I've moved....

To a new blog.

You can now find me and all my madness at

The Blog of Cindy Rule

So come on by now!!

You may actually enjoy yourself.

Here's to being whatever version of awesome you think suits you,

Cin

I'm Awesome Because...I've become a Doctor Who fan.

Ok, let's face it. (and hello!) Fan is too short a word to describe my love of the Doctor. I'm just going to have to go all out and use the word FANATIC. If I was a teenager I would have Doctor posters all over my room, but since I'm forty and married, I've resisted the urge. Instead, I've settled for Doctor Who bedsheets.

No, not really.

And let's be honest here, being a Doctor Who fan doesn't make me awesome, it makes me about the same as thousands, if not millions of other people around the world.

If you too are fan (or a fanatic) of Doctor Who then you are fully aware that Matt Smith, the lovely and  charmingly amusing, sometimes bumbling, often awkward, always brilliant eleventh Doctor is hanging up his bow tie on the wall of the TARDIS and come December he will regenerate, we will welcome the next Doctor. The big question is, of course, who will be the next Doctor?

My daughter shares my love and devotion to the show and we were discussing that very question a few days ago. Now, ever since Matt Smith took over the role of the Doctor, the popularity of the show has grown in North America (perhaps this is due to it airing on BBC America, but don't quote me).

What follows next is the conversation, as near as I can remember, that we had regarding the big question.

Daughter: "Who do think they'll cast as the next Doctor?"

Me: "I've no idea. Now that it's popular over here, I hope they don't decide to cast someone famous who isn't good for the role, but who is super popular enough as to ensure their ratings up will stay up."

Daughter: "Like who?"

Me: "Oh, I don't know…oh you know what would be awesome is if the Doctor regenerated into a boy band! Like One Direction!" (and when I said awesome I meant it ironically. I'm not against One Direction, I'm just not their target market.)

And then…as if I had been knocked over sideways by the red phone booth the One Direction boy wonders are clambering all over on the cover of their latest CD (yes they still have CD's!) I was suddenly flooded with the inspiration for a parody song about Doctor Who BASED on their song "That's What Makes You Beautiful."

I could now go on and about my process, but instead, I'll just post the video.

 Best Thumbnail Picture Ever!

Now how about that? If you're not a fan of Doctor Who, you probably think I've lost it (or even if you are fan, chances are you think I may have issues) but, let me assure you, I'm not the only one who has chosen to set their musical abilities to the Doctor. No, no! If you actually go to You Tube and type in "Bow Ties Are Cool" hundreds -no, no -thousands of videos with that title will come up! And while many of them are clips from the show where Matt Smith expresses his love for his bow tie, many, many of them are songs about the Doctor and his bow tie and other things related to charming Doctorness. 

I bid you a hearty Allons-y

and a hope that you will get there and get Awe-some.

Cin

Sharpness in the Key of Awesome

Hello Blog Fans

It has been some time since I did anything so awesome that it deserved an epic entry and, when you think about it, that is a good thing. BUT in every life, some rain must fall...or in my case, good judgment goes out for a smoke break.

I'm not that big into makeup, but I am into big makeup. By this I mean I love a stick of makeup that can double as eyeshadow and eyeliner. Do any of you remember a Cover Girl campaign a few years back where smiley faced, clear skinned girls held up their hands to the camera and said "5 minutes!"? They were implying that when you apply your makeup, this is how long it should take at the most. Well, for me 5 minutes is too long. If I take 5 minutes to do my makeup it's because I've either fallen asleep against the mirror, or I've done something really awesome like, cut my finger on the pencil sharper I bought to sharpen my extra large eyeshadow/eyeliner pencil.

