Enjoying the diversion of playing with TiltShift Generator.


I may be overthinking it (what!? me? overthink?) but I feel there's some sort of deeper, more profoundly philosophical layer of meaning to the fact that I'm so taken with the shift in perspective this app provides. Perhaps after the caffeine has kicked in I'll be able to pin it down.

Of course, there's a reason I didn't major in Literature: Animal Farm is an allegory? Shit. I thought they were pretty articulate for pigs.

It's been one of those weeks where I've struggled to maintain perspective.


My mother is a big one for running down the list of comparators when life gets stressful. It could always be worse and there are plenty of examples she can find for people with lives far more worthy of sympathy: people with terminal diseases, people living in war-torn areas, people without food, people suffering in the latest earthquake/tsunami/hurricane/etc., people who live in countries without decent health care systems, people in jobs getting paid very little and being treated poorly, people who's husbands left them to run off with their secretaries, people who's terrible ungrateful children never call... etc. While I agree that it's pathetic to allow my developed-world, white, backpack-of-privilege to appear too burdensome to carry, sometimes you have to allow yourself to take a few moments to wallow before you smack yourself across the face with how much worse it could be.

Since I went back to work after my maternity leave, my husband has been staying at home to care for our daughter. This arrangement was a decision we made before we married or even thought seriously about having kids. For our family, for a variety of reasons, I think it's the best option. However, being down to one income is stressing me the fuck out. As a result of the choice I made to spend 8 years and tens of thousands of dollars on post-secondary education, I have tens of thousands of dollars in student debt (before we got married we used to joke that I came with a reverse dowry). Add the student loan payments to mortgage payments, car payment, lines of credit payments, insurance bills, utility bills, groceries bills, etc. and there's not much wiggle-room left.

We've never been big spenders (he's Dutch, I'm Scottish, we're cheap) but on two incomes you get used to a certain lifestyle. One where the occasional overpriced fancy coffee isn't going to break the bank. One where you don't regret that you're too old to sell black market eggs to wealthy Americans desperate for babies (and yes, I looked). It's difficult to not feel deprived of certain little pleasures and the ability to spend money on something without wondering what else you won't be able to afford because of that purchase.

Here's where I take a breath and remind myself that: I had the privilege of getting an excellent education; my job pays a good wage and has benefits; my family is all healthy; we live in a great country where I won't lose my house to debt if we did get sick; as terrifying as I find Ottawa weather, it's not likely to actually kill me anytime soon; and, I know my husband won't leave me to run off with his secretary because he ain't got no job.

You know it's going to be a good day at work when you find yourself starring at the milk you're about to add to your tea and thinking whiskey would be better.

Last night after the kid passed out I managed to stay up long enough to finish the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy.


I definitely highly recommend the whole series. It was easily one of the best I've read in a long time. Please do your best to completely ignore the "young adult" categorization of these books.

I'm not sure why publishers insist on categorizing/marketing novels in this way. Especially since it would seem to me that Harry Potter completely blew away the need to define target audiences based on age. Actually, I'd say that Roald Dahl and basically any other decent "children's" author does this: a good story can capture minds in a way that defies the notion that books for kids need to be "dumbed-down".

When books are sold this way perhaps it helps tap into an audience that until only very recently was ignored by almost anyone other than the authors of stuff like the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High (I've always felt especially sorry for teen boys as they've been routinely shortchanged). But it also has the impact of potentially alienating a large group of readers who've already survived puberty and the horrors of high school and don't wish to be seen consuming "juvenile" literature. I know it's a waste of time to be self-conscious about what you enjoy reading but it does seem pretty standard that people routinely judge each other (and each other's intelligence) harshly based on the literature they consume. It would be so nice to just be able to focus on the pleasure of reading and less on whether what we read has some ill-defined "adult" intellectual value.

That being said, I was happy I could just order this series online and not have to repeat the debacle in which I skulked my way through the teen section of Chapters at 9pm on a Saturday night to buy a hardcover copy of New Moon because I needed to get my shameful teen-vampire-romance fix before the shakes from the withdrawal symptoms became uncontrollable.

Even I occasionally attempt to achieve the appearance of possessing a semblance of maturity in public.

Someone decided to spend the weekend learning how to walk.


We're all officially screwed.

A couple of great lines from a story about the beauty of animated GIFs:


"Yes, we're talking about decadent levels of impatience, inanity, and time-wasting here, but GIFs allow us to waste less time online — or, rather, to waste it more efficiently."

"Not all GIFs are inane — some are transfixingly useless."


Also, Jezebel has a great glossary of GIFs including my personal favourite "boo hoo" (aka Crying Dawson).

Can I really just say how much I hate the "DIY" trend? Can it please just go somewhere and die quietly already?


Now, please don't get me wrong, I love handmade and homemade. Most days I prefer anything I cook to stuff I can buy. I make my own knock-off art because I'm both cheap and frequently on the shady side of broke (thanks! student loans). I'd much rather someone bake me a cake or make me something as a gift than buy me some overpriced, impersonal, made-in-some-developing-country-by-undernourished-non-shade-grown-orphans item.

