This morning, I was up at the *enviable* hour of 4:30am. I know, you’re totally jealous, right?

Truth is, I made the colossal mistake of falling asleep after reading Ryder a bedtime story (turns out the Three Little Pigs can induce slumber in 34-year-olds as well) and so, felt very refreshed after 8 hours of sleep. Ack! I was wide awake. And so I had nothing to keep me company but 7-hour old status updates on Facebook and a plethora of auto-tweets on Twitter.

(Seriously, don’t schedule your auto-tweet for 4:30am. You know you’re not tweeting, I know you’re not tweeting, and it somehow feels cheap to read computer-generated “interaction”. If you’re going to pre-schedule promotion for your company or blog, at least do it at an hour when you can respond to follower feedback.)

So right about now you may be wondering… if you’ve been wide awake for the last 5 hours, how come you couldn’t be bothered to come up with a post? (Technically, THIS is the new post so I did accomplish something.) The truth is, I spent my time reading through my “Reader Favourites.” They’re the posts listed on the ride side of my blog; just scroll down for about 2 seconds. These are little snippets of my life that recount my journey as a mother, woman and human being who is far from perfect. For the most part, I’ve written them on a whim with little thought into the direction of the posts, or how they would be received. Nevertheless, as much as they’re reader favourites, they’re my favourites too.

And so I think I’ll take a break from blogging this morning and indulge in a trip down memory lane. Want to know me better? Just scroll down the right sidebar, or click here, and read some of the posts that define me. Have a great day!

… and the Keyboard Killed my Penmanship.

As I’ve been trying to show Ryder how to write his name, I can’t help but notice that my penmanship SUCKS. This morning, as I watched him struggle with loops and lines, I thought to myself – “I’ve written about my crappy writing before, haven’t I?”

And so I hunted up this post from over two years ago. Sadly, my writing has now progressed from kind-of-sucky to sucks eggs.

- July 2010 -

I used to have the most stylized, idyllic cursive handwriting. Even as a young one, adults marveled at my perfect 75° right tilt and fluid curves. Little girls passed notes to me and wanted to be my friend. Boys looked at me and thought… “what a nerd”. (Two out of three isn’t bad.)

But now, after countless years of MS Word, e-mailing, texting – even using apps to assemble my grocery list – my handwriting strongly resembles that of an eleventh grade quarterback. In fact, I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to lose a skill entirely from lack of use, because it’s PAINFUL to write. My hand forgets what to do with a pen. The first few lines are generally passable, with minimal flair. Yes, I can actually form legible words.

I’m filing this one under: AGING SUCKS.

And, it does the WEIRDEST things to your body.

Case in point: I’ve been a size 7 shoe for almost my entire life – certainly ever since my foot stopped growing around the age of sixteen. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my bestie – a confirmed size 7 whom I often swapped footwear with during our clubbing days (noticeably CFM* boots).

(*If you don’t know what CFM boots are, you’ll have to Google it. Sorry, I’m too old to use that kind of language.)

Anyhoo, I noticed a strange trend over the past few months – shoes that I’ve worn for YEARS suddenly felt very uncomfortable near the toes. The shoes clearly were too tight – my feet ached in protest if tried to slip them on for any length of time. Huh?

So last night, I had my husband bring up a storage box filled with old shoes – the ones I was hesitant to give away (hoping the style would recycle in the not-to-distant future). There were shoes and shoes and shoes.

And none of them fit. They were ALL too small. What.the.hell.

Exhibit A: These Barbie by David Dixon shoes were worn when I was 35 weeks pregnant. Do you know what women’s feet look like when baby-to-be is due? They’re swollen, take on manatee-like proportions and often lack a certain sex appeal.

(Of course, I’m still rocking my creepy skeletal feet, but trust me, they were quite larger than what I’m used to.)

And so when I came across the shoes last night I naturally thought, “These will fit for sure! If they fit while I was pregnant, certainly I can get into them now!”…. Yeah, not so much. Waaaay too tight.

So what gives? According to Terence Vanderheiden, D.P.M., “Feet can increase in size as you get older. Your feet are not really growing, but the tendons and ligaments tend to get stretched out and this leads to a larger foot size.” Also, weight gain (perhaps from 2 pregnancies in 2 years?) can also place pressure on the feet, slowly stretching and loosening the muscles.

