If This Was Jeopardy, This Post Would Be Potpourri

First things first. I am happy to announce that I am officially famous. Oh yes, it's my time to shine, I finally MADE IT, I am ready for my close-up Mr. deMille, I- huh?

Sorry, I may have gotten a little carried away by the size of my EGO. It's famous now after all so it needs more space.

If you missed my soul-baring interview on the ISpy website, you can read it here. Now please go peel me a grape.

OK, back to reality. Which at this moment, thanks to our new iMac, looks a lot like this:

Not shown: my pajamas, empty cup of coffee and crazy long list of things I should be doing. Although I think the caffeine crazy in my face kind of speaks for itself, no? And the soundtrack? Season ender of Glee songs. Even that overused version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow gets me every time. Finn+Rachel 4 evah.

Continuing along the theme of stream of consciousness.... My friend Paola (who is a brilliant Twitter-er-er-er, follow her and her squirrel/TV show producer issues here) sent me this:

Ha ha ha ha ha! Spelling issues aside, I love it.

Oh, and these are photos I meant to post in my home improvement segment last week. Liliane got some fancy blinds thanks to our dear friend André. A big time improvement over the blanket that used to hang here:

Fab. Love it. So happy.

Remember I said waaaay back in my last post that we went to the Eco-Musée? Here are those photos. They look a lot like the first time we went in 2008 except Liliane has quadrupled in size.

Remember this?

Yeah, a little different now:

(Thank you for ignoring the ROLLS on my NECK. Cardio class here I come!)

The animals were kinda the same, although Stéphane had a good time shooting with our fancy long lens:

We did not get a picture of our picnic lunch afterwards which was actually the nicest part of the day! It was hot and ONE of us was cranky:

But she was getting over being sick AND she peed in the public bathroom with relatively little fuss so we forgive her.

Moving on to yet another subject... Our friends Julie and Joyce, parents to Liliane's best friend Rose had another baby! They were actually going to come with us to the Éco-Musée but ended up staying home at the last minute because, well, Joyce was IN LABOUR.

Turns out it was worth missing the zoo because this little boy came into the world:

Samuel Joe arrived on May 25th and has been feeding ever since!

Officially the only thing cuter in that household, Sam's big sister:

We're so happy that our girls play together so well...

Which means good times for us Mamas! (Which we spent mainly taking photos...)

Holy cow, could I have run out of random photos to post and subjects to address?

This blog post has been brought to you by my longtime friend PROCRASTINATION. My brother and SIL and yummy nephew are arriving sometime tonight for the weekend and I have the whole day off to get stuff organized and to clean. It is now noon and as you may have noticed from the photo up, up, waaaaay up (name that Canadian kids' TV show!) at the top of this epic entry, I'm not actually dressed. But hey! I blogged! And answered emails! And drank coffee!

To close, I will share with you that my beloved Grandmother is currently in the hospital after having a fall earlier this week. Thankfully she doesn't have any broken bones, but there is bleeding on her brain and although she's as sweet and cute as ever, she's not herself. And at 90 years old, chances are she won't ever be quite the same. My sister Jennifer has been at her side for the last few days and keeps me updated on her progress. She makes me smile when she asks Grandma to tell her about her favourite granddaughter who is also named Jennifer!

I don't know if God's plan to bring her home anytime soon but I know I'm (selfishly) not ready for that.

My Uncle Darrel brings Grandpa down to sit with her which always makes her a little more cheerful. He and my aunt Jeannette are pretty much running a shuttle service back and forth.

Someone has to pretty much sit with her all the time as she cheerfully insists on pulling her IV out and would dearly love to remove her catheter if she could.

Please pray for me and for our whole family as we come to terms with what seems like a bleak situation. I can see why God would want her in Heaven, but we need to keep her for a little longer, okay?

Now I officially have to get going. Hope to be back, dressed and in my right mind sometime before the end of summer ;)

Wait! One last thing: am currently hunting down running shoes for my Cardio Class starting at the end of the month. They should also be good for my daily walk to and from work and not cost a mint. Any suggestions? Please let me know in the comments!