What I really loathe is how these people who are advocating and selling the whole DIY business are actually fucking wickedly-talented artisans masquerading as normal people. Seriously, nothing DIY looks that photogenic when done by impatient imperfect people such as myself. These people with their beautiful self-custom-restored homes and uniquely-perfect, hand-stamped-hand-cut Christmas greeting cards are giving me an inadequacy complex that rivals the worst of my teenage "I-wish-I-had-the-self-discipline-to-be-anorexic" moments.

What I'd really like is, in the future, if these uber-DIYers would be legally required to put disclaimers on their websites and photos. Perhaps something like: "Caution. Do not attempt to actually follow the DIY instructions contained herein if you are a mere mortal. Failure to heed this warning may result immense personal harm in the form of crushing feelings of inadequacy, overwhelming resentment of your own personal limitations and seething, soul-sucking hatred directed at poor random innocent bloggers with talent."

"(the captain’s time would come early the next morning, his time being a disappointingly prosaic throat-slitting)" ~ Josh Allen


A lovely bit of writing, recommended by this brilliant lady who is almost always dead-on in her endorsements.

I want this painting something awful.


Apparently it's an encaustic by Canadian artist Tony Scherman. Encaustic sounds like a ton of work. Probably not cheap.

Anyone wondering what to get me for Christmas can feel free to take note.

Perhaps the best anti-smoking PSA I've ever read:


"So then I’m smoking 30 cigarettes a day while still running every day and if you’ve never done that, don’t. Let me be your Jesus on that particular cross. I did it for all of us. Call it a handicap. I wanted to see what smoking would do to my speed and miles. Result? It fucked them up. Plus you don’t get that rocking feeling when you’re done like you’re on cocaine getting ready to tackle a tree and bang 22-year-old twins in some Vegas penthouse. No. You think about killing yourself. Your cool down is a catalogue of methods: a bullet, a big plunge, or how about a radio in the bathtub?" ~ the bhj

At the risk of alienating and offending all three of my loyal readers, who perhaps have religious tendancies, "Let me be your Jesus on that particular cross" may just well be my new favourite expression.

Boredom is the mother of creativity. Or at least lots of pics of clouds.


Playing with the iPhone camera while stuck in the car yesterday with a napping kid while my husband did the grocery shopping. Apparently I need to get more game apps.

To ditch the crib or not to ditch the crib?


Since she was born, the kid has spent exactly one entire night sleeping in her crib.

Even before I got knocked-up I figured we'd do the co-sleeping thing for a while and then transition her to the crib. I planned to demand breastfeed and I'm a big fan of sleeping and staying warm so it seemed natural to keep her close at night. For the most part it's worked for us: at night she nurses to sleep with me and in the morning sleeps in with her Dad according to their rockstar schedules.

There was a time where I wasn't getting much sleep what with her majesty kicking me in the head and rocketing around the bed all night. So I started nursing her to sleep and then moving her to the crib. That technique worked with minimal fussing for a few weeks. She'd sleep for a few hours, wake up demanding a nosh so I'd stagger across the hall and bring her back to bed with us. I tried staying up and nursing her in a chair a few times but hated it. I was pretty happy with having her start out in the crib and then spend the rest of the night with us.

And then she started losing her ever-loving shit when I'd go to move her to the crib after she'd fallen asleep. She'd be all sweetly passed-out and then the second I'd put her down she'd practically levitate back out with rage. In her mind apparently: crib = evil tool of infant torture. I even tried putting a pillow from our bed in there thinking that maybe it was a scent/comfort thing. She was having none of it. I made half-hearted attempts at letting her cry it out but ultimately, at 10-11pm at night, I was just too damned tired to stay up listening to that racket until she knocked herself out.

Now, most of the time it's really not a big deal. She doesn't kick me in the head anymore and I sleep better knowing she's warm and safe with us. But occasionally it would be nice if Mommy and Daddy didn't have to get creative with locations to have Special Happy Adult Fun Time. And on the nights the husband is out late, I sometimes really miss having the bed to myself to sleep all stretched out like in the good old days.

So we've been thinking about packing the crib away and getting a single bed to replace it. The idea being that way I could nurse her to sleep and then stealth my way back to my own bed. While part of my brain thinks I'm being especially clever and cunning, another part of my brain that is slowly catching on to how Life with Kids works thinks that I'm fooling myself: she'll figure this one out in a week and we'll simply have bought another piece of furniture that acts mainly as stuffed animal storage.

A pic of my new "Don Draper" bar set-up.


I spent the weekend playing around with the ToyCamera app for my iPhone. After seeing these gorgeous pictures I was inspired to break down and download something other than free apps. I know it was only $1.99 but I'm a Scottish Virgo so it's a pretty big step for me. The app is a ton of fun though. Well worth the money.

Captured looking like a baby-toting groupie/paparazzo at the husband's gig.




Bonus baby & Daddy cuteness:

I know he makes gorgeous babies but back off ladies - he's all mine.

Quote of the day:


"There are a lot of unsavory occupations that I would never apply for. Soldier being one of them and politician probably being another." ~ Terri-Jean Bedford, professional dominatrix.

