The Arbolog |

My friend Melanie, who is crazy pregnant and is due to give birth to The Sprig like, any minute now, tagged me in one of them online memes, and who am I to not go along with the pregnant lady? That’s like, bad luck or something.  It’s 8 questions, and I can manage that. Between unpacking and working my arse off, I can manage that. In fact, I welcome it because seriously, sometimes I need assignments to get me motivated enough to write. So, here we go:

1. Is there anything you’ve ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?

Okay, I’ve said this before and I will say it again. My absolute favourite meal in the whole wide world is this chicken meal my mom makes. It’s broiled chicken, with egg noodles and and rice as a side dish with GRAVY SMOTHERING EVERYTHING. I can’t seem to duplicate this meal in my own kitchen, despite being given step by step coaching from Mom. I don’t know if I lack the well seasoned grilling rack, or what, but my chicken always comes out bland – mom’s is crispy and flavourful. My mom also makes fantastic gravy, which I like to think I am pretty good at too, as it was my job to “stir the gravy” many Sunday nights. This meal is homey and delicious and warm and if I was on death row, this would be the meal I request. Mmm… my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?

I’ve lived in both. I love the country but it takes me a month to decompress and slow down and enjoy where I am, which generally means that after a one week vacation I want nothing more than to go the hell home to my suburban city living. I like the conveniences of corner stores, multiple shopping options, and events and entertainment at my beck and call. But I yearn for a slower life, like say, on a small island. So I guess the answer to this one is half and half. New Westminster is a little of both, really. Without livestock.

3. You know how, before you actually have kids, you have all these parenting principles (”I’m going to home-school/make all the clothes/never buy junk food/bury the tv in the back yard”), and then when you actually have to raise a kid/kids, you end up kind of abandoning said principles? Do you have any of those? Do you feel guilty? Liberated? Indifferent?

I try hard to stick to a few things – like I have a hate on for licensed merchandise. Dora / Pooh / Caillou / Backyardigans / Toy Story … they can all stick it. I also try hard to recognize “treats” as “treats”, and so juice is a treat, as is cake and gummies. Currently, Kale thinks single M&M’s are “special treats” and we use those for when he uses the potty. I do still think I want to home-school, but I think it’s not in our cards financially and I’m fairly comfortable with the school Kale is catchment-ed into to now that we’ve moved. I wanted to cloth diaper and I am proud to say we still are. There were a lot of things I had in mind before Kale was born, and they just weren’t practical once reality set in, or perhaps I hadn’t really done my research and have since found a better option, but there were two hard and fast rules pre-Kale: 1) be flexible and adaptive and 2) whatever gets you through the night. Parenting has been like one long survival test, with fleeting moments of awesome and milliseconds of horribleness. We have survived.

4. What’s the loveliest place you’ve ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.

I’m really untravelled. I’ve been more or less everywhere in BC, I’ve been to Canmore, Calgary, Drumheller, Airdrie, and High River in Alberta. I’ve been to Seattle, Point Roberts, Leavenworth, and Moses Lake, Washington. The end. My favourite place I have ever been to so far was probably my brother and sister in law’s property in Telkwa, BC. I drove there by myself (14 hours – whee!) in one long day and I spent a week there. It was fantastic.

5. Laundry tips? Please?

Ditch the fabric softener and don’t buy into the marketing that says you need super high powered detergent. Are your clothes really that filthy? I doubt it. I use the plainest, most old fashioned laundry soap I can find. It’s usually washing soda and borax. Our clothes always feel clean and smell like FABRIC and not perfume.

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?

I did have one. I was supposed to meet the man of my dreams at 22, be married by 23 and have our first child, a boy, at 24. Our second child, a girl, would follow at 26. In reality, at 22 I was in college. At 24 I was scraping by and spent a lot of time at dive bars wishing I was able to play a musical instrument and wanting to be a rockstar. At 26 I stopped dreaming about “the perfect life” and decided I just needed a life that made me happy. Then I met Ross. This Wednesday, we celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary (whoa). Right now, I truck along. I try to have some long term goals (not retire broke and make sure Kale can take whatever he wants at a post secondary institute) and some short term goals (go to Hawaii in the spring and buy more skirts) and otherwise roll with whatever life throws us. I like living in the moment and I like living in that moment in a positive way. Also, bad and good things come in threes.

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?

