Confessions of a Half-Assed Blogger: Year-End Review

Deep Thoughts: 

2012 - It begins with a number 2 and ends with a number 2. I'm considering making bowel health a resolution -- wait, resolution is too strong a word. I'm considering considering bowel health this year. It would probably be less of a thing had I not begun a New Year's Eve tradition with the kids that they love sooooo much: fondue. Yup. First we had the cheese. Then we had the chocolate. The combination of flame, sharp-pointy sticks, and gooeyness held the children in reverent rapture. 

"It's like eating a grilled-cheese sandwich that's inside out!" remarked my 6-year-old. 

"OH MY GOD!" said my 3-year-old when he experienced banana dipped in molten chocolate.

Fondue is an occasion all on it's own.

There's something pretty special about eating a cup of cheese on New Year's Eve. Indeed, it turns a lady's thoughts to bowel health in the New Year.

Here is the best cheese fondue recipe EVER. 

Resolution:

Since it's the New Year and this is my New Year's blog post, I'm experiencing a kind of niggle that urges me to promise you I will blog more often and in a less-halfassed manner. But, dear Reader, I enjoy blogging half-assedely. And so my only bloggy resolve is to carry on just as half-assedly as before. 

You'd think I'd resolve to drink less wine. This was the year we discovered wine as a revelation of sorts. We've always had wine around the house. But 2011 -- oh ye burgundy-stained annum -- this is the year we discovered having a glass while making dinner, a glass with dinner, and finishing the bottle and opening another one after the kids are tucked in bed. Then there's an uncorked bottle on the counter when you go to make dinner the next night, see? Don't think bottles of wine, people, think cases of wine. 

Like I said, you'd think I'd resolve to drink less, but all there is in our hearts is the promise of drinking more and better wine and learning more about it. Well wine is awfully trendy right now, isn't it? We're on that wagon. That bandwagon I mean. We're not on that other wagon. We're off that wagon with no intentions of ever jumping on.

Here is the best wine writer EVER: Canada's Natalie MacLean, a sommelier for the people.

2011 - WTF?

This is the year my two babies morphed into a toddler and a pre-schooler. Not having two under two is much, much, much easier than having two under two. Don't try this at home, peeps, just take my word for it. Instead of having two in diapers, I have one in diapers. And she won't be much longer in them. Instead of having two toddlers bolting off in different directions at the same time, I only have one stealth-runner to cut off at the pass.

"Stay right here while I get your sister," I tell my middle child, and he does. Phew. No need for those leashes I purchased at MEC immediately after a crying jag at my daughter's kindergarten. She wasn't crying, I was, because my son had bolted while I was chasing the littlest one and I couldn't find him anywhere and the oldest one was meowing at me. He had to be rescued by  all those daddies who stand around checking their smart-phones and looking disinterested while picking up their kids. Actually, they are paying attention and if you cry they will help you. Anyhoo, no more tears of frustration because of the bolting. I shouldn't be declaring "no more tears of frustration" in such a public manner because that's just begging the gods of parenting to throw some challenge my way that will utterly crush me. But, well, you know. We all make rookie mistakes sometimes.

It's not a leash, it's a backpack.

Psssst.... it's totally a leash. Unless you've had 2 under 2, don't even think about judging me.

This is also the year that, since my baby turned two, I've kind of settled into stay-at-home mother as an occupation. Like before now I kind of thought of it as an unpaid mat leave. But, um, yeah. I'm a stay-at-home mom. Why is this so hard to type out loud? Hmmm... another half-assed post for another half-assed morning.

I simply must update my blogger profile so it doesn't say I live underneath a pile of babies. Because it's a pile of small children now. Which is both much more vigorous (I'm run off my feet) and in so many ways, much more bearable.

Favourite Song of 2011:

It's Andrew Bird covering Kermit the Frog. Yup. Swells my heart to utter fullness with sweetness and longing.

Most Popular Post:

I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let's just say a lot of people google "Uterine Orgasm." And also the whacktivists of  the HERS foundation are indefatigable. These two sentences alone will probably trip their Google alerts and unleash a flurry of comments about ugh... I don't want to talk about it anymore. 

Suffice it to say women aren't supposed to discuss healing from a difficult surgery out loud on the internet -- there's a whole foundation dedicated to shutting us the hell up and insisting we aren't real women and we might not know how ruined we are because we can't think straight without our uterus. They don't see themselves as anti-women, they see themselves as anti-hysterectomy and very pro-woman. But their miserable, ill-concieved, un-scientific, hateful methods are deeply, deeply anti-woman. I give up trying to educate them about why they shouldn't act like such assholes on the internet. Still. I can tell by my stats that women who need to read my post do. And that does make me feel good.

Stop hovering like that. 

Least Popular Post:

The one about the scotch tape ball. Whaaaaat? Shuddup.

Thing I Most Love About You:

I don't lack for connections. I have a loving husband, three children, and a fine dog. Mammalian contact -- I've got it in spades. But he's at work all day and I'm a stay-at-home mom. They are 6 and under and the hairy one is, you know, a dog. So sometimes, conversationally, intellectually, I feel a want. When I go to the internet I'm often looking for an intellectual connection and I find one. I love that. Thanks for being there.

With love,

Betsy