You may be thinking, why go to all this trouble? Why bother with makeup at all if 5 minutes is too long a time for facial maintenance and injury lies around every glamour inducing corner? I'll tell you why...death warmed over. I don't have naturally radiant, winter white glowing skin that needs no makeup to look healthy and alive. I have the pasty face goodness rivaled only by walking dead creatures known as zombies. So, it's not vanity really, but a process I use almost daily to avoid questions by family, friends and strangers about the state of my well being.

But I digress...

This entry is supposed to be about my awesomeness + pencil sharpener...not a look into my psychological need not be asked if I've been to a doctor lately.

Quite a few weeks back, I bought a lovely eyeliner/eye shadow pencil from Avon.(Celadon Green if you're curious) It did what I hoped it would do.It brought my maintenance time down even more and nearly erased my oh so chic sunken winter look. However, once it became flat headed and needed sharpening, I realized I didn't have a sharpener big enough for said pencil. So, I went out and purchased one at a giant retail outlet and when I got home I went about sharpening my pencil for another round of my hurried face regime. It did the job quickly and I was satisfied with the result except for the fact that the eye makeup is stickier than say, a pencil crayon and it left a fair amount of green goo stuck on the blade. So what did I do? I wiped it off. Yip, without giving it a cautious thought I ran my right index finger down the near razor sharp blade and pulled back a green and red digit. Oooweee...that not so smart maneuver really did well...smart! It bled through a couple of plain bandages, but fortunately like the last time I came up against a pencil sharper (see Awesome blog entry from Dec 2009) Batman saved the day. (I apologize, but this time I have no picture to post).

All this being said, this finger slicing moment brought on by not thinking about what I was doing, reminded me of a time I did something similar and even though at the time I knew it was foolish and would probably hurt myself, I did it anyway.

When Sorcha was a wee one she watched a lot of CBC kids and was always thrilled when Patty, the very likable host, put on her fireman's hat. Sorcha, like many a 3 year old had one too and would run and get it to wear it along with Patty. However, the silly thing didn't fit quite right and would always fall off her head. I, being a somewhat resourceful woman, decided to put a string on the thing to stop the whining - I mean to help keep it on her head. I told Sorcha my plan and went to the kitchen to put holes in the flimsy plastic where I would then insert yarn for the tying on all would be right in the world.

I went to the counter and grabbed a knife from the block and got to work. Now, as I mentioned earlier, as I stood at the sink, trying to work the rather sharp steak knife into the shiny red hat, it crossed my mind that what I was doing probably wasn't the brightest thing I'd ever attempted and that I should probably stop or I would cut myself. It even crossed my mind that perhaps I should at least put the hat on a cutting board and not be attempting to put a hole in it while holding it in mid air...

Did I stop? Are you kidding? Of course not! I must have felt a lesson in the air because I went on with my foolishness! With much pushing and a little cursing, the knife finally went through the hat's brim and then deftly cut the side of my index finger on left hand. I dropped the knife and hat into the sink and grabbed a lot of paper towel. The pain was present and grew rabidly, but at first all I felt was a sort of dull, cool numbness and a whole lot of stupid. While squeezing the life out of my finger to stop the bleeding, Sorcha came in to see what was taking me so long.

The conversation, to the best of my recollection, went like this:

"Mummy, have you fixed my hat?"

"Not yet...I had a bit of an accident."

"But I want my hat back!"

"Sweetie, Mummy cut her finger so you're going to have to wait."

"But I want my hat!"

"Ok, you want to see why Mummy isn't done fixing your hat? Here!"

And it was then, in a moment of frustration brought on by pain and stupidity, that I shoved my bloody digit into her wee face for her to witness up close exactly why there was a holdup on her hat fixing situation was. She screamed...and ran away...I sighed and got some more paper towel. It wasn't my proudest parenting moment, no one barged in on my life lesson and gave me a "Mother of the Year" award, but it sure got the point across and she didn't bug me about the whereabouts of her hat again. The best part was that when I went back to examine the surgery on the hat, it proved to be botched; instead of putting a simple hole in it, I'd actually just sliced clean through the brim. I later had to tape it and make another hole, but by then I'd wised up and instead made Sorcha's hat user friendly by making holes for string with a one hole punch instead of a knife.