They would probably look at me and something in their minds would tell them they know me somehow, but they couldn’t place me. Sure, there are people on Facebook who have looked me up from high school and we chat and say hello and stay connected. But I’m not that person anymore. So when we head home to the island, most of the old teenage friends that still live in the area will often recognize me and the braver more forward ones will ask “do I know you from somewhere?” and I say “yes, [insert name here], we went to high school together.” I’m good with names. I was a forgettable person then. That person was immature, and not confident in herself, and like most typical middle class small town teenaged girls, didn’t know who she was.

I don’t think I would get along with the teenaged me. I was a know it all to make up for my lack of confidence in myself.

8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?

I can’t wait for Kale to read Fantastic Mr. Fox, Where The Wild Things Are, and the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. I love reading, and so I hope that just by us reading to Kale, us reading for fun, and books being in our house, he’ll enjoy reading for fun. I grew up in a house that encouraged reading and encouraged using the library, and I’m grateful for that because you’ll never be bored if you have some good books around you. As a girl, I enjoyed the Donna Parker series, Nancy Drew series, the Sweet Valley High (I always thought myself as an “Elizabeth” sort of character), and most everything Judy Blume wrote. I remember one of my all time favourite books was Tiger Eyes.

* * *

I don’t normally tag people because I don’t want people to feel obligated to keep this chain going. However, I’m curious about what some of my regular commenters would say to these questions, so if you’re game, please participate and then add a comment when your post is up!

Oh, wait! You mean you’re supposed to add content to a blog? Oh crap. Blogging: I’m doing it wrong.

Well, we’re moved. We’re here, we’re in, we are so so so happy to be here. Our house is lovely.

Things I’m not totally fond of:

• bathroom lights and plugs not functioning, laundry room lights and plugs not functioning, assorted random electrical outlets in various rooms not working. They all worked during the home inspection, which means that the seller is responsible for paying for the cost of repairs. However, can I just say something? It is crazy annoying to not have lights in your bathroom.
• it’s louder than I was expecting. We live on a small cul-de-sac just off a fairly main road. I knew it was a main road. But it’s a also a ambulance, fire truck, and police route, and it’s also downhill from us – thus, all road noise travels up and into our house. Of course, we have all windows open since it’s summah-time here, and did it keep me awake the first night? Yes. Has it kept me awake any other night? No.
• our backyard is not fenced and a travelling toddler likes to explore when we’re in the backyard (which is frequent) so I must be constantly vigilant as to his whereabouts, lest he find the holes in the hedge or wander around to the front of the yard or open the gate to the parking space – all of which spill out into the alley.

Things I Love:

• No dang strata. I can do whatever I want and I don’t have anyone living above / beside me. I don’t need a key to get into a gate. I don’t have to walk up two flights of stairs to get to my mail box. I don’t have to propose to anyone to do anything to our house.
• Living right across the street from a park with a tonne of amenities like a spray park, outdoor pool, playground, bathrooms, playing fields, walking trails.
• Backyard Naked Lawnmowing:

Naky!

• Having space. Having a room we call “Hobby and Craft Room” where the bikes and sewing machine will live. Having to shop for furniture like SEWING TABLES and BOOKCASES and SUN ROOM FURNITURE. There are not enough hours in the day for all the online browsing I need to do.

Coming soon! Photo tour!

Kale turned two yesterday. I would have made time to write a carefully crafted post if I wasn’t flying by the seat of my pants and barely getting through the to do list these days. Instead, like any other normal Thursday, I went to work and Ross took over child care at 12:30. Only, he came home with three packages of balloons (generally contraband here because I cannot stand the sound balloons make – ick) and when Kale and Bonnie woke up there was much merriment and balloon mayhem. We’re planning a birthday party for the wee bean after we move.

Balloooonnnnnsss!

We’re at the tail end of a heat wave here, I can’t help but remember the exact same cloying hot weather in 2008 when I was induced and subsequently finally got to meet the Grey Blob. Remember this?

eached-bay ale-way

Jesus, I was enormously pregnant.

Here’s the thing: I never knew love till I knew Kale. He makes my life so complete and every day he challenges me, frustrates me, endears himself to me, and loves me. I love this kid so hard and he is so sunshine-y and loving and funny – holy crap is he funny. He learned knock knock jokes the other day. Doesn’t quite understand the mechanics but it is hilarious when he says “knock knock Mommy?” over and over and over and laughs with every part of him. There are days when I would seriously like to sell him to the first travelling gypsy I see for a good foot massage and a bottle of cheap red plonk, but there are days when I can’t even remember what my life was like before he came into it – that part of me is simply that inconsequential.

