How do you like your steak or burger? Medium rare, well-done, or with a sharp jabby death spike hidden in the centre?
If you are using one of these bristle style BBQ cleaners to clean your grill, BBQ, or smoker, it's a very real possibility your next patio party will wrap up in an operating room, and no wine pairs well with that.
Parenting in the modern age presents many challenges (hello, Pokemon GO), but we often forget to think about all the great and new ways it makes our job as parents easier. People are, as a rule, generally glass half-empty thinkers, and it's hard to shake; after all, that's the thinking that kept us alive when large animals roamed the earth looking for snacks. And heaven forbid if your child lost a finger to a wooly mammoth's chomper, there was no doctor in sight, let alone one who accepted after hours email or did cave-calls.
I also sing in the car, at the grocery store, in line at the passport office, and while I am walking my dog. I sing in the school carpool, at my friends' houses, and in the stirrups at the doctor's office. It seems I sing everywhere but where one might normally sing, but it makes me happy and I have never been told to stop - yet.
Babies are cute and cuddly for a reason - and it's biological. Nature makes them adorable so we want to care for them; it's an aspect of our species survival and it's what makes it impossible to ignore chubby baby cheeks on a human, yet be able to walk straight past a newborn rat or brand-new puddle of wasp larvae.
However, once said babies are toddlers, those stinging wasps may make better company. If you have, had, or know toddlers, some of these experiences are going to look familiar.
I have spent the last three days engaged in a battle which has left me limp and broken.
My house has not seen the remains of war like this since the great "Shit, the Internet is Down" meltdown of ’13. It’s bad here, but I am hell-bent on winning. My enemy is a worthy opponent; small but steady. I’m taking them down quickly, but they have the advantage of a rapid reproductive system whereas I have two kids, a broken dishwasher, and I am tired.
Anyone who has been a parent longer than "sperm meets egg," knows there are certain job hazards which accompany the role. From the literal pains of labour and delivery to the pinching feel in your wallet when buying an infant car seat, parenting can be pretty painful. (Why are car seats like, $500 now? Is this thing rated for space travel? How is something not designed to actually drive itself, so expensive? Sorry, Junior, University is no longer an option; you had a car seat.")
I like vegetables and all, but let's face it: the more they taste like meat, the better.
And when it comes to chicken wings it is the hand-to-heaven truth that they are basically just a vehicle for delicious hot sauce and blue cheese to make it into your belly.
Kids learn a lot growing up; from birth until their early 20s their brains are literally information-seeking sponges. And while a lot of what they need to know to prepare for "the real world" after they leave home is taught in school during the course of the school year, there are so many other skills to learn — skills just as or even MORE valuable, I would argue — than plain old reading and math.
Eleven years-old is young — very young — and it's also when I got my first period. Besides the logistical nightmares it caused (I lived with just my single father), it wasn't too bad, all things considered. Of course, in my case, All Things Considered will be the title of my future memoir and shall include a chapter on how I would have rather been eaten by bears than ask my father for money for maxi pads.
Hey, moms! Are you sick of all the stupid movies where mothers are relegated to one of the three classic "Mom" character cinema tropes? You're either crazy psycho mom (um...Psycho), sexy and/or cool mom (Mean Girls, American Pie), or generic-bob-cut-in-a-cardigan-and-kahkis-mom. But now someone has had enough of that shit and built us a movie we can relate to, and that movie is Bad Moms.
Along with tens of thousands of other teenage girls, I loved Kirk Cameron in the 80s. (And to the likely dismay of Mr. Cameron, I'd venture a guess that many teenage boys set their Star Wars themed sheets afire with lust for him, also.) As the 80s wore on into the 90s and beyond, I changed. Growing Pains ended, I got older, and Kirk Cameron turned into a sexist wiener. Sunrise, sunset.
I’m a budget savvy gal — more from necessity than choice, but all the same, I like to do things as cheaply as possible. While certain items are easy to cut back on, like fresh vegetables or dental care, others are harder to eliminate from a modern lifestyle. Hair colouring, for instance. I am not quite ready to give into the grays, especially what with being so exhausted from my recent battle with the sags.
Bad habits are hard to break. I know this to be true because I have several (hundred) of them. Like talking too loudly to sometimes being abrasive and "bossy," and consuming way too much caffeine, to cutting my own hair every few months during hormone-fueled bouts of self-loathing. Oh, and I also don’t drink enough water.
I can't hear "Purple Rain" without remembering a darkened high school gym and the sweaty weight of a boy's 16 year-old hands resting on my 16 year-old ass.
Prince died this week. At 57, his life was unarguably short, and 57 is a number I can see from my windshield, just up ahead on the left of my next milestone birthday.
The snow has finally melted! We are saved! Spring hath not forsaken us, having kicked winter in the soft baby making part. The warmer weather and sunshine is bringing everything back to life, including weeds. Okay, maybe the snow wasn't so bad after all because it's only been warm for three days and somehow my patio and gardens are full of hard to control weeds already.
There's an old adage advising you to never meet your heroes. The reason they say that is because quite often your heroes turn out to be complete assholes.
And then where does that leave you? I'll tell you: It leaves you in the parking lot of an abandoned tire factory burning entire CD collections and boxes of novels.