The cut on my finger from the pencil sharpener has healed and left no visible mark. However, I do have a faint scar on my finger from the "hat incident" which is probably for the best. Whenever I notice it I'm reminded that while I may not always be the sharpest knife in the drawer, at least I am one of the most awesome.

I remain as ever,

Cinfully Awesome

Classical Gas

I have a statement to make and a question to ask. My statement, I love getting gas! And by that I mean filling up the car with such fuel, not tummy gas which is horrid and no fun for anyone. To me getting gas spells freedom. Getting gas means I can drive. I’ve only had my license for 3 years and perhaps this is why driving for me is still an exercise in excitement. I can go anywhere, anytime without having to depend on anyone. It is a beautiful feeling of independence matched only by thrill of paying my bills on time.

My question, why is spilling stuff on yourself so embarrassing? I can only assume that in most cases the spilling was not intentional, yet doing so usually brings on red faced stammering at a rapid pace.

Yesterday while spelling freedom at the pumps, I spilled freedom all over myself. I’m not even sure exactly how it happened. One second I heard the “click” noise from the pump announcing that it was all done and the next second I heard a “blorp” noise from the tank as it burped up about a cup of noxious fuel on my shirt and shorts. (I was wearing one of my favoured black T-shirts and of course, my favourite pair of shorts. Sigh…)

I managed to stifle the swearing to a dull roar (my daughter was in the car) and instead of heading out to the mall as soon as I’d filled up, we made a trip back home so I could relieve myself of the smelly garments that showcased to the world that I LOOKED as though I’d relieved myself.

Now, the independent gas slopping experience was not exactly embarrassing per say. It didn’t happen in crowd, it didn’t happen in front a boy I really liked and it didn’t happen without the ability to change quickly into new cloths. It did however, bring back memories of a time when as embarrassing as the situation already was, I wish I really had spilled stuff all over my pants instead of what really happened.

Years ago, when I was but a youngin’ at David Cameron Elementary school, I had a very intense crush on a boy in my class who shall remain, as to not drag him down with me, JP. That year in school, he sat behind me. We chatted a lot, he let me borrow his cool pen that had an eraser that looked like tooth brush bristles and a couple times, JP even let me borrow his jacket. (These were clues that I wrote down in my diary as to why I truly believed he “liked” me.) Above all else, he made me laugh a lot.

At my elementary school, we ate in our classrooms as we didn’t have a cafeteria. One lunch time near the end of the year, after most of the kids had quickly eaten and left to go play as it was a nice day and they wanted to get outside as soon humanly possible, myself, JP and a girl we’ll call AB were the only 3 left in the classroom along with the teacher on lunch duty whom for some reason, was relaxing in our teacher’s chair. (Perhaps we were the only 3 kids left upstairs. Up until this moment I’ve never thought to really wonder why she was sitting there. Usually the teacher on duty popped in, made sure you weren’t dueling with various forms of food or school supplies and left.) I was sitting in my desk, JP was sitting behind me in his desk and AB was standing beside me drinking a Pepsi. I didn’t have a lot of cola back in the day and asked AB if I could have a sip of her Pepsi, an ill fated request on my behalf.(…cue doom music…) At the moment I took a large gulp from the can, JP chose to say something uproarious (who knows what…he said it so even if it was only a tiny bit funny, all things said by a boy you have a crush on are 100 times funnier then when someone you don’t like says them.) and I spit ALL of the Pepsi out of my mouth onto his desk. He jumped back before it ran down his desk and onto his lap, before it dropped a wet spot on his front that would mark him as someone who’d soiled themselves, as I broke into a fit of hysterical laughter brought on by JP’s wit and by what I’d just done. Unfortunately, my loud guffaws were not the only thing that signaled how funny I thought the whole situation was. While AB, JP and even the teacher on duty continued to laugh, my giggles quickly died out as I tried desperately to stop…well…you can guess what I had done can’t you? Yes, I had peed my pants. PEED my pants in front of JP! I was needless to say, horrified. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t know what to do. It gets foggy here, but I think the teacher ran and got some paper towel and as the desk was mopped up I came up with my brilliant plan. I was wearing dark jeans and I guess assumed the stain wouldn’t be too obvious unless someone looked closely, but I knew I could not get way with wearing the pants for the rest of the day. I’d so far avoided being “the stinky kid” in class and wanted to keep it that way. I stood up and boldly announced to JP and AB that I’d not only spit Pepsi on JP’s desk, but also down the back of my chair and had also got it all over the back of my pants. Therefore, the only thing I could do was change into my gym shorts. They thankfully bought this lame tale and when they left to go outside, I went to the bathroom to clean us as best I could and change out of my soiled pants.