Sicky McBarferson + Spring Spruce Up

Since it's been at least five months since anyone puked around here, Liliane took it upon herself to get the flu Saturday. Stéphane and I were actually out at his niece's wedding when it all went down (or came up!) so Pierre and Ariel were treated to the full toddler barf-o-rama. But don't worry! The fun continued every couple of hours through the night so we got our rightful parental share.

So we had a rough night which lead to a laaaazzy Sunday. Despite the gorgeous summery weather, I didn't actually go outside once. I looked outside admiringly, even longingly while my fevery baby lolled on my lap. Stéphane, however ventured out to get Liliane her very first tricycle and this nifty helmet:

She's been wearing it ever since he got home. Note the stylish Dora bandaid on her forehead. Her way of curing her headache, no joke. I know, she's a genius.

I think it's best to share the head-to-toe effect of her chosen ensemble for Sunday:

Underwear + Dora bandaids + bike helmet = sick chic.

Hero Papa brought these home as well:

Yep, Dora thongs. Notice a theme?

So enough about barf, let's talk new stuff.

These curtains came with our place when we bought it last year:

Nice, in a Chinese brothel kind of way. (I won't tell you which house guest came up with that description that I have actually TONED DOWN for my readers, you wouldn't believe me anyway.)

Colorful, but really not right.

After hunting all over the place, we chose these from Ikea. They don't look like much in the package (kind of like Mom-jeans from 1990, right?) But look what happens when you get a new silver curtain rod and hang them up:

Aaaaah. Isn't that nice?


Look! No more bawdy saloon lighting of any kind! Just serenity. Love it.

Since it is physically impossible to go to Ikea without spending the grocery money, a few more items found their way into our cart...

This tray literally screamed my name.

Theeerreessssaa! I am a fat bird tray in primary colours! Buy meeee!

And $7 later, my life was that much better.

Especially when I put it in the middle of our fancy new dining room table.

Hellloo handsome. I have dreaming of this moment forEVER. A real grown up, real wood table. With comfy chairs and everything. So great.

A fancy new table deserves a fancy new napkin holder.

OK, fancy might be an exaggeration, but it's kinda stylish, right? Another $7 well spent at Ikea.

So birds are a bit of a thing for me. My friend Sue painted this for us when Liliane was born. Isn't it purdy? It's not new but I'm including it in this post because I love it.

The lighting in our living room has been an ongoing discussion this year. I picked this little lamp up at Ikea and I love how it brightens up that corner.

Plus bonus butterfly shadow!

Yeah, so it would appear that orange has become our living room accent colour. I picked out these DVD storage boxes to seal the deal:

They go with this, another one of my favourite things:

This lamp was in my grandparents' den and I remember loving it as a kid.


We've been talking about getting L a table and chairs for ages. Surprise! Ikea has this very affordable set. Natch.

Frog cushions for $3.99? Okay!

And with that, (as my great-grandmother would have said) our spending pants are coming off. Not only off but they are getting packed away with the winter clothes.

Had a great holiday Monday at the Eco-Musée and Liliane is pretty much completely back to normal. Stéphane took some great photos there so I'll try and get back here to post those this week.

So how about those Habs? It was a valiant effort, right to the end. I admit that I don't mind that we're out. Certain members of this household are susceptible to MOOD CHANGES based on the success of their team, so I'm glad the emotional roller coaster is done! Although it was pretty cute hearing Liliane say " je veux garder du hockey Papa" and watching Stéphane's head pop off with joy.

Speaking of couch potatoes (who - huh?), I am going to sign up for an outdoor fitness class over the summer. It's called Cardio Plein Air and it's twice weekly workouts in Jarry Park which is about 12 minutes from our house by foot. I am mentioning it here so that I will be embarrassed if I fail to follow through. You hear me internet? Hold me accountable! I've had the feeling lately of wanting to get moving again beyond my daily walk to work and daycare and I love the idea of doing it outside. I'll keep you posted.

Have a good, short week everybody!

Let's Go to the Movies!

Hi there. I chose to start this post off with this picture because even though we took it weeks ago when it wasn't even spring yet, I feel it best represents the general weather patterns around here.


Brrrr.

I tweeted on the day that it SNOWED here a week or two ago that the person responsible for organizing spring in Montréal should be fired. Yeah. We haven't had a lot more snow, (Some on Mother's Day. Not even kidding.) but do we even have to talk about this in the month of MAY? Seriously.

