Farewell Stranger

Fun Father’s Day Giveaway

June 5, 2013 By Robin 70 Comments

Q. Why did the blogger buy a hot pink iPhone charger?

A. Because her husband kept stealing her usual charger and she thought a pink one might deter him.

That’s not a joke so much as a story loosely based on my own life. (Okay, totally based on my own life.) But here’s the real punchline: It didn’t deter him. I guess the joke’s on me.

Is it just mine or does your husband steal your phone charger too? Let’s see if we can fix that. I’m going to give you the step-by-step details on how I’ve solved this problem and give you a chance to do the same.

1. Accept the offer from London Drugs to get a fun gift for your husband for Father’s Day.

2. Get your husband to browse their selection and let you know what he might like.

2a. Laugh when one of the items on his list is the Ove Glove.

3. Briefly consider his suggestion of a waffle maker but decide that’s probably not good for your desire to continue fitting into your clothes.

4. Decide to go with the portable iPhone docking station he liked in hopes of reclaiming both your usual iPhone charger and your spiffy hot pink one.

5. Celebrate Father’s Day knowing your Wife of the Year award is in the bag.

And there you have it! Easy peasy.

Want one of these for your own? (You don’t even have to give it to your husband/dad/other father figure – I won’t tell.) You can enter using the Rafflecopter form below.

And Happy Father’s Day to all you great dads out there. The world is better for having you in it.

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by London Drugs but the plan to use it to win Father’s Day is all my own and was endorsed by my husband.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Filed Under: Randomness

Lacing Up

June 2, 2013 By Robin 23 Comments

I’ve had lots of excuses for not running in the last 18 months. At first it was because we had just moved and there was a lot of snow on the ground and I didn’t really feel like breaking my neck. And then I got pregnant. And then I had just had a baby. And then there was snow on the ground again.

Then my husband got me some Yaktrax, which removed my fear that I might break my neck. The first time I wore them it was -18C (about 0F) and I managed to stay warm enough and figured I was good to go. But then in January I twisted my ankle and I stopped running, and I didn’t really start again.

I started to think maybe I wasn’t a runner anymore. I was feeling too old and achey. My knees weren’t cooperating. I was sucking wind and generally feeling like all my running mojo had veered off the path and run away without me.

I did other things. Boot camps and Jillian Michaels workouts and yoga. Long walks with big hills. Pilates. All of which were fine, but I didn’t find myself in any of them. There was a piece of me missing.

So I took to the trails again.

I’ve walked a lot in our area in the short time we’ve been here, but when I started running I didn’t yet have my go-to running routes the way I used to. And we live on a ridge, so no matter what direction I go I end up coming home on a hill. But still, I ran. I looped out and back, and followed paths. I found some trails and ran them to see where they went. I still sucked wind, but I was running. I had no particular thoughts about it; it just seemed good enough.

This morning when I got up I re-evaluated my planned run. My knees were complaining and I was sore after a challenging yoga practice last Wednesday and a stroller fit class on Friday. I was feeling like I’d been working hard and maybe skipping a run wouldn’t be a bad thing.

And then I got inspired and figured I’d do a short one. It was my day to walk the dog anyway.

If you follow my Facebook page you know how it turned out. I got to the end of the “out” part of my planned out-and-back and saw the entry to a path I hadn’t seen before. So I went down it. To make an hour-long story short, I got lost. After following a series of paths I ended up way, way down at the bottom of a glen and, just as I was starting to wonder where the trail came out, it ended.

Apparently this is where the sidewalk ends.

I have no idea why the trail ends there. At some point, someone must have decided that was all they were going to do. Or maybe they ran out of asphalt.

In any case, I found my mojo. It was down at the bottom of a glen, waiting for me on a rainy Sunday morning.

I’m a runner again.

Filed Under: Happy things Tagged With: favourite activities, running, weekends

Maternal Paralysis Syndrome

May 30, 2013 By Robin Leave a Comment

Have you heard of Maternal Paralysis Syndrome? 68% of moms have it and I’m one of them.

Find the explanation in my latest post at Yummy Mummy Club.

Filed Under: Motherhood

Breaking Radio Silence

May 28, 2013 By Robin 12 Comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while (or have spent any time browsing the archives) you’ll be well aware that I used to bare my soul on here on a daily basis. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say, and my desperation used to lead me to sharing just how awful I was feeling with anyone who chose to read about it.

It used to be easier to do that.

I’ve had some rough days lately and part of me wanted to just stay silent and pretend that everything was hunky dory. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to admit that I can’t prevent bad days with baby #2 just by sheer force of will. (Okay, that’s a big part of it.) But it’s also partly because I don’t really want to get into it. I don’t want my mother worrying that she’s going to have to talk me off the ledge again. I don’t want to appear vulnerable.

Feeling vulnerable sucks.

But feeling like I’m not being true to myself sucks as well. I know – I don’t have to share anything here if I don’t want to. But this blog is part of my path through this whole experience so I’m okay with sharing things here.

The good news is that the last couple of days have been better. The extra good news is that I haven’t had any more conversations with the steam cleaner. (I would, however, like to point out that my husband mistook the steam cleaner for Connor the other night too. He didn’t actually talk to the steam cleaner, so he maintains he’s clearly more sane than I, but I’m not convinced. I think he’s just less inclined to talk to inanimate objects in the middle of the night.)

In any case, I hate feeling like I spilled my guts and then went radio silent. So here’s a picture of some old-fashioned toffee tins.

Pretty, don’t you think?

Filed Under: Postpartum depression Tagged With: depression, hope

Conversations with the Steam Cleaner

May 24, 2013 By Robin 11 Comments

Last night I decided to be a big girl and take the new medication I was nervous about taking (one reason being that it has a sedating effect so I wasn’t sure how the night wakings were going to go). The first time I got up I felt drunk, exactly as if I’d had a little too much to drink. I’m not a big fan of that, but I’m hoping it either goes away or Ethan sleeps long enough that I sleep through that phase.

Around 3:30 I came back into our room after feeding Ethan. Then Rich got up to blow his nose and I had a lovely conversation with the steam cleaner thinking it was Connor.

“Hi buddy. What’s wrong?”

The steam cleaner/Connor didn’t answer.

“Are you okay?”

Still no answer.

I sat in bed trying to remember what colour t-shirt Connor had on when he went to bed. I was sure it was a dark one.

“Connor, love? Are you there?”

Connor the Steam Cleaner was silent.

At that point Rich came out of the bathroom.

“What’s that?” I asked him. “Is that Connor?”

“No, that was me blowing my nose.”

Apparently he’s not terribly good at following along with insane conversations in the middle of the night.

“No, that. In the corner. Is that Connor?”