I’m such a different person now. I would like to think I have made giant strides into the “learning patience” goal, and I’m a more conscious of moments in which I find myself judging other parents / people. Every day I say a thousand times “it’s no big deal” and I guess it’s setting in to me too. I want to be a happy person, and the want to be happy is often enough to kick a crappy mood. (I think now I should just start wanting to be 30 pounds lighter and see if that flies).

Those of you who’ve been following along (hi Mom!) since day one at the Arbolog will remember that I’ve decided to take a picture to commemorate special days. I chose newborn, 3, 6, 9 months, and then at every birthday after that. We lined up for our family bed shot today after Kale’s bath. Kale had two mostly deflated balloons in his hand that he refused to put down and is nakey because I would say about 2 hours out of every day this kid is nakers. Ross, while shirtless, is wearing shorts in the shot. Kale is giving the camera his “cheese!” face. Here’s the all the pictures so far.

newborn

3 months

6 months

9 months

1 year

2 years

This picture makes my heart feel lighter. I love my family. While we may struggle with money or time management or finding the right balance of work and play, we will always have one another to rely and depend on and I feel so safe and happy and comfortable.

Happy birthday, little bean.

Love,

Mommy

I was making my dinner today to take with me to work. I grabbed a box of cous cous from the shelf, intending to make a quick cous cous salad. Grabbed from the fridge:  onion, parsley, tomatoes, and cucumbers and set them aside. I dumped the cous cous into the pot. I stopped to read the directions and it said to add hot water to the cous cous in the pot, so I put the kettle on to boil.

Only I didn’t put the kettle on to boil – I turned on the element under the pot full of dry cous cous. A few minutes later, I smelled the smell of Dinner Fail, but in my mind, busy chopping up parsley and tomatoes, I assumed it was a spilled something or other on the element under the kettle and continued with what I was doing. The smell got worse, and I looked over and spied my pot full of dried cous cous smoking and it all clicked together and OH CRAP.

While it hadn’t caught on fire, there was a 1 cm layer on the bottom that was decidedly burned to a crisp, and the rest of the cous cous was, well, garbage.

So now, with a bowl of chopped up ingredients and no more cous cous, I stumbled around the kitchen trying to come up with a use for my chopped up bits and pieces. Lo and behold, a giant box of macaroni.

So. Pasta Salad for dinner. Not really the best thing I’ve eaten lately. But decidely better than Burnt Cous Cous Salad.

I find that when you are packing to move, you often find reasons to get rid of things. It’s like shedding skin – if I am given the opportunity to make myself feel like I have a clean slate, I will do everything in my power to make that happen. And the more you do it, the easier it is to get rid of things that you otherwise would have held on to because there was no motivator to get rid of it.

I’ve been paring down here at Chez Arbo since we are packing to move, and nothing is sacred. I’ve passed on some of Kale’s clothes, some of his toys (including toys he still occasionally plays with but I can’t stand for various reasons), and just about anything I haven’t used or thought of in a year. Granted, there is some stuff that we haven’t used in a year for understandable reasons, like camping gear and snowshoes that we will pack up and move with us. But clothes not worn in a year? GONE. Shoes not worn in a year? GONE. Purses not used in a year? GONE. I don’t need it. I have so much stuff it’s simply ridiculous.

Stack o boxes

Another project I’m working on is ripping all of my CDs to our giant external hard drive. Theoretically, when we move I am buying a MacBook Pro and getting rid of our desktop PC. We have this giant sized external drive that we significantly under-utilize, and it’s my hope that by piling all of our music onto it, and then setting up a wireless home system where the external drive and printer live in a closet and we can both access them from whatever point in our house, then we have a built in stereo system. It’s a theory, and it’s likely I’m going to have to buy another component to make it all happen, but I’m tired of carrying around these plastic CDs that I rarely listen to, and I’m hoping that by having them on my computer, I will access them more frequently. And if I don’t, at least I don’t have a giant pile of plastic to house.

Stack o plastic

It’s starting to become much more real that we are MOVING (t-minus 20 days and counting, actually) and I’m starting to write lists, and overwhelm myself with what needs doing between now and then. I’ve ordered our new service for electricity and for internet, cable and phone (thanks Telus for making that dead simple – one phone call and no charge – hells yes customer service), I’m starting to call around with address changes.

I’m starting to see shades of long forgotten OCD habits – checking, double checking, methodical overanalysis, lying in bed awake at night composing lists. I hate moving but I love the scrubbed new and shiny sense of possibility that first week in your new house.

And I can’t wait for our house. Oh man. I cannot wait. Space! To! Move! Space! To! Play! Space! To! Enjoy! I love our house more with each passing day and I keep waiting for this buyer’s remorse I keep hearing about to set in.  SO far, nothing but excitement and thrilling happiness.

