Once again, it’s time for Confession Friday. This is the 42nd Friday in a row. That’s pretty good for a procrastinator like me, no?

I confess:

• …that I have not posted much this week, because we’ve been spending lots of time outside and in the pool. Plus it’s summer, and the Interwebs are quiet and slow, so nobody’s coming here to read anyway.
• …that I have enjoyed our little pool very much. It’s only deep enough for Stinkerbelle to swim around — it’s two feet deep when completely full — but it’s enough to keep cool and have fun with That Girl on a hot day.
• …that I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry “Heigh ho” for a husband… Oh. Wait. Wrong movie. But I AM sunburnt.
• …that it has been a wonderful, pleasant summer week. Hot, clear days and cooling down at night, and it has been quiet and peaceful here in our neighbourhood with lots of people away on vacation. It feels more like summer, the summers that I am used to and that I knew growing up, than it has in many years. And I hope we have more weeks like this.
• …that there has been a lot of naked golfing happening here this week. Also naked dancing, and naked bicycle riding, and naked hopscotch. Fortunately, it is limited to That Girl, and it is because it is potty training time here. (No, there won’t be photos, because even password protected, I’m not foolish enough to put naked pictures of my kid on the Interwebs. Sorry! But I have to say, Stinkerbelle wearing nothing but backpack and bicycle helmet? You just have to trust me — it was pretty cute.)
• …that the potty training thing so far has been mostly a good thing. A few whoopies, and about A BILLION PEES on the potty. (That Girl likes her some praise. And celebration. Every piddle is a party, man.) But, while we’re rocking the peeing in the potty, as evidenced by the GIANT OMGWTF SURPRISE!POO that just happened in her big girl panties, we have some work to do on the whole “poo in the potty” deal.
• …that our daughter has been changing and growing so quickly recently. She’s talking so much, she’s swimming and going underwater, she’s learning her letters and numbers… While it is fun and wonderful to see her grow, it is definitely bittersweet. Where did our little baby girl go?
• …that it has been a week of spicy food. Jerk earlier in the week, and Tuscan bean soup, and chicken curry last night, and spicy seafood pasta to come. Now, we just need to get a barbeque, to really get the spicy food cooking. But I’ve also been drinking iced coffee, and for me, coffee + spicy food = OMG HEARTBURN. So, gastronomical FAIL.
• …that I read this story this week and thought, “Damn. She’s living the life I dreamed of when I was younger.” Good for her.
• …that our yearly report for Ethiopia is due in about 3 days, and yet? Still not done. But here’s the thing: the dopes at the new agency haven’t sent out a reminder, and I’m not really keen on sending that kind of information off to a total stranger who has made no indication that they are even expecting such a thing from me. However, I know it is important, so I’ll do it. I feel some ambivalence about it, I can’t lie. I have no connection to this new agency, nor them to me. (And their name, Mission of Tears, really REALLY rubs me the wrong way. I am sure they are LOVELY PEOPLE, and yes, I know they SAY the letters in “Tears” stand for something or other blah blah blah. But on the face of it, which is all the average person ever sees, the name is just disturbing, and a little off-putting. I know when we first got the idea to adopt, I ruled them right out immediately as a prospective agency just based on that name.) Anyway. They have something I want returned to me, so I’ll have to get in touch with them anyway, so I’ll just get the report done and initiate contact and go “OH BY THE WAY, YOU PROBABLY NEED THIS. AND GIVE ME MY STUFF.”
• …that we’ve started watching the entire series of “The West Wing” again, in the evenings, for an hour of down time before bed. We are people who watch series and movies again and again, so this is a great way for us to unwind. But I confess further that we never got through the entire series the first times through, because around season 4 or so when Aaron Sorkin left, BDH invariably gets pissed at the changes in the show and we stop watching. Will we get further this time? Only time will tell. But in the meantime, it’s great knitting fare.
• …that I feel like painting. Like, painting the house. Weird, because it’s hot and generally I’m kind of meh on painting and oh yeah, there’s a THREE YEAR OLD running around. But I feel like a bit of a change, and freshening up the look of the house with a coat of paint is a perfect and relatively cheap way to do that. So, I think, once September rolls around and she’s in preschool, I might take on painting a room or three.

Once again, with feeling… it’s FRIDAY. And I am glad of it. It has been a good week, bytimes. But we are tired and looking forward to some time off.

I confess:

