Poor Larysa!
At almost 11, she seems to be on the verge of becoming a woman. She's got all the emotional roller coaster feelings associated with budding adolesence, but none of the physical manifestations of it.
Case in point, she managed to work herself into sobbing hysterics in the 7 minute ride to school the other day. Why? Because her face was too fat! She doesn't seem to understand that her face still had the baby fat that would disappear all too soon. She was inconsolable.
I just wish she's get her period, so she'd have an excuse for all this drama!
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Walking progress
You're probably all dying to find out how I've been doing with my walking tunes that I told you about on Sept 16th's blog.
Well, the first day, my shins started aching (like the feeling of being on skis for the first day of the season) by Absolutely Everybody and I was more than happy when Gus had his open air cafe open early enough that morning that I was able to use the excuse of making polite conversation with him to have a sit down while he made me a 'happy-cappy'.
A few days in, it was Madonna causing the shooting pains up my shinbones - although I've heard she does that to paraplegics.
I am happy to say that I can now last through Follow the Leader without wanting to karate chop my legs to death. I have had to remove Pump It and Vertigo as I discovered they had completely un-walkable beats. Sorry Black Eyed Peas and U2 - I'll leave you on in the car instead, ok?
I've replaced those two with a few more tunes, so this is what the playlist looks like now:
A Little Less Conversation 3:33 Elvis vs JXL
Love Machine 3:25 Girls Aloud
Aint Got No... I Got Life (REMIX) 3:22 Nina Simone
Please Don't Go (Sunshine Mix) 4:39 K.W.S.
Move This 5:02 Technotronic
Absolutely Everybody 3:43 Vanessa Amorosi
First Time 2:40 Sunblock feat. Robin Beck
24-7 In My 911 3:13 Vengaboys
My time 3:15 Dutch feat. Crystal Waters
Ray Of Light 5:20 Madonna
Cha Cha Slide 3:40 DJ Casper
Follow Da Leader 2:32 Nigel & Marvin
Burning Down The House 3:39 Tom Jones & The Cardigans
The Emperor's New Clothes 5:16 Sinéad O'Connor
All I Wanna Do 4:33 Sheryl Crow
I am a bit ashamed of having something as silly as Vengaboys on there, but hey, whatever gets me moving around the park, covering twice the distance, is fine by me.
I'll let you know how it goes....
Well, the first day, my shins started aching (like the feeling of being on skis for the first day of the season) by Absolutely Everybody and I was more than happy when Gus had his open air cafe open early enough that morning that I was able to use the excuse of making polite conversation with him to have a sit down while he made me a 'happy-cappy'.
A few days in, it was Madonna causing the shooting pains up my shinbones - although I've heard she does that to paraplegics.
I am happy to say that I can now last through Follow the Leader without wanting to karate chop my legs to death. I have had to remove Pump It and Vertigo as I discovered they had completely un-walkable beats. Sorry Black Eyed Peas and U2 - I'll leave you on in the car instead, ok?
I've replaced those two with a few more tunes, so this is what the playlist looks like now:
A Little Less Conversation 3:33 Elvis vs JXL
Love Machine 3:25 Girls Aloud
Aint Got No... I Got Life (REMIX) 3:22 Nina Simone
Please Don't Go (Sunshine Mix) 4:39 K.W.S.
Move This 5:02 Technotronic
Absolutely Everybody 3:43 Vanessa Amorosi
First Time 2:40 Sunblock feat. Robin Beck
24-7 In My 911 3:13 Vengaboys
My time 3:15 Dutch feat. Crystal Waters
Ray Of Light 5:20 Madonna
Cha Cha Slide 3:40 DJ Casper
Follow Da Leader 2:32 Nigel & Marvin
Burning Down The House 3:39 Tom Jones & The Cardigans
The Emperor's New Clothes 5:16 Sinéad O'Connor
All I Wanna Do 4:33 Sheryl Crow
I am a bit ashamed of having something as silly as Vengaboys on there, but hey, whatever gets me moving around the park, covering twice the distance, is fine by me.
I'll let you know how it goes....
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Murphy's Law?
'Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.' - Murphy's Law
So here I was again, scrambling to get to school to pick up my girls (and Gwen's daughters) on time. I needed the skates for Adia, tennis rackets for Stefa and Larysa snacks and something to drink, and get Jessie in the car for the short trip to the school.
I was losing time because I couldn't find Adriana's skates, only to find out after a quick call to Orest that he had taken all the skates out to be sharpened. Ok, I can deal with that, as long as Adriana doesn't throw a fit that she has to rent a pair at the rink.
Get into the minivan and as I pull out of the drive, I can feel the tha-whump, tha-whump sound of a flat tire. (Why I didn't notice the car leaning over to the front left side, I have no idea.)
So here I go, taking everything (dog included) and moving to the Jeep, hoping that I won't get stopped by the police for having an illegal amount of children in the car.
So was it Murphy's Law or...some more sinister power at work. After all, who took all the ice skates to be sharpened? And who created the bump in the tire when misjudging the width between the other car and the island on the other side of the road on the way to church one Sunday?
Funny how you can be married to a guy for almost 20 years without realizing he's been creating "behind-the-scenes" sabotage, only for it to explode on you at the most inopportune moment.
So here I was again, scrambling to get to school to pick up my girls (and Gwen's daughters) on time. I needed the skates for Adia, tennis rackets for Stefa and Larysa snacks and something to drink, and get Jessie in the car for the short trip to the school.
I was losing time because I couldn't find Adriana's skates, only to find out after a quick call to Orest that he had taken all the skates out to be sharpened. Ok, I can deal with that, as long as Adriana doesn't throw a fit that she has to rent a pair at the rink.