My dog turns 11 today. I adopted Mooki when she was a mere two and a half. Time flies. She was so skinny then and is now a much more square looking chubby sausage on toothpicks.

Mooface

Mooki has been significantly knocked down the totem pole at Chez Arbo since the arrival of one Mr. K. Pants, and while it was fairly evident that the Moobag was disappointed with this turn of events, she didn’t care *that* much because well, Mooki doesn’t care that much about anything. Except maybe cheese. She’s come around to Kale a bit – although slowly. These days it seems she has actually attempted play with Kale, and has given him a – gasp!- tiny bits of kissiness once in a while. Moo is not a kissy dog for the most part – which is fortunate as her breath is revolting -so little licks and tentative kisses are a surprise.

Moo is slower now, and I see time catching up with her. She likes her creature comforts and especially sleeping on beds surrounded by pillows, and occasionally we see a limpy leg after a long sleep in one position. She snores like a train more often than not these days. She sheds more than she ever has, and she’s stuck in her ways so steadfastly that I’m starting to think she is as stubborn as she is just to spite me. She thinks that the water in the designated water bowl is for suckers, and it is the algae-growing nastiness in the trough outside that she prefers to drink. She will ask to go out, and now, set in her ways, is more persistent and scratchy to be let back in instantaneously after a quick sip.

When Miss Mooklyn Pie dies, I will be very sad. Although it could be a long way off – shibas are known to regularly live to 17 – I see time making its mark on Mooki, slowly creeping across her fuzzy butt and settling into her bones, her eyes, her greying snoot.  I might complain about her and joke about her snootiness, but really, I will miss her dearly. Yesterday I actually reminded her that she would make a very lovely pair of slippers. Because she was being a snot to our neighbour’s dog. Again. Sigh. At least she is predictable.

Happy birthday Mooface.

Mooki’s birthday is a bittersweet day, as it is also the anniversary of Dad’s death in 2006. I’ve talked about my dad before, and last year at this time I also wrote a post about him, and while I’m not trying to make this some sort of blog memorialization project where every year I tell you about how sad I am to have lost my dad, I am making a point of thinking of Dad today. I ran across some files the other day (as I’ve spent a great deal of time going through boxes of crap in an attempt to downsize) and I found the copy of Dad’s service record from the Navy. More than ever I know that my Dad was a good man, but reading snippets of a life before I existed fascinates me. He wasn’t just “Dad”, he was so much more than that. As a parent now, the understanding of how invisible you become has hit home.  Today, however, I am remembering one specific event from my teen years:

I used to be involved in youth theatre. I was one of the older kids and I had a fantastic memory for lines, so I regularly got handed long winded roles in plays, like narrators, or fairy godmothers, or wicked witches. Disclosure: I secretly miss community theatre and it’s my hope that one day I can return to community theatre and let the inner showoff back out of the box she is living in.

At one point in grade 10? 11? 12?  I was involved in a production of Aladdin, that was written in a singsong rhyme-y verse interpretation of the classic story. Rhyme scheme was the highly effective A-B-C-B and it was a complete cinch to memorize because of it. And my job was Scheherazade and I was telling the story of ourhero, that scamp Aladdin. I sat on a little stool on the stage apron during the actual action and would narrate in-between scenes.  I got decked out in this horrendous pink and gold billowy 60’s harem suit.  I think my mom still has this suit somewhere in her tickle trunk and I will give $40 to someone who could actually fit it. Some volunteer mother slathered my eyelids with turquoise blue eye shadow and used spirit glue gum to adorn my temples with rhinestones. I walked out onto stage under a spotlight against the black curtain and I spoke my opening lines. I flubbed a bit here and there, out of nervousness more than anything, but I did a fairly passable job and the audience clapped nicely after my opening monologue.

After the show, my dad presented me with a rose and was teary because coming to my play had made him see just how absent he’d been from my life. As a snot faced teenager, I was merely embarrassed.

Here’s to you, Dad. I still miss you and love you.

Just some disclosure off the top: I have not been paid or asked to write this review. I bought a Diva Cup from my local London Drugs for $39.99 about three years ago. You can buy one too, if you want.