The result: Mama needs some new shoes!

I have decided to embrace my newly size 8 feet and look forward to re-building my shoe collection, one pair at time. To begin, let’s start by coveting these colour block looks from Town Shoes:

Have your feet changed size over the years? I’d really like to think I’m not the only one!

For the last three years, I’ve had a blog tradition – on my birthday, I’ve listed 31/32/33 things that I love. Last year, my list looked like this.

But today, I’m at a loss – after all, I’ve cumulatively listed close to 100 things I love! I’m running out of ideas. So this year, I thought I’d share 34 tidbits that you may not know about me. I mean sure, you know I have two little boys and spend a lot of time blogging, but did you know:

1. I have an irrational fear of all spiders after coming face to face with a tarantula when I was three years old.
2. In grade nine, I rolled my kilt to make it shorter (Catholic high school uniform, rolls eyes).
3. I love the spicy, pungent taste of raw garlic.
4. My feet are AAA width. It takes on average 254 days to find a shoe narrow enough to fit my grossly skeletal feet.
5. Before I became a mom, I was a Corporate Trainer for a Fortune 100 Company. I excel in the boardroom.
6. I check the time every 5-6 minutes. It’s a nervous habit I can’t seem to break.
7. I have the most annoying laugh in the world. Kind of like “donkey meets Fran Drescher”.
8. My high school boyfriend cheated on me with a stripper (and later, married her).
9. I love being the center of attention, but enjoy sharing the spotlight even more.
10. Nails on a chalkboard is fine. Cutting into a squeaky apple? Ugh!
11. I met my husband on Lavalife, an online dating service.
12. I don’t have a favourite vacation spot, because I’ve done very little travelling.
(As soon as the boys are a little older, I plan to rectify this.)
13. I’ve obtained a signed declaration from my hairdresser that at 34 years old, I don’t have a single gray hair.

Okay, I seriously can’t go on. Oh wait, I just thought of another one:

14. Although I like talking about the things I love, I have trouble talking about myself.

Have a great weekend friends! I intend to celebrate, as always, with cake and Coca-Cola!

It happens every year around this time. Which shouldn’t really surprise me, because people’s birthdays are usually celebrated on the same date year after year. Still, I get very surly and sour when I realize we have entered into that particular sign of the zodiac called ARIES.

Aries: The Ram
March 21st to April 20th

The Good: Enthusiastic and confident, dynamic and quick-witted.
The Bad:   Impulsive and impatient.
The Ugly:  Moody. Short tempered. Self-involved.

Now I truly have nothing against Ariens, per se, because I happen to share the sign! Yup, proud April baby over here. But I have prejudices just the same, and they happen to lie with with a whole bunch of people from my past – my exes, to be precise. ALL of my ex-boyfriends are Ariens. ALL of them.

It’s not like I chose men based purely on their astrological makeup; instead, it was purely a coincidence that I found myself attracted to the person first, and found out about their zodiac sign second. In fact, I didn’t even recognize a pattern until the third or fourth boyfriend – when I noticed that I was constantly buying cards and gifts in close proximity to my own birthday. After that, I made a conscious effort to uncover a guy’s sign from the start – and was floored to find out that I regularly seemed to gravitate towards energetic, confident, and impulsive men.

Or maybe it was the moody, impatient and self-involved traits I craved.

As one friend suggested, it’s possible that I just enjoyed seeking out others who shared the same qualities as me; a fellow member of the sign. Whatever the explanation, I’ve had five previous boyfriends, all Aries. I briefly dated two other men, also Ariens. And I think I may have had a drunken make-out session at some point… I’m not too clear on the details, but years later (through the magic of Facebook) I am very aware of one detail: he’s an Aries too.

And I suppose the common denominator here is that they’re all defective (trust me) in some way – or I’d still be with one of them, right? Perhaps the whole Aries-on-Aries cocktail does not mix well in my case.