Once outside of course, I caused quite a stir. No one wore their gym shorts unless it was gym! I explained the situation, with downcast eyes and a red face, and hoped that no one would guess the truth. Lunch time ended and thinking that the worst part of my day was over I headed back to our classroom. I had a bit of spring in my step because I’d gotten away with a ridiculous lie and when it came time for gym that afternoon, I’d be half way ready for class. However, the day got worse.

That afternoon, yes I got to go to the gym and hang out in my gym shorts, but not for gym class. Instead we had an assembly in the gym to give out badges for the “Canada Fitness Awards”. What I’ve neglected to mention until now is that I hated my gym shorts. Those of you who were in elementary school in the early 80’s may remember the fad of fuzzy shorts. Fuzzy shorts were elastic waisted, white trimmed shorts that were made of a towel like material that were very snug and everything you sat on, or walked near or thought about stuck to them. I had 2 pairs and “glory be” that day because I got to dawn, not my red ones, but my bright yellow pair in front of the entire school. I sat on the cold, squeaky floor and felt sick. I prayed that I wasn’t stinky, desperately wished I’d had time to pick all the burrs and grass off my shorts and waited for the dreaded moment when my name would be called.

Even if I hadn’t pissed myself and been forced to wear horrid gym shorts in public on purpose, this assembly would have been awful. I’ve never been good at the “Flex Arm Hang” or the “Shuttle Run”. In general, the Canada Fitness Tests always proved to me and the world that anything in my life that turned out to be remotely athletic would be an undertaking in humiliation for myself and my parents. When the moment I’d been loathing happened, my already embarrassed being flooded with red hot shame as I rose to go to the front of the gym to collect my Participation Award. That’s right; I performed so badly at the tasks set out by the powers that be that came up with the “Canada Fitness Test” that I didn’t even merit or deserve a Bronze badge. To get a Bronze badge instead of Silver, Gold or the higher than Gold badge, the “Award of Excellence” was humiliating enough. But to be called up for basically a token award because they felt like they should give you something for “trying your best at sucking”, was indescribably embarrassing. As I stood in front of the entire school body and staff, in my knee high socks and short sleeve white blouse decorated with wee hearts on it tucked into my fuzzy yellow finery decorated in bits of garden parts, I wanted to cry. The day had gone from bad to worse, to bone crushing embarrassment. I refused to make eye contact with my snickering teacher, I wouldn’t look at the crowd of puzzled faces and I couldn’t gaze with pride at my lame award. Even at the time I knew that this moment, this day would be the measuring stick against which I would measure all my future embarrassing occurrences.

So as I stood at the pump, cursing the gas on my non fuzzy shorts, I remembered my classic tale of spillage and thought “Well, that is something for the awesome blog!”

When a tale goes from being “embarrassing” to being “awesome” it’s a good thing.
Much like getting gas, it spells freedom.


Here's to awesome spills,
C

Sticks and Balls Will Break My Fall...but Awesome Never Eludes Me.