Okay, first of all, I have been waffling on writing this review. Funny, I can tell you all about childbirth and breastfeeding and baby poop and ulcerative colitis and whatever else. But menstruation is taboo, more than anything else. Girls tend to think that menstruation is something you don’t really talk about, and although my mom was awesome when my period started and got me a starter pack of all the standard available goodies out there and was happy to show me how to use them or tell me anything I wanted to know about how it all worked, I know I’m not alone when I say I don’t really talk about my monthly cycle with many people outside of my husband, my midwife,  my doctor, and perhaps my closest friends. Because really, does anyone actually want to hear about it? Meh, not really.

Don’t want to know what I use to deal with my period? Then stop now, and go check out this awesome site about eating locally.

The Diva Cup is one of a number of kinds of menstrual cup – There’s the Moon Cup, The Keeper (a latex rubber version), and Lunette (not yet approved for sale in Canada, although silicone already is) and probably others I don’t know about.

I ended up buying it because I had it suggested to me to try by a friend,  and then noticed it at the store, and read the box and decided to give it a whirl. I bought myself the size 2 (there are two sizes) because of my age, and the same size is appropriate to me postnatal as well. At the time, I was not even pregnant. I tried it once or twice when I did not have my period to attempt to get the hang of it, wasn’t thrilled enough to try again, put it back under my sink and promptly forgot all about it. A menstrual cup is designed for collecting the flow, and hanging on to it until you get a chance to dump it. It’s not absorbent, and is, in fact, a silicone cup, that looks similar to an egg cup, with a stem on the end (for grasping).

Diva Cup

Fast forward to this past few months, where I’m more than ever trying to reduce my impact on the world and am looking at my lady bits in a way I did not look at them before I had a child. I flat our care more about what’s going on inside me. Before, menstruation was a function. Now, I see it as a purpose.

I have started reading all sorts of alarming info out there on the intarnets, some of it pretty well researched seemingly from the house of non-crazy [that link is a PDF to an interesting report written by Canadian nutritionist Meghan Telpner] and  and a lot of it flat out false (no, tampons do not contain asbestos). And although the Canadian Cancer Society states that you cannot get cancer from using tampons, there are many people who swear they are toxic to your body on many levels and there is tonnes of anecdotal evidence to support that. But for me, I started feeling guilty about using tampons because they aren’t doing the earth any favours. I’m rethinking the use of tampons and pads from a disposable angle – I am so sick of throwing money literally down the toilet and without truly grasping the consequences of where it goes, and what happens to it when it gets there.

I’m trying hard to find usable alternatives to more or less everything that reeks of consumptive earth dissing, so in my RSS reader these days is stuff like the Glenbrook Zero Waste Challenge, a local group trying to reduce their waste. They put me on to the folks over at the Clean Bin Project, who’ve recently completed a documentary about their project and are cycling across Canada promoting it (hey, Canadian friends, they are looking for places to show their movie. Help them out – check out the trailer, it’s awesome and I can’t wait till they are back in town and we here in New West can watch their documentary.) One of the items Jen at the Clean Bin Project blogs about is the menstrual cup. In her (and my) case, we’re talking about the Diva Cup.

So, seeing the mention for the Diva Cup a while back gave me enough drive to dig it out and give it another shot.

It took me a few tries at insertion despite pretty decent instructions. It feels WEIRD the first few times because the Diva Cup is not designed to go way up inside you like a tampon. It sits more or less at the end of your inner workings so that you can simply reach and grasp that stem with your fingers when it’s time to remove it. Remember, it’s catching the blood, not soaking it up. You are shooting for a horizontal lie rather than a vertical one. Womens’ bits are shaped somewhat like a vase with the small end closest to the real world and so to get the Cup past the smaller neck of the vaginal opening, you fold the cup into quarters and let it pop open once inside. That took a few tries too – figuring out the knack of getting it to pop open at all. I kept having to go in and retrieve it and realign the mark I was shooting for. Also, one complaint? I wish the instructions made mention of potentially pulling at pubic hair. Not everyone grows hair in the same spots, according to my esthetician, but I apparently grow hair in a spot that gets a bit pulled when inserting the Diva Cup. Now that I know that it’s a no longer an issue, but the first time I discovered it, it wasn’t in a way I’d like to repeat.

I also felt the stem of the Diva Cup a bit the first few times while wearing it but now, after a few cycles, I can still notice it only if I try. But it’s a different way of thinking. When you insert a tampon, it’s a no brainer – insert tab a into slot b and you generally do not feel a thing. But I stopped and thought about it. The first few times I used a tampon at 15? I remember it feeling like a giant sub sandwich between my legs.

I practiced with my Diva Cup a half dozen times or so when I did not have my period so that inserting and removing would be simpler and less foreign to me come period time, with the added complication of blood. I recommend doing that as well. You’re going to get intimately involved with what your “output” feels like, so start on a non-period day and get over yourself.

