The Sugarplum Fairy bakes again!

I have a dual personality. My other persona is The Sugarplum Fairy. She bakes, she rolls pie crust, she delivers!

You see, I have my own little home-baking business where I do the work and customers eat the rewards. My business is called Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking and I've decided to dive back in this year after taking last year off (since we were living in another city with less than ample kitchen facilities for this kind of thing). However, this year I've decided to make some revisions to how I do things.

First, everything will be delivered frozen. This will allow me to accept orders up to a certain date and then bake for the two or so weeks following that and deliver everything at once. This way I'll actually be able to relax during the week or two before Christmas and really focus on my family. My other change will be how I deliver things. I didn't like the cake boxes I used last time from both an aesthetic and environmental perspective. So this year I'm offering to transfer the goodies into personal containers when I deliver them or to hand them over in Christmas tins or reusable Ziploc bags. I think this will work much better.

I just finished my 2010 Christmas price list. It's up on my Sugarplum Fairy blog right now. So, for anyone in the Ottawa area, if you don't like to bake or just don't have the time.... let me do it for you!

Feeling pink

One week.

One full week has passed since my last blog post.

That is not remarkable. What is remarkable is that it has only been a week because it has felt like A THOUSAND DAYS.

A thousand days filled with goo and blurry vision and itchy eyes.

That's right. Our house has been infiltrated. Infiltrated by conjunctivitis. Pink eye by another name.

Somehow we have avoided pink eye until now, six and a half years into this kid thing. I have no idea how we missed this swinging axe but we did.

But this week three of us have fallen. I am the one currently sporting the eyes that make me look like (a) I just had a wicked cry, (b) I was heavily in the sauce last night, or (c) I have pink eye.


This morning at church I was telling someone about Emily's ongoing issues with public performance and how she still often breaks down when confronted with having to stand in front of a crowd and do something (I've talked about this before here and while it is still an issue that we deal with, it is in fact getting better). The person who I was talking to gave me a shoulder squeeze and said "Oh, poor you... it's okay."

Which I thought was really nice, but sort of weird too.

And as I walked away it dawned on me that my flaming and drippy eyes totally made it seem as though I'd just spent the last 30 minutes crying, in fact sobbing uncontrollably, about the fact that my six-year-old wouldn't sing in the choir.

Um, yeah, so who looks like the weird one now? Yeah, that'd be me.

Oh, so the next question you are probably asking is why I was at church when I had a raging case of pink eye.

Because I've made it my mission this week to use my infectious family to spread the pink eye love all over Ottawa, THAT'S WHY!

Feathered friends post

I have my first post up at Kids in the Capital. Please go and have a read!

First taste

I realize that this week the blog has become a bit kid-centered (given that 2 out of my 3 posts are about the kids... that puts me at 66% kid posts). I hope to have other things to talk about next week.... but don't get your hopes up too much.

Anywho, Henry had his first solid (or at least, semi-solid) food tonight. He took to it like a house on fire. I dipped the spoon into the bowl of rice cereal/breastmilk and he lunged at that spoon like a fat kid on a Smartie. And that pretty much describes the way the rest of the bowl went down.

Going back to the dark ages

I have something to confess; something I've been thinking for a while but was a bit hesitant to admit to. Yesterday I embraced my feelings, my minority opinion and I'm putting it out there:

I don't like Twitter.

Yup, it's true.

I kind of feel leashed by it. As a blogger, I feel almost obligated to be involved, as though if I'm not tweeting through the evening or spending my time retweeting or responding to tweets or just reading tweets, then somehow I'm not really plugged into the whole blogging and social networking scene.

I've decided that I don't care.

For me the value of Twitter is finding out about interesting things going on in my city, keeping me up-to-date on current (very current) events (I found it invaluable on the night of the municipal election), knowing what close friends are up to (but really, I can just email or use Facebook for this, which I much prefer).

For the most part, Twitter makes me feel like the kid who shows up to a party and doesn't know anyone, or who no one really talks to; I spend my evening standing in the corner wondering how everyone knows one another, or what the heck they're talking about.

I spent enough time living that for real (as most people have) and don't enjoy reliving it as an adult when I'm confident enough in myself to say "smell ya later" and move on.

So, I'll continue to use it if I need to promote something or follow a current event or feel the need to have a laugh (I highly recommend Denis Leary's and Stephen Colbert's tweets). But beyond that, I'm pulling out. All done!

If you want to know what I'm up to, you can become my Facebook friend... or just email me... currently known as "the old-fashioned way."

Now that is something to make your head spin.

Faces

Look at these kids... are they not the cutest?

It was a Wiggly party!

So, you may remember that I mentioned that I WON TICKETS TO SEE THE WIGGLES! I was just a little bit excited. Really, still am a little bit.

The anticipation leading up to last Wednesday was formidable. We were all very. excited. Well, except John, who was just scared since he was tasked with looking after Henry for the 3 or so hours we were expected to be gone. That would likely require Henry to be fed. From a bottle. And that, my friends, is where the challenge lay.

However, as though the stars were aligned and it was all meant to be, things worked out perfectly.

First, the traffic was fine. Second, we found a great parking spot. Third, there was little merchandise for sale and therefore minimal whining about buying anything (which we didn't). Fourth, the Wiggles rocked the house! Fifth, the traffic home was actually okay, considering it was 4:00. Sixth, Henry slept and ate like a champ. Woot!

And now.... The Wiggles. They put on a great show. It's everything a fan would want: all the hits, some of the newer songs, all the characters you love, lots of funny banter, LOTS of time walking through the audience, reading the signs that kids wrote for them, picking up roses brought for Dorothy and bones for Wags. Lots of dancing. LOTS. These guys must be exhausted after the show. Especially Anthony who carried Dorothy around the entire audience and back onto the stage. That guy sweats a lot during a performance. There were lots of jokes just for the parents, which I appreciate. Jeff particularly wooed me with his Van Halen riff.

The show went on for about 1.5 hours. Both girls were tired by the end.

Had I actually had to pay for tickets, I would have declared it great value for money. And next time, assuming I don't win tickets again :), I will pay for tickets because it really was.