Another hit backcountry camping recipe.


Last weekend, in addition to the pumkin brownies, we were responsible for taking care of one dinner for 7 people. Because this trip was dubbed a "go big or go home" eating experience and one group dragged a full turkey dinner into the bush for Saturday night, I knew that the pressure was on for me to come up with something decent to feed everyone for the second night.

A few weeks ago, on my mother's recommendation, we tried a box of Zatarain's Dirty Rice that I picked up at Loblaws. It was amazing. I knew they also made a jambalaya mix and figured I could use that as the basis for a tasty dinner. I definitely don't claim that this bears any resemblance to a real jambalaya but it was considered damned edible by everyone. I'll definitely be making this to eat at home sometime so that's a major endorsement from me anyway.

Backcountry Jambalaya (feeds 8 hungry people)

1 red onion, diced
2-3 sweet peppers, diced
5-6 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 cans tomato paste
2-3 pounds cured sausage (I used chorizo because I couldn't find andouille)
3 boxes Zatarain's jambalaya rice mix
Tabasco Sauce (or similar to add heat)

Before leaving home:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees C. Toss diced onion and peppers in olive oil to coat. Spread flat on baking sheet. Roast in oven for 30-40 minutes turning/stirring frequently to prevent burning. This step adds flavour to the veggies while also removing water to cut down on the weight.

Let cool. Package in large ziplock bag and freeze. If you don't want to pack cans and a can-opener, open the tomato paste, remove it from the can and freeze in a ziplock bag as well. This step makes packing less sloppy and preserves the food longer.

You could also pre-cut the sausage and freeze it as well.

In the woods:

Boil water according to rice package instructions. Add rice mix, cut sausage, tomato paste and veggies. Cover and cook according to rice package instructions, stirring frequently to avoid burning. You may also wish to add more water than called for to achieve desired consistency and avoid burning. Serve and let everyone season with Tabasco etc. to their tastes.


Next time I may try adding pre-cooked and frozen chicken, shrimp or ham to give the jambalaya that proper multi-meat flavour.

An amazing Turkey Weekend in Frontenac Park.


Our annual we-must-have-a-horseshoe-jammed-up-our-butts-to-get-weather-this-good backcountry camping trip was a brilliant success. I think the pumpkin brownies (pre-baked and frozen for transport) served with whipped cream and warm caramel sauce were a hit. But the food highlight of the trip was definitely a toss-up between the 14 pound roasted turkey a friend packed in or the new recruit who made fresh breakfast cinnamon buns in a camp oven after putting the dough under his jacket to keep it warm enough to rise.

It's hard to say whether I'm going to need a week to recover from all the hiking with a full pack and 20 pound child strapped to me... or to recover from all the eating we did.

Fall in Ottawa.


Oh Ottawa, sometimes you can be so pretty I almost forget how utterly shitty and horrible your winters are. Almost.

What happens when I drink a pint of beer quickly on an empty stomach, the "calamari" appetizer tastes and appears uncannily like squid jerky-flavoured rubber bands, the honey garlic wings smell heavily of curry and there happens to be a customer comments form on the table.


God bless passive aggression.

Moral of the story: on a Monday or Tuesday, skip Wild Wings and go to Rockwells for their all-you-can-eat wings.

An Ottawa Design*Sponge Guide.


This city has officially arrived.

Signs of fall.


You heard it here first people. Pumpkin pie is back at DQ and dodgy driving schools are offering discounts: it's officially Autumn.

Our third wedding anniversary.

Apparently (according to those who know these things) the traditional gift for this anniversary is leather. Frankly, I'm not sure what to do with that. We're not really "leather" people. At least not in the overpriced coats, overstuffed furniture, biker apparel, buttless chaps or tassels on nipple-clamps kinda way.

It's been a big full year: babies have been kept alive and thriving; maternity leaves have ended; new jobs have been started; other jobs have been quit to stay home and raise babies; parents have gotten divorced; parents have had triple by-pass surgeries; siblings have graduated from medical school and law school; siblings have gotten engaged; nieces and nephews have gotten boyfriends and girlfriends; friends have had (more) babies; bands have broken up; new bands have been joined; heroes have been inspired to write songs; solo trips have been taken with babies; many single small shoes have been lost; freak-outs (mine) have been had about living on a single income; bathrooms have been renovated; gyms have been joined; babies have been left in the care of strangers (gym childcare) and parents have survived.

There's been some really rough parts and some pretty great parts. I know without a doubt there's no one I'd prefer to have done it with.

So, steak for dinner?

A trip to the Antrim Flea Market.


Last weekend we drove out to Antrim and it was seriously dead quiet, like only two outdoor vendors and a few dozen people. Since it was threatening rain the whole way we weren't completely surprised but I was hoping someone would be selling produce (I'm craving fall apples like mad) so that was a bummer.

The trip wasn't a total loss though. A couple of tasty oatmeal-raisin cookies were enjoyed and the husband scored a whole album of banjo tunes guaranteed to provide great entertainment and references to speed-paddling of canoes.