And speaking of blood? What do you do with it? Well, this is how I deal with it, not everyone likely uses the same method. While seated on the toilet, I remove the Diva Cup by grasping the stem, pulling it out sideways, and then once it breaks suction, I tilt it DOWN and let what is collected drain straight into the toilet. Afterward, I wash the Diva Cup in my sink and then clean myself up and then reinsert. Then, when I get up to wash my hands, I give the sink a rinse too. It’s blood. It’s not poison. You can buy Diva Wash, a mild soap, to use on your Cup and your bits, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Because the Diva Cup is made of silicone, you can boil it to give it a good cleaning, and so at the end of my period I do just that. Then it lives in its little fabric sack until the next time. I envision custom made cases on Etsy as soon as I can get my sewing machine back up and running after we move as nothing draws attention to a little fabric bag more than DIVA printed all over a bright purple background. Discreet? No.

You can wear thew Diva Cup over night, and you’ll need to empty it about once every 12 hours or so. The normal entire amount of blood you will shed in your period is 4 ounces (on average, some people it may be more or less!). The Diva Cup can hold one ounce. The chances of leaking because you’ve filled it are slim.

My periods last about 4 days, and at 5-8 tampons a day (we’ll take 6 as an average) I have already saved about 50 tampons from using the Diva Cup.  Yeah. No kidding. 50 tampons is more than what’s in the average sized box. And I’ve barely been using this thing! Do the math on a year. Whether you are talking about the money you’ve saved, the bleached cotton you have not used, or the tampons you have not flushed down the toilet, 50 tampons is HUGE and it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Many users also pair their Diva Cups with reusable panty liners. LunaPads are one example, but you can also sew your own.

To sum up: go buy yourself one of these or order it online. Menstrual cups are likely  going to be the norm very soon as more and more people realize it is not icky and  it saves money, the environment and our bodies. Practice until you feel like it’s not a big deal. Then clear out some of that space under your bathroom sink for something you really love, like a cocoa butter body scrub or a sea salt bath soak, and stop flushing your money down the toilet.

Here at the Arbolog, we work hard to try and practice reducing, reusing, refusing, and repairing before we get to recycling, because as far as I am concerned, the jury is out on whether recycling really does lower my carbon footprint. To that end, I’ve spent a long time finding people capable of repairing things. When you live in an area for a long time, you tend to build up a list of  go-to people that can repair things that need repairing. I’ve found that nine times out of ten, it actually costs me more to repair stuff than it would to buy a new, cheap item, but I’m personally trying hard to buy higher quality items that are worth repairing. I also like being able to say “Ooh, I got someone for that” and pass on the info. Makes me feel like I’m in the know. Disclosure: no one has paid me or asked me to write this.

Shoes:

I bought a pair of higher quality Birkenstock knockoffs from a well known local shoe store back when I was pregnant. I have since blown through the sole and into the cork, so I had the soles replaced. The shoes cost me $110. The repair was $40. Now I am working my way through the suede footbed and need to replace that.

I also have a favorite pair of Portuguese made leather shoes that I bought in some fancy pants West Vancouver shoe store. They were having a “last pairs” sale and since I’m a size 6, there generally isn’t much for me at clearance sales. But I lucked out and a pair of Eject shoes that normally retailed for $290 was a mere $99. I bought them, and wore them more or less daily when I was still a full time office worker, and scuffed my way through the sole. I had the soles replaced on those as well, but I haven’t been wearing them as often. See also: Mom Uniform.  I don’t need office appropriate shoes anymore. The repair was well done, however, and cost me only $50. These shoes are about 5 years old and I will wear them until they fall off my feet.

My go-to place for shoes is New West Cobbler.

Jewelry Purchase and Repair:

A few years ago, instead of dropping a hint, I emailed Ross a direct link to a series of Citizen Eco-Drive watches and said “for my birthday gift”.  Like a smart husband, Ross didn’t question it, and went directly to a local jeweler and bought the one he felt I’d like the most (he was right). A few years after that, Ross proposed to me and so we went to the same jeweler to get my engagement ring made, Ross’ wedding band made, and my wedding band ordered to match. This past Christmas, I bought Ross an Eco-Drive watch as well from the same jeweler. You could say we are impressed with their customer service and prices. I walk in there and they hold their hands out and automatically scrub my rings while I shop. They all know my name and the name of our son. I like that. I recently had the crystal replaced on my watch, and had them unbend the crown that I bent when I caught it on the dresser while putting away laundry (Little known fact: laundry is a full contact sport, apparently).  Total bill for the repair: $61. On a $200 watch that I have worn every single day for 4? 5? years, that’s not too terribly bad. It’s good as new.