So back to my surly mood. It’s “Ex-Boyfriend Birthday Season!” That’s right, folks – for the next few weeks, I’ll be constantly reminded of all my exes, thanks to my inability to forget “significant” dates. I took the liberty of posting their pictures and birthdays (in order of relationship) so you too can celebrate along with us:

Okay so that’s not really them, but I think I did a good job of capturing their likeness. A bonus: the conversation wasn’t awkward at all when my husband caught me customizing the pictures. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Just creating cartoons in the likeness of my ex-boyfriends,” I responded. (Three second pause.) “Okay. When’s dinner?”

By the way, in case you’re wondering, years ago I finally met a great guy who wasn’t an Aries. So I did the only logical thing: I married him.

Last night I came across a piece of history – a relic, if you will – a jar of glitter gel from the ol’ clubbing days. It was the cheap kind that I’m fairly certain I scooped up from the “4 for $5.00″ tray at Claire’s. My BFF and I would liberally spread the grape-scented glitter on our cheeks, clavicles and arms in an attempt to sparkle under the club’s strobe lights.

(It wasn’t hard. Trust me, we showed A LOT of skin.)

The once shimmery gel has since hardened into a gluey, funky-smelling substance – although the jar doesn’t explicitly list an expiry date, I’m thinking they didn’t have 14 years crammed into an old makeup bag in mind. But it’s not so much the ancient artifact that has me nostalgic; rather, it’s the memories of what Fridays used to be like.

Hushed conversations on the phone at work.
Deciding what to wear; discussing in detail the case for black pants vs. little black dress.
Wondering if I had enough time to re-paint my toe nails.
Popping in a house music CD to get the blood pumping and my head bobbing.
Looping giant velcro rollers into my hair.
Doing sit-ups on the bedroom floor at 8:00pm.
Calling for last minute wardrobe checks.*

*This one makes me long for the days of yore more than anything else; it was the knowledge that I knew every single article of clothing in a friend’s wardrobe. If she said, “I’m wearing my orange tank top which make my boobs look great”, I instantly knew the tank top she was referring to. Because we hung out in casual clothes, went clubbing in dressy clothes and spent copious amounts of time shopping together; hence, all new purchases were mentally categorized as well. Today, not knowing what a friend will wear means that we don’t spend nearly enough time together. Le sigh.

Speaking of today, this is what my Friday looks like.

Checking online grocery flyers, looking for cheese on sale.
Sorting laundry into darks, lights and towels.
Wondering where to take the kids this weekend – animal farm or indoor playground?
Pulling on yet another pair of yoga pants. I don’t do yoga.
Making a mental note to gather all my tax info.
Nagging my husband to clean out the garage tomorrow.
Chatting with my BFF and asking what she’s up to for the weekend, but not really hearing her.

Sheesh. Perhaps I’ll run out and grab a new jar of glitter. What’s sexier than a sparkly mama pulling tots in a wagon?

My favourite throwback to the good ol’ days: Waiting for Tonight by Jennifer Lopez. Should I be pissed that she’s still living the same life as 1999? Um… probably not.

Happy Monday! Tuesday!

For all my TO-based readers, chances are you’re coming off a splendid weekend spent outdoors. 17 degrees Celsius – Holy Hannah!

And while I had every intention of answering the backlog of about 147 e-mails I have rudely accrued, alas, the sun and warmer temps called… and my inbox remained ignored.

Hence, I’ve declared today Paperwork Monday Tuesday and will aim to tirelessly pare down my messages from 969 to about 600. Surely that’s a start, no?

(I’m not really that popular – I just have e-mails from October 2011 that I still have to action in some way. I hate myself.)

In the meantime, I’ve been listening to an adult contemporary station and was instantly taken down memory lane with this beautiful, haunting duet from Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey: Where You Are.

Sorry Chris Brown and Rihanna – you can keep your tacky, foul-mouthed collaboration to yourself. Sigh, my heart belongs to this song circa 1999.

Mmmkay, you knew this one was coming…

Top 10 Reasons Why Taking Care of Sick Children – When You’re Sick Too – Sucks:

10. The phrase “Shut Up and Leave Me Alone” pops into your head every 12 seconds.
9. You’re so busy/tired/dejected you forget to eat. And then you heat up canned soup at 9:30pm.
8. Enduring hours of Treehouse TV – enough to make you nauseous even when you’re healthy.
7. Having snot run down your face while you’re busy wiping your kid’s.
6. Staying up all night with one sick child and all day with the other.
5. Hearing your husband say “Poor Baby” while he’s sipping his Venti Macchiato at work. #ihateyou
4. Doling out “Bless You”, “Don’t Wipe Your Nose on Your Sleeve” and “You Feel a Bit Warm”. Repeat.
3. The incredible urge to lock yourself in your room and assume the fetal position.
2. Hearing your husband say “So I’ll be home late today…”
1. Realizing that you’re the mom. Ain’t no one bailing you out of this one.