Hello to all my blog fans

It's been a few weeks since I've posted on this here blog and really, that's not such a bad thing. My not having anything to write about on my Awesome Blog means that I’ve been kind of dull and not injured myself or done anything weird in the last while…that is until yesterday.

First up though…a wee bit of context. A few weeks back, we three took a quick trip to Moncton. For those of you not familiar with New Brunswick geography (And that’s ok. I’m not judging! When Sean applied for a job here in Miramichi, we had to look it up on a map…not New Brunswick…Miramichi. I did pay SOME attention in school.) Moncton is about 90min south of Miramichi. It’s the equivalent amount of time (just time, not distance) that it use to take Sean to drive from Coquitlam,BC to North Vancouver,BC during rush hour(s) for a pest control job. Anyway, we went to Moncton because Sorcha had a gift card to use at Chapters and Sean wanted to go to a comic book shop and we had a gift card for restaurants that are in Moncton but not in Miamichi. Now, Sorcha has a lot of books. Loads of books! She’d recently received 19 novels for Christmas so she decided that instead of buying MORE books she would use her gift card and some of her Christmas money to purchase a play set called “Crazy Forts”. It’s a set of 44 plastic sticks and 25 balls and you use these to create overly delicate forts that will collapse if spoken to in a mean way. “Just add bed sheets for hours of endless fun!” is what the box and website claim. I can think of a lot more fun things to do involving bed sheets that don’t involve sticks and balls. Oh wait…

Anyway, I knew doom was around the corner with the purchase of this precarious box of fun, but it’s what Sorcha really wanted AND she was using her own money. I could see looming before me, on a large granite slab the 10 or more things I would end up saying to Sorcha when she played with this new toy: “It’s never as easy as it looks on the box.” “You’ll have to patient and try again…” and pithier parent advice along these lines.

Because I’m not a complete ogre I helped Sorcha make her first fort. Actually, I made it while Sorcha stood on the side lines and said things like “Oh no!” whenever the stick came out of the ball…or a wall fell over…or I had to start again because the ball, which has about 12 holes in it for many angled uses, wasn’t lined up correctly making it impossible to line it up with the next stick needed to make the bloody roof. Eventually, I sent Sorcha upstairs for her shower and I constructed a fort of sorts. I put bed sheets over it and blankets and was quite pleased with the result. Sorcha too was quite please with it and played in it at least once before she took it apart a couple weeks later to make her own creation; which she did with out one noise or one cry of anguish. I actually didn’t even know she was making a fort until she called me down to show me what she’d created. She had a made tunnel. It was small, but she could squeeze in. All seemed right in the world of “crazy forts” and I thought perhaps I’d misjudged Sorcha and that maybe the only doom around the corner was of my own mental doing.

However, she did eventually accidentally collapse the tunnel and tears of defeat were present as was much stomping and “I worked so hard!” shouts from the basement. I consulted my granite slab for what to say and shouted “You’ll just have to build it again!” Very helpful and wise am I. The tunnel lay in pieces all week until yesterday morning when an attempt at a new structure was carried out. Halfway through, one of the sticks came out of one balls and it went down. Tears, “Do it again”, “This is a very delicate structure” followed. When I got home from work yesterday, I decided to help Sorcha finish her latest structure. She was attempting basically what to become a large box, with only 3 sides so that she could get in and out of the box. After completing the walls, and all was looking dandy, all that needed to be built was the roof. I went into the box and we hooked up the right amount of balls and sticks across the top the prevent collapse and in the process of doing so, I roofed myself into a corner. “Hmmm” I said and looked around my tight squeeze for a way to exit gracefully and with out damage to the new masterpiece of “crazy fort” fun. The exit out was neither graceful nor damage free; it was disaster…NO, NO…it was awesome. As I ducked out of the hole in the roof I lost my balance, teetered for a second on my weak ankles and fell sideways onto the left wall. This created a cataclysmic domino effect and the entire structure fell on me, under me and around me. I felt a pain on my left elbow as I crashed onto a stick and ball (and found out later that I’d actually snapped the stick leaving part of it in the ball) and pain in my back as I landed on a ball. I, as I usually do when I injure myself, laughed heartily. Sorcha however, had no compulsion to do this and instead cried “Oh no! Not again! I worked so hard on this! This isn’t funny!” As I lay there in a heap of “crazy fort” goodness, the laughter quickly turned to anger and in a very mature fashion I said something along the lines “Thanks Sorcha! I’m in pain here and all you care about is that your fort is broken!” I untangled myself from the mess and went upstairs to sulk. Sorcha followed me up to the kitchen and apologized over and over again. (This actually made me feel worse instead of better. I mean, I was 8 once and I probably would have reacted the same way. Slap stick is usually lost on little girls especially when something they care about in involved.) She earnestly said that it was OK and asked if I could please help her build a new one? I told her to go down stairs and start it again and I would be down when I wasn’t upset any more.