Dear "spring": BITE ME.

Anyway, I took these photos on the very last day of shooting our movie (The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom) last Saturday.

Wanna see how it all works?

This is the location, about a half hour outside of Montréal. A little family-run diner.


The windows are actually too big for the 1970s but no prob, we fixed them. Looks great from the inside.



Dear clients, sorry but we have been taken over by aliens with big lights. Watch for us on the big screen!

That's my boss Barbara chatting with Ann-Louise, master hair stylist. I also took this picture so I could get myself in it. Yep, I take my cues from Hitchcock.


So here is the inside.

This image represents 85% of what happens on a film set. Standing around, discussing.

Sometimes standing on a ladder and discussing.

That lovely lady is Claudine Sauvé, director of photography. She's in charge of the image. The lights, the camera, the film stock, everything. A female DP is pretty rare. But this show is all about girl power.


Speaking of which...

It's the holy movie trinity (from left): Tara (writer/director), Francine (1st Assistant Director) and Barbara (Producer). This film would not exist if not for Tara and the script she wrote, but Barbara is a close second. I literally don't have enough words to describe what producers do. In a word: EVERYTHING.

Look! It's me again! With Barbara and a delicious looking lemon meringue pie, no?

Now that the script is written (although changes are often made as we shoot so she's not completely off the hook), Tara is in director mode.

I would say that directing is almost as hard to describe as producing but think of her as the (sorry for the cliché) conductor of the symphony. The one who makes every single creative decision. I'm tired just typing that.

The 1st AD takes the script and then decides how the heck we're going to get it on film in as many days as the budget will allow. She makes things happen. It's amazing to watch.


Speaking of amazing, what about that HAIR? That's Pierre, sound mixer.


This is Virginie, the production manager. I love this picture because a lot of her job causes her to make faces like this. She is in charge of the crew, of making sure no one spends too much money, of 1001 tiny details. Now that the Montréal part of the shoot is done, she's not making those faces anymore.


Oh yeah, and there is the small matter of the people in FRONT of the camera.


This is Julia Stone and her Mom, Sue.

Julia is the star of this movie so keep your eye on her. This is her first feature film and she is already a total pro. Plus look how cute she is! AND they are from Vancouver!


Sue is responsible for the wicked updates on the film's Facebook page. She is not only the coolest stage parent I have ever met, but she's a big-time internet smarty pants.


These are Julia's boots. I think they speak for themselves.

Macha Grenon plays the mother, Marion. She is a big time star, she is gorgeous, she is the bomb. It doesn't get better than this my friends:



I think that just about concludes our tour of an indie Canadian movie set. Let me tell you that I haven't shown you a FRACTION of the people that work on a set, not to mention everyone who works in the production office. But you get the idea.

Any questions?

65

I have a passel of photos in my camera that just will not download so I'm taking that as a sign to keep this post short and sweet. Why does short go with sweet? Why not LONG and sweet? That's even better! See? I've already rambled off. Clever segue in 3..2..1...

So, speaking of long (and sweet)... I am dedicating my last few Sunday night brain cells to writing about these two:


Ruth and Rolf. R & R. Grandma and Grandpa. Mör and Fär. Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. My grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary last week. SIXTY-FIVE. Years. Of marriage. Pause for a moment and imagine it. (If you shudder involuntarily, don't be too hard on yourself. Or your spouse.)

Sixty five years and they still LIKE EACH OTHER.

Swinging is their secret! (Ha ha, not LIKE THAT.)


They have four children, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren (mainly thanks to my sister the Baby Guru.) I make sure to tell them that I love them every time I phone.

They have set the bar very, very high in every way. I love you guys.

Snookums xo


PS - they had an open house celebration on Saturday that went very well from what I hear - can't wait to see those photos!

PPS - TOTAL CHANGE OF SUBJECT: I badly want these for my birthday this year. Badly:



PPPS - work insanity calming down, I think I am breathing again. Hello world, what have y'all been up to while I was in Dolly land? May or may not have a cold sore on my lip. Ugh.

OK, last note - potty training still good. I think we're clear. Well, let's not tempt fate, shall we? I'll say clear-ish. It's working out.