I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve already! T’is a time to share with loved ones, marveling at the magic of the season. And for the first time in years, no last-minute shopping for me! Today I’ll be wrapping presents and cleaning the house, as tomorrow is our big Christmas dinner – chez moi, of course.

And so, I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

May the holidays refresh your spirit and bring you new inspiration and happiness. May the splendor of the season fill your heart with peace. Wishing you the joy of family, the happiness of friends, and the love of Christmas!

Today, I’m unofficially setting up an “Out of Office Alert”. Over the next several days I’ll be enjoying food, family and the festivities of the season – and hope you’ll be doing the same! See you back sometime next week. Holiday Hugs!

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O hears the angels’ voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

I’m not usually driven to tears when I hit the shops. I must be getting old/sentimental/foolish.

It started out as a normal Saturday morning – there were things to buy, chores to split up, sticky handprints to erase. Except this morning, I had the pleasure of running a few errands ALL BY MYSELF. For a mom, running errands by yourself is akin to finding a $20 bill in an old pocket. Oh yeah, the good life.

My excellent adventure had only a few stops; the gas station, the bank, and Toys R Us. In that order. Since you don’t read my blog to hear about me pumping gas or handling my finances, I’ll skip forward to Toys R Us.

Although this (obviously) needs no disclaimer, shopping at TRU without your whiny, obnoxious kids totally freakin’ rocks. It’s actually a well known fact that even if you’ve raised the most well behaved children on the planet, they will turn into whiny, obnoxious, toy-grabbing-face-smacking mutants the second you cross the store’s threshold. Trust me, it’s science. And it is a truly euphoric feeling to acknowledge the background screams and caterwauling belongs to someone else’s offspring. Ha ha!

And just what was I doing at Toys R Us on a Saturday morning? I’d rather not say. (Okay, twist my arm.) Sigh… I was picking up two plush, talking Iggle Piggles. Yes, THE Iggle Piggle from the seizure-inducing, suicide-pondering, freakishly cultish “In the Night Garden”. My boys LOVE the show. Conveniently on at 8:00pm (just before the boy’s bedtime), we’ve been allowing them to cuddle up on our bed to watch the nightly episodes. Often, by the time the credits roll, they’re both sweetly sound asleep. So for Christmas, I reckoned I’d surprise them both with a soft sleeping buddy.

I should have grabbed the damn dolls and left.

Instead, I decided to plod around, enjoying my child-free excursion (frankly, reveling in it). And as I passed the opening to TRU’s sister store, Babies R Us, I paused for a moment before wandering in. After all, I didn’t actually need anything – with Reid being over 18 months old, my BRU days are likely behind me – but I decided to pop in for old time’s sake. And then it happened.

The SMELL of the store. The familiar COLOURS. The wall of BOTTLES and PACIFIERS. The exquisitely beautiful PREGNANT customers, joy and bewilderment etched plainly on their faces.

It was like a punch to the gut – or perhaps, a punch to the ovaries. It was a trip down memory lane that I was not prepared to take. It was a funeral – saying goodbye to the thrill of expecting, anticipating, organizing, expanding. It was the stark realization that my baby is actually a toddler, and my toddler is now a little boy… and I had no damn business loitering in Babies R Us.

So, I cried.

There was no rationale or reason for it; I know that my family is complete and we have no plans to have more children. I know that I have two beautiful boys whom I adore wholly and unconditionally. I know that I can finally, finally enjoy moments of freedom – the very reason I laugh off suggestions to expand our brood. And yet, there I stood, cowering behind the high chairs, wiping my tear-stained face with the back of my hand.

(On a related note, high chairs today are so ridiculously stylish. Like black leather and contemporary patterns. Seriously? The kid is going to dump pureed crap all over the thing. Just stick to animals and neon bubbles and get over yourselves.)