After I assessed that my wounds weren’t life threatening, I trudged down to the basement and together we recreated the box like structure (complete with bed sheets for hours of fun!) that happily this morning is still standing. This time we built roof by standing outside the structure (“Learn from your mistakes” it says on the granite slab of parent wisdom) which worked much better. Half way through the rebuilding Sorcha said to me “Mummy! Thank-you so much for breaking my fort! This time I’m building it more carefully! It will be stronger now!” It was an odd compliment but a sincere and heartfelt one so I just took it in stride. I mean I truly feel I do the awesome things I do to create life lesson moments for those around me. And clearly, the life lesson here is “Sticks and balls will break my fall, and my Awesomeness will help my daughter build stronger forts.” Lucky girl.

Shaven...Not Stirred.

I am an AWESOME speller and by AWESOME, I mean TERRIBLE. I'm a big fan of dictionaries and of spell check. These handy tools alert me to grievous errors (sometimes) and help prevent potential embarrassment due to my lack of spelling savvy. What they don't do is stop me from typing too fast. When it comes to my blog entries and long pieces of writing I tend to carefully examine my work and correct all of my mistakes before I set it free for public scrutiny. I usually catch most of my spelling errors and most of my correctly spelled, but mistyped and therefore wrong, words. When it comes to typing a quick email however, I am less diligent in my checking and too often send out a hastily typed email riddled with spelling errors, grammatical errors or in the case of an email I sent to a friend of mine yesterday, a typo that had hilarious results. I'm not sure I'm being entirely clear...I had a horrible sleep last night and not even coffee has cleared the cobwebs. I'll give you an example of what I'm writing about that isn't something I did, but is still completely awesome. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless in case he'd prefer not have his name attached to his awesome event, after sending in a resume and cover letter to a particular company realized too late that he had written in the cover letter that he had "...a goo eye for detail." Wonderful! The spell check didn't catch the mistake because "goo" is correct and I find when you are proof reading your work quickly your brain will often fill in the correct spelling for you. You think you've spelled "good" so your brain will agree with you. OK, let's move on.

On January 2ND, and those of you who are Miramichiers will already know this so bare with me, a place called The Opera House burned down. It's tragic really because it was a very old building, and had a lot of history. It actually use to be an opera house and in later years was turned into a restaurant and night club. Many of the people I have befriended in the past few years grew up in Miramichi and have many tales of debauchery involving The Opera House. I however, only went there once for dinner, and as it was a quiet Thursday evening, did not partake in any party shenanigans. When I heard about the fire, I was sad for the loss of a very historical building AND because I had actually planned on going there for my birthday next month. I love dancing and haven't been in years and thought it was high time I experienced a night of painful regret at The Opera House. I sent an email to my friend Theresa telling her this and ended my paragraph of sadness with " Guess we'll have to find some where else to shake our groove thangs..." or at least that's what I thought I wrote...

