after calling one of my all-time fave movies “wretched” I may have to reassess my endless affection and admiration for her.
4. It also left a man’s decapitated body lying on the floor next to his own severed head. The head, which of this time, has no name. Trixie guessed it: Highlander! We considered naming Lucas “Connor McLeod”, partly because McLeod is my granny’s maiden name and partly for the geeky insider’s joke!
5. Bye-bye boys. Have fun storming the castle! Madeleine guessed it: The Princess Bride, of course.
6. Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in The Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I’d still have to bum rides off people. Liz, Kerry, Renee and Anne guessed it: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It was the first “boy drives to your house, picks you up and takes you to a movie, then takes you to a park to make out afterward” date I ever went on!
7. Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I’m being repressed! Miche guessed it: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Are there any movies more quotable than Monty Python? It was so hard to choose!
8. It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing. Mama V guessed it: LOTR – Fellowship of the Ring.
9. That ain’t no etch-a-sketch. This is one doodle that can’t be un-did, homeskillet. jo(e) guessed it: Juno! (Great movie!! I saw it when I was waiting for Lucas to arrive, one Tuesday morning all by myself in the theatre. It was actually my second attempt at seeing the movie; the first time, I lost my mucous plug in the cinema washroom between buying my popcorn and the start of the movie, and left the theatre in a fit of optimism in thinking the baby was on the way — about three weeks before he actually did arrive.)
10. I can’t fire them. I hired these guys for three days a week and they just started showing up every day. That was four years ago. Chrissey, B&P, Suze and Rebecca guessed it: High Fidelity. The intersection of Nick Hornby and John Cusack — does it get any better than that?
11. You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library. Erin guessed it: Good Will Hunting.
12. Naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm, and a two-foot salami under the other. The bartender says, I guess you won’t be needing a drink. Naked lady says…OH SHIT!!Liz and Anne guessed it: The Breakfast Club!
13. I have no thought at all about my own reward, I really didn’t come here on my own accord. Just don’t say I’m damned for all time.NoMoEarth and Reluctant Housewife guessed it: Jesus Christ Superstar! Props for getting an obscure one! My mother used to listen to this soundtrack when she cleaned the house, and I had the whole thing memorized by the time I was ten years old.
14. It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Nancy, Kerry and Karen guessed it: The Blues Brothers!
15. All the ways you wish you could be, that’s me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not. kgirl guessed it: Fight Club. I don’t know why I love this movie so much, but I really do.

FWIW, all of these quotes are from movies I own or intend to acquire. Have fun!

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I’ve seen the Thursday Thirteen meme around forever, and have been meaning to play along. This is another one of those posts I’ve been writing in my head for days and pecking out in stolen moments over the last week or so.

Thirteen things I’d forgotten about newborns:

1. How you start hearing phantom cries in the white noise of the shower or dishwasher or vacuum cleaner, and how you are always listening for them, even when baby is out of audible range — like, in the car with Daddy.
2. How the three hours between feedings can seem like an entire day during daylight hours, and pass in the blink of an eye overnight. As in, “Oh my god, I swear I just closed my eyes – and you want to be fed AGAIN?”
3. The way their feet, still reflexively curled as they were in utero, get stuck in the legs of the sleeper or curl up in the belly part.
4. The way they gaze at you with the deepest and most intensely searching looks, and how you’re sure that you’ve just made an important cerebral connection with them, just before the biggest poops.
5. How a fresh diaper acts as a laxative, stimulating the bowels to move almost invariably.

6. How open air acts as a diuretic, and that baby boys love to make fountains.

7. How much they hate it when you sit down. Under no circumstances may your butt come to rest on any piece of furniture. You can stand, you can sway, you can walk, you can dance and you can pace, but even if you maintain the exact positioning and orientation of your standing self as you ease your body into a sitting position, they will know and they will complain.
8. That it’s HARD mothering a newborn. Intensely gratifying, but oh so very hard.
9. That it’s easier to zip an angry cat into a wetsuit than wrangle a wriggling newborn into a sleeper, especially at 3 am.
10. The endless loads of laundry. (I know, I’ve done nothing but kvetch about laundry and shovelling since the baby was born. But if I could eliminate those two things, I swear I’d have a whole extra day each week!)
11. That they are fiercely strong little buggers. If a newborn doesn’t want to straighten his leg so you can bathe behind his knee, he damn well won’t do it despite the fact that you may be 18 times his size and 38 and a half years more experienced.
12. The way the first smiles make it all worth while. You don’t realize how much you value an actual interaction with your kids until you start getting those first beaming, natural and gorgeous smiles. I’ve told Lucas that each smile buys him three hours of crying… lucky for both of us, he’s building up credit by the day.
13. That it’s folly to think you have time to blog 13 things at all with a newborn in the house!

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