I have been in the habit of laying out clothes the night before for the girls to wear the next day. Jonas has the morning shift, so he is responsible for getting them dressed, fed and delivered. The past couple of days I have neglected my duties as fashion coordinator, and boy oh boy, when you leave these guys to their own devices, they come up with some pretty interesting combinations. I think I may officially resign as fashion coordinator because it’s worth the giggles of seeing the get ups they come up with. Oh, and by they, I mean Grace and Jonas. Grace dresses herself, and Jonas is responsible for Edie.

Grace, as you can imagine, envelopes herself in as much velvet as physically possible, with no regard to pattern matching or colour coordination. Yesterday found her in a hot pink, white and electric blue pyschedelic velvet top with black velvet pants and a green and pink camouflage sweater on top of it all. My eyes pretty much bled when I saw her.

Edie, well, Jonas decked her out in blue k-way pants and a shirt with a wrench on it (it’s like a rocker shirt with black 3-quarter length sleeves). The pieces de resistence of this outfit were the delicately embroidered Chinese slippers that really made the outfit pop. Oh, and the pony tail on the side of her head à la Chrissy from Three’s Company also added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole look.

Anna Wintour should pick the Meanie family for the next cover of Vogue.

Do you remember this post?

Check out this video. The girls continue to prove that you don't need to waste a whole lot of money on them....

Chicago….
What a town. Did you know that they call it the windy city not for the wind that Mother Nature produces, but rather for the wind that politicians produces? This is but one fact that I absorbed over the course of our three nights/four days in Chicago. Here are a few other things I learned:

-When 6 really good friends get together after not seeing each for a long time, they will indulge in alcohol like a couple of sixteen year olds, right out of the gates. One will puke; one will lose his iphone because bailed on the sidewalk and it fell out of his pocket; one will fall and twist her knee (BADLY); one will drink so much he will be incredibly hung over and function at a negative level the following day.

-When I am away from the kids, and only get five hours sleep, I feel like I have slept 14 hours. I think I slept deeply for the first time in almost 7 years.

-People in Chicago (or maybe the States? I hate to generalize) are fucking loco over football. And home teams are incredibly biased.

-Tail gate parties are fun. People bring barbecues(!), linen, candles, kegs, home baked goodies, sleeping bags, musical instruments, small babies, wine, wings, lots of alchohol, illegal substances, ferrets….I felt like I was on that old show “Let’s Make a Deal” and if I had asked if anyone had a wax miniature of the Eiffel Tower, someone would have pulled it out of their purse. Weird stuff.

-I like Sushi. I really like it. I’ve always been reluctant to try it, but wow, when the right friends bring you to the right restaurant, it is amazing.

-Ottawa should look into the bring your own bottle philosophy. Every restaurant we went to we were able to bring our own and I think enjoyed our meal even more than we would have had we been stressed about the cost of bottles.

-I will never eat Doritos again (see first bullet re. puking).

-Anthropologie is the best store ever,

-Target is also the best store ever.

-Jo and I are too tall for AmericanEagle airplanes. Seriously, these things are made for the 5’5 and under crowd.

The last thing I learned is that I DO love my children. After our little adventure, my heart had grown fonder and I really ached to see the little munchkins again.

My good friend Christopher passed this article on to me. As a lover of the arts, an employee of the arts, someone who is trying to instill an appreciation of the arts in my children, and dammmit, someone who likes to go to the Bluesfest, swig some beer and enjoy some good music, this article near broke my heart. What is going on people? Can you imagine a world without the arts? EVERYTHING is influenced by the arts, from the picture on your coffee cup to the t.v. show you watch at night, the books you read your children to the music you get lost in. What are we striving for here? A town replete with big box stores and depleted of any beauty and originality? Will we ALL be wearing sweater vests in the near future, unable to come up with our sense of style?

Ottawa festivals to lose all city funding under planned cuts
Last Updated: Monday, November 10, 2008 | 4:43 PM ET Comments48Recommend44
CBC News
Events such as the Ottawa Tulip Festival and Ottawa Bluesfest, prizes such as the Ottawa Book Awards and groups such as choirs and heritage societies would lose every penny of their annual funding under cuts proposed to balance the City of Ottawa 's 2009 budget.
City staff recommended $4.1 million in cuts to the city's arts and culture programs when they released the 2009 draft budget last week.
Details of the cuts are outlined in documents obtained by many of the 286 affected groups and individuals, many of whom were to meet Monday to discuss what to do about the proposals.
Those that would lose 100 per cent of their funding include:
• The Canadian Tulip Festival, Ottawa Bluesfest and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, which get operating funds annually.
• Several choirs and some dance, theatre and other groups that get operating funds from the city annually.
• Community projects such as Centretown movies, Propeller Dance, House of PainT and Ladyfest.
• The Ottawa Book Awards and the Karsh Award program for outstanding artists.
• Several heritage projects and historical societies.
• Diversity programs such as the Latin American Festival and the Ottawa Chinese Arts Troupe.
• "Capacity building" programs that help groups such as the Great Canadian Theatre Company expand and mature.
Some larger, more established organizations such as Opera Lyra and the Independent Filmmakers Co-operative of Ottawa (IFCO) would lose 42 per cent of their funding.
Groups such as the Ottawa Arts Court Foundation and the Ottawa Art Gallery and museums such as the Bytown Museum , which have multi-year agreements to provide services to the city, would see cuts of 10 to 24 per cent, while endowment funds would remain untouched.

As an aside, please visit http://illustrationfriday.com/blog/2008/11/12/canadian-portrait-gallery/ for a great chuckle at Harper’s expense.

Did I tell you about Jo’s birthday present? The present that I have been keeping a secret for about 302 days? The secret that I was finally able unveil on Saturday night, with friends and family to bear witness? It’s not much, just a little something I pulled together. Really, it only involved conspiring with his boss and booking time off work. Oh, and booking babysitters for the girls for 3 nights and 4 days. And there was also saving my pennies and denying myself some purty things so I could purchase it. Of course, I also had to make sure our passports were up to date. And get tickets to the Game. Yeah, Jo was pretty surprised when I plopped down two plane tickets to Chicago and two tickets to this Sunday’s Chicago Bears game. And pretty happy too.

So, anyone been to The Mighty Opes hometown? Oh, and I guess it’s Obama’s hometown too….

The Irony of Facebook

When I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, there was a boy, around three years older than me, who was so cruel and so mean to me, that now, as a parent, I wonder how he was raised to be capable of such cold hearted behaviour. His behaviour ran a little beyond typical high school bullying. I had forgotten about him though, and the assumption was that I bore no ill effects from his antics.

And then Facebook happened. Facebook has this application on it, that, judging from who you already have on your friend list, it generates names of other people on Facebook who you may know and wish to be friends with. Well, this asshole keeps popping up, and Facebook keeps asking me if I want to get in touch with him. The first time I saw his face and name, a flood of memories came back, and for a moment, I was transported back in time and once again felt all the insecure teen girl that I was, believing his cruel taunts. Now that I’ve seen him pop up a few more times, it is taking everything in me not to lash out at him and let him just how much he sucks/sucked. Part me fears that he would read it, sneer, and laugh out loud at the pain he caused. Another part of me thinks get over it, it’s been over twenty years, time to let it go. And, the last part of me thinks that it is time to quit Facebook altogether, feel blessed with the great friends I have and hold on to them tightly, rather than trying to rack up my friend numbers.

God I hate that jerk.