Theresa sent me an email back later in the day that began with this sentence; "hahaaaaaaaaaa 'shave our groove thangs'..wow that's incredible. I love it." Oh...my...stars...I'd typed SHAVE instead of SHAKE and that gave the sentence a whole new meaning. I was on the phone with my sister-in-law Tina when I discovered my awesome typo and I was laughing so hard I was crying. It really conjured up some beautiful imagery! There we all were, on the dance floor of The Opera House SHAVING our groove thangs! (Just to be clear I spelled thing THANG on purpose) It really gives the song "Shake your groove thang!" an interesting twist if you replace "shake" with "shave" don't you think? Tina asked me how I even managed to make such an error? OK, right now, I want you to look down at your keyboard and note where the "K" is and where the "V" is...they aren't even close to each other! I type as I learned in school (hands start on the "home row" and go from there) and therefore I type "K" with my right hand and "V" with my left! What was I thinking??? How did I manage an error this awesomeness?? A mystery for the ages to be sure. Whatever the answer, however you choose to solve the puzzle, the result of my hastily typed email still has me giggling when I think of it.

Now everyone, get out there "Shave, Rattle and Roll" where ever you feel the need to do so. No doubt it will have awesome results.

I remain,
as ever,
Cinfully Awesome.

Stuffed With Awesome Part Two

Hello Folks!

As promised, I have returned shortly after my last post to bring you Part Two of my holiday awesomeness. Unfortunately for those of you who enjoyed my "drawings" so much, there will not be any for this blog...awww....I know...much sadness...However, I do have photos!

Ok, so on Christmas Eve, I got off work early, did some last minute shopping and before we went to Mass at 4:00, I decided to do some baking! I was in a hurry...running around, getting out this, losing track of that and at one point I was in our dining area unwrapping something and talking at a brisky pace to Sean about something droll no doubt when the awesomeness occurred. I threw the wrapping in the garbage, turned to say something else to Sean, and smashed my finger into a pencil sharper that is on a shelf beside the garbage can! Please see exhibit "A" below.



And when I say smashed I mean smashed! I looked down at the middle knuckle on my pointer finger on my right hand and holy lipton! I was bleeding...a lot. I'd taken off a fair few layers of my pasty white (oh...that's mean..."Winter" white) skin and it was stinging like a thing-bee! I whined...only a bit and showed Sean who just shook his head and gave me the "You really should be more careful Dear" look. Sad to say folks, but he has this look down to a science! I went to the bathroom and put a band aid on the silly "scratch" only to have to replace the band aid with a new one a few minutes later because the first one had bled right through! Please see exhibit "B" below to see who was the one to bring comfort to my poor digit.




He's a little blurry...can you make him out? That's right! It was Batman! The Dark Knight himself brought sealed comfort to my poor finger. He told me to stand tall and go on and bake those butter tarts like a true Super Hero! (or like Alfred who probably bakes butter tarts for Batman after he's had a hard night of crime fighting.) I felt very brave and bat-like as I went on with my baking and didn't let injustice stand in my way as I broke my knife while cutting butter! And only paused for a moment to stop myself from slapping myself while I put 1.5 tablespoons of vinegar in the butter tarts instead of only the required 1.5 TEASPOONS. I did Batman proud I think. However, I could, hear him curse me quietly when I winced later whilst doing the dishes...BUT...I digress...

So, yes, with my He-Man Strength, I snapped a knife while cutting butter. See exhibit "C" below.



In my defence the butter was right out of the fridge AND the knife was one from a set Sean and I got for our wedding some 12 years ago and had been well used over those 12 years. That kind of awesomeness could happen to anyone EVEN Batman (or Alfred). And the overdosing of vinegar to the tart batter didn't do as much harm as you may think. I added a bit more of this...a little more of that and BOOM!! My mistake designed in my awesome depths was fixed. The Butter tarts were a masterpiece of baking.

