I was in the Caribbean

Or at least that is what someone next to me said he felt like last Sunday, as we walked passed the man selling coconuts – in his business casual attire, no less.

My sister felt like she needed one, so she braved the long lines and emerged successful and happy!

I decided to have rice and peas and fish, maybe it was the Jamaican book I was reading, or maybe it was because the smell was really good!

My sons felt strongly about having mangoes and watermelon, and I thought “dude, we can buy these things in the grocery store!”, although the mango was the best thing I ever tasted, like evah! Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but the mango was so yum that my 4 year old and I had a small fight over it, I won’t tell you who won, but somewhere along the way I convinced him that I had to hold it, lest it fall and neither of us get any! I am not certain that his reaction could be interpreted accurately!

Finally, we thought that the roast corn looked pretty good.

My almost 6 year old swore that it was the best thing that he has, like evah! But I must say that it was quite fabulous tasting roast corn – not hard, flavourful, still somewhat juicy – good stuff.

There was also a pirate-looking ship, complete with a very loud cannon sound, which sort of came without warning and scared almost everyone.

But if you noticed that we were like 5 minutes away from the CN Tower, then you probably realized that we were not in the Caribbean, but at the Hot and Spicy Food Festival, where I waited by this sign for like 20 minutes and no one showed up!

So sad!

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The Pirate’s Daughter - ok, so maybe I’ll become an “avid” reader yet!

I just finished another book – it took me 2 weeks, like a normal person, and I did find it relaxing! Yey, right?!

The story was based in Jamaica, and you’ve got to love the use of the word broughtupsy in a novel! I can’t be certain that I did not enjoy it more because of the many West Indian references, but I did find that it was an escape from my life and I looked forward to reading it on my train rides. The descriptions of the island and people were really vivid and her analogies were really interesting!

Anyone read it? What did you think?

Since the whole reading thing is going so well, I got Dear John today, which is sort of timely, as it is somewhat based around 9/11 – I am not sure really, since I only read 1 chapter so far – I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Adjusting to full-time, working outside of the home life

It’s not easy!

When I accepted a job in May, it meant that I would no longer be the work-at-home mom, it meant that, in addition to the things that I already had to do at home, I had to also schedule in 9 – 10 hours away from the house and my kids. I applied for only one job, a job that I knew would be very little stress, that is with a not-for-profit, where the timing is very flexible, where my boss is very understanding, and while I do enjoy the work and workplace, it pays me less than half of my normal hourly rate.

I really needed to work away from my home back then, for many reasons, and it was a blessing to get the exact conditions that I was looking for, and so I do not regret the decision. However, it is not ideal, and though “ideal” is probably never really attainable, I would have to say that I much prefer being a work-at-home mom.

I miss being with my kids every morning, I miss having time to spend with them, even if it was a bit stressful trying to manage my work efficiently while simultaneously trying to entertain 3 little boys. It seems like laundry is a never-ending battle, my room looks like it just heaved every single item of clothing from the house onto the floor, and the rest of the house is a complete disaster – although, this may or may not have been the situation even when I was working from home!

Scheduling has turned out to be a bit of a crisis, somehow it seems that “the man” always has the more important meetings, more important activities, more important engagements – well, you get the idea, but it makes me want to cry sometimes, just the shear insanity almost of trying to get everyone where the need to be, on time, happy, and still manage to not lose my own mind!

It’s a bit overwhelming, I am discovering, to try to manage everything. If you’re working outside the home and caring for a bunch of kids – how do you manage? Or even if you don’t – I need some help people – talk to me!

please

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Speedlinking… because I, personally, don’t have much to say

If you still have a week of summer left before school, you can do these interesting crafts with the kids – make pencil cases from old juice boxes and create felt monsters from kids drawings (I personally think this is an amazingly cool idea!)

Here are some unique ideas for places to get married, I always wanted to get married on a beach, well actually, more like a mountain that overlooked the ocean, how about you?

I wish that I could be here right now!

Finally, and a little removed from the rest of articles here, Willow has a really excellent post about Muslims, offense, and reacting like normal people, I know nothing about the author, the book, or the specific issue, but I totally agree with this post.

Happy Friday!

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Umbrella phobia

Is there a name for that? What do you think it should be called? Umbraphobia?

So, it’s been raining a fair bit here in Toronto, and naturally, there have been a lot of umbrellas around the place, apparently as people tend to carry them when it rains, which made me realize, now that I work outside of my house again, that I have an irrational fear of umbrellas! Well, it’s not so much a “fear”, as it is a “dislike”.

I was going to lunch one rainy day with a couple co-workers, one of whom had an umbrella, and being the lovely person that she is, she offered to share it with me and moved it a little over me, but being the weirdo that I am, I freaked out and immediately rushed out from under the “great big thing that blocks out the sky and makes you feel like you’re in a tiny little world without any air”, or the umbrella – whatever you want to call it, and it was at that moment I realized that perhaps there was something slightly wrong with me.

Anyway, my point is that I am not an umbrella person, and umm, clearly I have may some issues!

Do you have umbraphobia too? By any chance? So I can seem somewhat normal?

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