Our go-to jeweler is Cartwright Jewelers.

Hemming and Alterations:

HI, my name is Jen and I am five feet tall. Pretty much every single pair of pants I own needs to be hemmed, and I have recently discovered how nicely things can fit if I have the waist taken in as well. I had my wedding dress custom made for me by an incredible local designer and I wish she made custom clothing and did alternations and hemming. However, I have recently discovered Genie’s Stitch in the otherwise lackluster Royal City Centre. Hemming a pair of pants is generally overnight and it a whopping $7. Boo-ya. I doubt her name is Genie – it’s probably more like Jelena or Gordana, but I don’t care. It’s 100% pure awesome.

My go-to tailor is Genie’s Stitch.

Dog Grooming:

I have a dog whose a bit of a snot when it comes to nail trimming. She doesn’t like other dogs, she’s set in her ways, and if she really wants to get your attention she will emit a noise that makes you think she is being pulled apart (google “shiba scream”). it is truly awful and completely embarrassing. When I first moved to the neighbourhood I’m in now, I wandered over to Hair of the Dog on 12th Street, where friendly and sweet Barb picked Mooki up, popped her up on the groom table, and chatted with me while effortlessly trimming Mooki’s nails. She laughed at the noise Mooki made, and it didn’t faze her one bit. Dog grooming is something you don’t get into unless you are comfortable and like dogs. Barb is so comfortable around them that neurotic dog owner (me) was comfortable too. I’ve written about Hair of the Dog before. I still stand behind every word, two years later.

Our dog groomer is Hair of the Dog.

I think secretly, when I was helping my high school friend to learn PLU (Price Look Up) codes for her job at Overwaitea back in 1989, I was really wishing it was me that was going to wear that hideous polyester golf shirt and poorly fitted brown pants. I mean, I still remember that yellow bananas are 4011. Yes, they are. Go look it up yourself. But no, I chose to work at a video store, so to this day I am not able to look at a seven digit number without instantly memorizing it.

Anyway, when I get the opportunity to use a self serve checkout, I secretly I squeal with delight inside and rush right over there to be a quasi cashier. I know all sorts of tricks for making it go smoother. Like, if you want to use your own bag, but don’t know how to fool the machine, you just stack everything up unbagged in the bagging area and then take your sweet time to pack it all into your own bags after the transaction is complete.

Now, I know I am getting ripped off here. Going into a store that employs cashiers to manhandle my purchases means that the prices I pay include a portion that is allocated to covering the wages of those people. So, using a self serve checkout means you are paying for something you don’t get. But let’s face it – when was the last time a cashier at a grocery store was conversational? Pleasant? Went out of their way to ensure that you had a good experience? Not scowling?

Anecdote: the other day, toddler-free,  I hit up Safeway. I normally avoid Safeway, but in this case, I had gone to the produce joint across the street and they were out of fresh sage and I needed it for a recipe. So I walked over to Safewat and while there realize I need a few other things and so I grab milk, bananas, crackers, panko crumbs, and the sage and walk to the cashier. For once, the cashiers had no lineup but the self serve checkouts did have a line up, so I went with “fastest way out of here”. Like a good little eco-conscious shopper, I had my own bag, which I put on top of the pile of groceries on the conveyor (dirty and disgusting – what the hecks is with that, why do they not wash those things?) and my Friendly and Helpful Cashier did not look up, did not say hello, did nothing other than move my canvas tote from one side of the scanner to the other, and then proceeded to scan my items and pile them ON TOP of the bag (not IN, where it would have made sense). Because apparently bringing your own bag to the grocery store is actually super secret cashier code for “I WANT TO BAG MY OWN STUFF TOO”. You know, while I am juggling my Safeway card, Airmiles card and debit card while YOU PICK YOUR FINGERNAILS WHILE I WORK THE KEYPAD.

Okay, seriously? When did this become the new thing? I bring my own bags (and PS, SAFEWAY, why the heck don’t you offer me something in return? Every other grocery store chain out there does – sheesh) and this has somehow been translated to “In addition to utter and complete shit service, you get to bag your own stuff! Enjoy!”. You know, I don’t mind bagging my own things. I actually don’t. In fact, I do a better job because I understand Grocery Physics and don’t stuff a 4 litre of milk in with a loaf of bread. I am careful not to DROP the tomatoes into the bag or bounce an apple across the scanner. But if I am not getting EYE CONTACT or at the very least a muttered HELLO or some freaking COLLECTOR POINTS FOR BRINGING MY OWN BAG then sweet mother of all that is holy and good in this world, you better not pick your fingernails while I juggle all the cards you ask me to produce and then watch dejectedly as I bag my own stuff.