You are probably overwhelmed now by my Christmas Eve of Awesome, but I need to leave you with one more holiday story. I'm sorry to say there are not even photos to go along with this story, but I dare say that if you try hard enough, you could conjure up the image of a bag of dried cranberries from the Bulk Barn in your head easily enough to enjoy the story to its fullest.

I went to said Bulk Barn the weekend before Christmas to pick up ingredients for baking and what not. I also picked up some cranberries for Sorcha as she enjoys them with Cheerios on Sunday mornings while reading in bed. On the first Monday of Christmas holidays though I gave her, for a wacky change of pace, a bowl of Cheerios and Cranberries with MILK on them for breakfast. For a few minutes she munched away thoughtfully and then politely turned to me and said, "Mummy...my cranberries taste spicy." Actually what they tasted like was poultry seasoning. See upon returning from the BB I neglected to fully unpack the bag and the dried cranberries were left to get all snuggy against the bag of poultry seasoning for a few days and absorb their poultry spicy goodness. Awesome yes? HOWEVER...these fine dried berries did not go to waste. Since they were already seasoned with spice fit for Christmas, I simply used them in a stuffing that required poultry seasoning and BOOM!!! They blended perfectly. So I turned awesome silliness into AWESOME Stuffing and created much happiness for myself and others!!!

And that my friends wraps up what will be my last post of the year. May your New Year's Eve be awesome free, but if it is not, don't feel ashamed to share it with everyone!!

Happy New Year to all!
I remain,
as ever,
Cinfully Awesome

Stuffed with Awesome Part One

Seasons Greetings All!

I trust you've had and are still having a jolly holiday season? Well, if you're feeling a bit of the ol'holiday blues, perhaps because you didn't get what you were hoping for or perhaps because you ate one too many turkey legs, and you are now looking to feel better about yourself or about things in general, look no further! I've done some pretty awesome things in the last couple weeks and am confident that you will leave the reading of this blog wondering why you bothered to read it at all!! No, seriously folks...join me in the hilarity that is me because much like the Christmas Turkey...I am stuffed with awesome.


Ok, well you may think that just because I'm a girl, that ramming something made of wood wouldn't hurt in the "girl area", but you would be wrong. It really hurts and continued to hurt for a while! Actually ask me if it still hurts?? Actually don't because I'd have to check and well...that could get awkward. Anyway, the shop where I work (Saltwater Sounds in lovely Miramichi, NB PLUG PLUG PLUG!!) lent some of its nifty kitchen party tables to the Miramichi Rodd Hotel a couple weeks back. When the gentleman dispatched from the Rodd came to the back door to pick them up I, being a kind and helpful sort of person, carried some of the tables to the back door for them. While on route from the front of the shop to the back door of the shop you have to pass through a door way...below is exhibit "A" for your viewing pleasure...




As you can see in the drawing (which for me is stellar) I was walking briskly towards the doorway, confident that I would get through it without whacking one of the table legs on the door frame. However, plans went awry and well...you can all see what unfortunately occured by studying the illustration below that we will call exhibit "B"...




WHAM! I ran the table legs into the door frame, the table bounced back and the bottom edge of the table caught me right in the...well...you know...and my stars! Did it hurt! The look on my poorly drawn face is actually accurate. As there were 2 men in the shop and I didn't want to draw attention to the injury in my area, I swore internally and walked slowly to the back of the shop. I turned around and slowly walked back to get another table. I got it safely to the back without incident, BUT the third table...oops...I did it again. Wowee did it smart. This time one of the guys saw me do it, but made no comment as I said "Wow...that really hurt." Grace under injury...this is one of the things that makes me awesome.

Please come back very soon as I will soon be posting (if I haven't already by the time you read this) Stuffed with Awesome Part Two.


As ever,
Cinfully Awesome.