Hours later, I still can’t pinpoint exactly what drove me over the edge. Perhaps I’ll never know; perhaps every time I venture into Babies R Us I’ll turn into a nostalgic, blubbering fool.

Note to self: apparently shopping makes me cry. bring tissues.

Welcome Readers!

(Do not adjust your computer monitor – YES, you’re chez Lena!)

Here it is – my brand new site. I’m pretty much in love with it, and hope y’all like it too! Today I’ll be working through a few kinks and making sure that everything is where it should be. A few pictures have gone astray, a couple of comments are lost in space (but only those made on my last post – which we’re actually trying to recover! Yup, you know you’re with the best when they try to find 16 comments out of the 69,984 they successfully migrated).

But for the most part, I’m so happy to declare that the move was a SUCCESS! Much, much love to Cathy and team at Desperately Seeking WP – you’ll see me offering profuse thanks for the next little… eternity.

And if you’re liking what you see, send a shout out to Juan (@SproutAbound) on Twitter – he designed this magnificent theme.

I’ll be back to blogging once I’m through with a little housekeeping; until then, feel free to poke around! Muah!

Uh oh…. I know you’ve seen this photo before. Yup, I’m fighting… something.

Allergies? An autumn cold? My body’s way of detoxing after a stressful week? Either way, it’ snot fun. Thank goodness I’ve got a blankie, a hot cup of tea, and a doting husband – the trilogy of fabness when you’re under the weather.

So, I *think* some posts will be up later today… please feel free to check back if you’re bored. In the meantime, have a wonderful Halloween weekend, especially all of y’all attending spooky soirées. Chat soon!

As many of y’all know, I attended the Blissdom Canada ’11 Conference in Toronto this past week. Although it wasn’t my first blogging conference (third this year after BlogHer and ShesConnected), it was the first time I had partied up the Blissdom brand.

It was pretty darn spectacular.

For those of you not familiar with Blissdom, “The very best blogging, public relations and social media pros from Canada and the United States will be gathering in Toronto’s Hilton Hotel October 13 – 15, 2011 for a few days of networking , business development, community building, and a whole lot of mapletastic awesome.”
- www.blissdomcanada.com

Now while I’d love to just launch into a rundown of my experience at the event, unfortunately, I do have to put forth a disclaimer: there’s a whole lotta Lena coming up. You see, I am the worst shutterbug in the world – I actually never take a picture unless it’s of my kids (even then, I fail miserably). So the only photos I have from the conference are a mishmash of pics that were tweeted to me and posted on Facebook; hence, me me me. So if you have an aversion to my goofy smile and predictable pose (right hand on hip) you may want to come back later. Frankly, I wouldn’t be insulted. (more…)

OMG.

Is this actually a post from Lena? The same Lena who has been away for FIVE whole days?

(Yes, t’is me.)

If you can believe it, this has been the longest break in between posts since I started blogging three years ago. Due to a combination of household commitments, the 2011 Blissdom Canada conference and just wanting to veg upon my return, I’ve been sadly behind on blog posts. But I’m back, and you’ll see fresh new content this week! Chat soon!

Disclaimer: Don’t be tempted to search #Hollyweird on Twitter. Four minutes of your life you won’t get back.

This Makes Me Sad:

Ashton Kutcher has reportedly cheated on wife Demi Moore with a young, svelte, “who wants to jump in the hot tub” kind of party gal. Oh Demi, it’s every woman’s worst nightmare come to life: being close to 50 and on the brink of marital divorce. Of course, it helps that you look like – well, you – but what hope would the rest of us mortals have?

Then again, women are pretty damn inspiring. And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Random Musings:

I’ve been reading the trash tabs lately (sorry People magazine; In Touch is slightly cheaper and only marginally more ridiculous with their cover stories) and I’ve heard tales of boyfriends, fiancés and husbands being STOLEN from another woman.

Jennifer Aniston steals whats-his-face from another woman!
Leann Rimes stole Eddie C from that skinny chick!

K, newsflash everyone: you can’t STEAL a man. What’d she do – gag him, pull a burlap sack over his head and throw him in her trunk? Now that’s stealing.

Otherwise… he LEFT you. Know the difference, and make peace with it. Or don’t. (more…)