• …that we bought a swimming pool yesterday! It’s just one of those 15 ft inflatable numbers, but it’s all we need. I was at work yesterday, and my boss and his son were at the local small-town Canadian Tire the previous day, and two pools were on sale for $100 each. That’s about 75% off the normal price. So they bought one. And they mentioned it to me yesterday and asked what I thought of it and I was all DUH NO BRAINER GREAT DEAL I’D LOVE ONE. So the son went back to the store on the off chance that maybe they still had the other one… and they DID! Stinkerbelle is going to LOVE. IT. I hope.
• …that we are trying a lawn service again this year. Backing onto a conservation area, and unable to buy commercial weed killer anymore, we’re fighting a losing battle against a LOT of weeds. This one claims they have an eco-friendly weed killer, and they gave us a deal to try them, so… We don’t have a lot of cash, so if we don’t see results, like, NOW,  they’re done. However, looking out at great swathes of black in our lawn — our yard resembles a tortoiseshell cat coat — it seems to be doing SOMETHING.
• …that it’s another humid day in Suburbiaville, and I wish we had some way to stay cool OH WAIT WE HAVE. But my confession is that I’m kind of intimidated to try to set it up by myself.
• …that I feel like a bit of a loser that it will take me ALL SUMMER LONG to get my gardens reclaimed and mulched and looking reasonable. I still have a few little annuals and a shrub on my porch, forlornly waiting for a home. But did I not MENTION the arse melting humidity outside? They’re going to be sitting there for a while, I fear. HOUSE AND GARDEN FAIL.
• …that it’s nice that Stinkerbelle is at an age where I can hand her a cat toy — a fishing rod with a toy mouse on the end of the string — and both kid and her cat Duncan are keeping themselves amused and as happy as Larry for a good 10 or 15 minutes. (Except for the periodic refereeing required with a 3 year old and a cat and their “MY TOY NO SHARING” tendencies.) And I get a little time to myself to do, well, stuff like this.
• …that I am a little disheartened at my fitness and weight loss efforts. I had been feeling that I was doing really really well — slowly building up strength and stamina in my knees after physio, and starting to kick it into gear. I felt fitter and thinner. But yesterday, I tried on a pair of shorts from last year and… NOT GOOD. So I am not doing as well as I had imagined. I still have a very, very long way to go, and this is very hard for someone with such a poor self image as I have. And it’s getting harder and harder to change this old perimenopausal mom body. And I am down.
• …the whole perimenopausal gig sucks balls. Mood swings, crushing fatigue, lack of motivation and focus… I am SO over it already.
• …that I’d cut a bitch for some cake. See previous point as to why, and the one before that as to why it is a bad idea.
• …that speech therapy class this week was fine. The stuff they “taught” was really obvious, and the class is more to model speech behaviours for parents to practice at home. Stinkerbelle won’t learn anything in the actual classes themselves — they’re designed to provide us with information, and we’ll do the leg work at home to help her learn. But it will be a good morning out every week for a little while, and she has great fun with the therapists and the other kids, so that’s awesome. And oh yeah it’s FREE, so that’s a total WIN.
• …that I’ve been rocking the iced coffee this week. I make a pot of coffee every morning, but it’s rare that I drink the whole thing. So this week I thought, I’ve got all this leftover coffee… why not pour it over some ice? And I added a little milk and vanilla creamer and OMG COLD SUMMER TASTE SENSATION. Now I am resolved to experiment a little with this.
• …that, for fun, BDH and I were looking at summer homes online this week. NOTE: WE CANNOT AFFORD ONE. But it was fun to look for and bicker about what we are going to have in this fabulous dream home that we will buy when we win a lottery. And to be honest, I kind of miss going to the cottage, so I often daydream about someday spending our summers in a cottage on a lake. So it was a fun diversion for a little while to do a little window shopping. (For actual windows. Among other things.)
• …that although we have worked long and hard to make our yard a pretty and comfortable space to be, we have yet to take any advantage of it. Maybe this evening I’ll take my knitting and a glass of wine and sit out on the patio.

Happy Canada Day, my peeps! It’s Friday, it’s a long weekend, and it’s a gorgeous day here! Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

I confess:

• …that Stinkerbelle has come down with another cold, and it sucks. For her, because being sick is never fun, and for us, because it means our sleep will be interrupted as she is feeling poorly in the middle of the night.
• …that I also hate it when Stinkerbelle is sick because her napping gets all buggered up. I NEED NAPTIME, DAMMIT. If only to have a little quiet time to myself.
• …that I am secretly, selfishly glad that many of our neighbourhood families have buggered off for the holiday weekend, so our street is nice and quiet! The naked neighbours are gone, the noisiest family on the planet with their bitchy mom is gone, the trashy family with the motorcycle and more cars than people is gone…  Half the street has buggered off! It is so nice to go outside and have peace and quiet. Not having money to go away or any place to go to this weekend  is working out really well for us!
• …that I am anxious to get our gardens finished, and yet? I’m feeling kind of lazy and just want to sit around and enjoy the day. Can’t have it both ways, though. So I’ll brave the heat and the mosquitoes and get one of them done today, and it will look FANTASTIC. So that’s nice.
• …that I am addicted to the lemon squares they sell at Corn Parking. They have COCONUT in them. OMG WANT RECIPE SO BAD.
• …that I still haven’t watched the movie we have for our June movie night! And have to do so by next Wednesday. The forecast is for rain tomorrow so maybe tomorrow night will be a good movie night.
• …that I feel a little isolated sometimes from the rest of the adoptive parents I know, and maybe a teensy bit envious. Part of it is the distance; other parents are calling each other and getting together and hanging out, and we don’t have that closeness or that community. Part of it is where we’re at as parents — done adopting, no issues, just… regular parent/kid/family stuff. And part of it is just the usual not-fitting-in stuff.
• …that I still haven’t solved the problem of the laundry on the line smelling funny. It’s not all of it, just some of the things I put on the line. Specifically hand towels, or facecloths, or the occasional shirt… things like that. The little towels I use when I work out always come in off the line smelling funky. Sometimes I’ll have a shirt on and go “::sniff, sniff:: OMG WHAT IS THAT STENCH” and it turns out it’s me. So while it’s saving some money, I’m becoming disenchanted with the rubbery fart laundry.
• …that I have been done physio and able to exercise for about 6 weeks now, and although I am gradually building up, it’s still frustrating. I want to be pain free, and I want to exercise pain free, and I want to start to see a change in my fitness level and my weight and my shape… and it’s just not happening yet. Having to build up strength and stamina gradually is really, really hard for me. My body is old; my mind is still twenty years old and saying “GO GO GO”.
• …that I can put off gardening for no longer. Off I go.  ::waves::