Anyway. Where was I? Right. Self Serve Checkouts = Awesome.

Friends of mine who are of the male persuasion: you might not want to read this entry. It’s not that I care, but maybe you care. I mean, hey, if I cared, would I be writing it on the intarnets for all the world to see? No, not really. But if you care, and think you’re going to be all blushy weird about this later? Then stop now.  Go read this interesting article about a year with bees. Neat stuff.

You see, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk about, and by talk about, I mean “write a blog post about something that’s been annoying me lately”. Yup. Underwear. Is she really going there? Yes, yes I am.

I’ve bought the ridiculously overpriced kind before from the stores like La Senza and have tried pretty much every single cut they make. (And bitterly disliked their service and have vowed to never shop there ever again because they suck). I’ve worn the standard fare Hanes Her Way / Fruit of the Loom /department store cotton kind too and I generally revert back to the plain cotton kind, because they are readily available, inexpensive, and used to fit decently enough. I used to buy the white bikini cut. But since having had a cesarean birth, the re-arrangment, shall we say, of my stomach and lower area makes these kind of uncomfortable. Like my complaint about jeans, I find that the good ol’ white cotton bikini cut style just rolls down under the cesarean “shelf”. Which produces some insane visible pantie line and a gathering of fabric I don’t much care for. I also have lost sensation around the area of my cesarean scar, and so elastic around that area just feels, well, weird. I can’t even put my finger on how it’s weird, but it just is.

So, I’m hunting around online for the latest and greatest in women’s underwear styles, thinking there has got to be something out there I am missing out on.  I’ve run across this website which caters to post-surgery cesarean peeps, and I was reading and thinking, hey that’s cool, and then I figured out which style would be appropriate for me since its been, you know, 2 years and all, and I was sold! Until I discovered these are $23.50 a pair. Whoa! Seriously? I wear underwear every day(crazy party animal that I am, yo) and so one pair wouldn’t cut it. So, I guess I know my threshold is considerably lower than that. I found another site and they were even more expensive! What the hecks? I took a look on Etsy – because if I am paying that much money for a pair of fancy undies, I want it to go to a single producer and not some company. And then, I started thinking that maybe I should just design and make my own. I tried that once and I wore them twice and found them so uncomfortable they went to the rag bag. ( I made some of my own amendments to the pattern and now I know why I should  not have.)

Anyway, so I got to the point where I was like, “Okay never mind, white cotton bikini cut Hanes it is.” So off I went to Zellers (and yes, I drive all the way to Zellers in Burnaby rather than Walmart because Walmart sucks) and LO! Packaged socks and underwear were buy one get one half price and so I bought me some fresh new cotton socks for the summer and spent about 45 minutes at the packaged underwear rack.

You know you have become an adult when you are sitting there on the floor of a understaffed and dirty department store  opening packages of giant sized tent underwear, stretching them out to see their “max capacity” and inspecting their seams because poorly made? I’m not going there.  So there I am stretching them out, holding them up, trying to find one package that hasn’t been opened up, mixed with another, and then re-stuffed into the wrong size package. And I’m looking at all the styles – hipster (NO), bikini (NO), boycut (NO), full brief (GOOD GOD NO I’M NOT 90), and finally, I settled on the poorly spelled hi-cut. (Grammar pet peeve – things incorrectly spelled on purpose for marketing reasons – gah). I figured that they’re high enough in the front to come up and over that cesarean shelf, but high enough on the hips and thighs that I still feel well, okay, at least feminine a bit. I don’t wear low cut pants anymore so I don’t really care how much fabric there is in the back.

So! $10 for 6 pairs. Slightly better on the ROI than the $23.50 each fancy pants panties. And honestly, these are working out just fine.

What about you? What’s your favourite brand or cut?

Also, since we are talking unmentionables here, I’m working on a review of the Diva Cup. This is a silicone cup that is a reusable alternative to pads and tampons. I bought one ages ago, tried it, got nervous, and there it sat in its little bag under our sink for a year. Until this past month when I got over myself, pulled it out and started using it in earnest and now am a convert. If you are a Diva Cup user (and I know there are a few of you out there as some of you recommended it to me in the first place), can you email me at jen arbo at g mail dot com? I’d like to compare a few notes with you.