Get into the minivan and as I pull out of the drive, I can feel the tha-whump, tha-whump sound of a flat tire. (Why I didn't notice the car leaning over to the front left side, I have no idea.)
So here I go, taking everything (dog included) and moving to the Jeep, hoping that I won't get stopped by the police for having an illegal amount of children in the car.
So was it Murphy's Law or...some more sinister power at work. After all, who took all the ice skates to be sharpened? And who created the bump in the tire when misjudging the width between the other car and the island on the other side of the road on the way to church one Sunday?
Funny how you can be married to a guy for almost 20 years without realizing he's been creating "behind-the-scenes" sabotage, only for it to explode on you at the most inopportune moment.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Adia's gonna be a banker & in my face
The girls have started school and their after-school activities as well. Which leads me to a cute little story of Adriana's lack of trust (probably brought on by her sisters making up stuff to try and get her to do want they want her to do!). I sent Adriana to the tennis court yesterday with a 20 pound note for her to pass along to the coach for Stefa and Larysa's lessons. I told her that she was to bring some change back, as it would on be 15 pounds. Apparently after being handed the 5 pound note for change, she immediately lifted it towards the sky as if she were verifying that it had the appropriate watermark and it wasn't fake. Luckily Kim saw the funny side of this and didn't assume that I didn't trust her not to pass on conterfeit money through my kid. 
I had the chance to go to the Sanctuary in Covent Garden the other day with the Australian Lisas x2. (They had birthday vouchers, but I didn't want to feel left out, so I came along too.)After every thing I had heard and the glossy brochure with the picture here, I was expecting to spend a relaxing couple of hours with me mates. But I'll you what I was not expecting: the lady doing my facial to give me the third degree on my beauty regimen.
"Do you cleanse, tone and moisterize twice a day?"
"Uhhh, no." (What I really wanted to say was "I can barely haul my ass out of bed in the mornings, and at night the last thing on my mind would be to have my face feel like a baby's bum!)
"Do you use a masque or exfoliate weekly?"
Same response again...This time I really wanted to say: "Exfoliate my %^&^#%!!"
"Do you have a facial regularly"
At this point I wanted to deck her, but thought that if I did, she might use cement instead of a scrub and then cazy-glue my eyes shut, so again:
"Uhhh, no."
The way she tsk'ed me let me know that I had failed the minimum requirements of being remotely human, but I let her have her way with me and came out looking and feeling years younger. So who am I to complain?
I had the chance to go to the Sanctuary in Covent Garden the other day with the Australian Lisas x2. (They had birthday vouchers, but I didn't want to feel left out, so I came along too.)After every thing I had heard and the glossy brochure with the picture here, I was expecting to spend a relaxing couple of hours with me mates. But I'll you what I was not expecting: the lady doing my facial to give me the third degree on my beauty regimen.
"Do you cleanse, tone and moisterize twice a day?"
"Uhhh, no." (What I really wanted to say was "I can barely haul my ass out of bed in the mornings, and at night the last thing on my mind would be to have my face feel like a baby's bum!)
"Do you use a masque or exfoliate weekly?"
Same response again...This time I really wanted to say: "Exfoliate my %^&^#%!!"
"Do you have a facial regularly"
At this point I wanted to deck her, but thought that if I did, she might use cement instead of a scrub and then cazy-glue my eyes shut, so again:
"Uhhh, no."
The way she tsk'ed me let me know that I had failed the minimum requirements of being remotely human, but I let her have her way with me and came out looking and feeling years younger. So who am I to complain?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Pandora's box
It's been awhile since I last blogged, so lot's to catch up on....
You may have noticed that I've changed my template somewhat and added something along the side here called Pandora. It's a website that allows you to create your own radio station by building off one artist or song that you like. My first choice is an R&B type station because I typed in "London Bridge" by Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, and the second one is more of an acoustic-y, reggae, salsa type of station I got by typing in Lily Allen. You can either listen to my two stations or have fun creating one of your own. (It eliminates having to listen to adverts, at the very least.) I got into it as I've been downloading our entire CD collection onto the computer to have it then downloaded onto our Ipod. So far I've got almost 4 gigs done (2.5 days of listening - which makes being stuck on a desert island with my Ipod a little less boring) and another tower of CDs to go! I don't know if this is another one of those "make-work" projects because somewhere along the way I've forgotten why I was doing it in the first place.
Oh, I know! I was trying to come up with the ultimate "walking playlist". When I walk Jessie every morning, I noticed that I could cover a lot more ground if I could find some up-beat tempos to walk to. After a few days of trial and error, (which included walks where either I was walking as if I were slowly advancing up the wedding aisle or booting it so fast I was getting shin-splints) I finally came up with the ultimate playlist. I even have a built-in pauses in the tempo for those absolutely necessary poo-retrieval moments - which is assuming I can get Jessie to cooperate and do it in the exact same place every morning...
Here's the playlist if anyone's curious to see what gets me moving around the park:
A Little Less Conversation 3:33 Elvis vs JXL
Love Machine 3:25 Girls Aloud
Aint Got No... I Got Life (REMIX) 3:22 Nina Simone
Absolutely Everybody 3:43 Vanessa Amorosi
My time 3:15 Dutch feat. Crystal Waters
Ray Of Light 5:20 Madonna
Cha Cha Slide 3:40 DJ Casper
Follow Da Leader 2:32 Nigel & Marvin
Pump It 3:33 The Black Eyed Peas
Vertigo 3:14 U2
Burning Down The House 3:37 Tom Jones & The Cardigans Huge
You may have noticed that I've changed my template somewhat and added something along the side here called Pandora. It's a website that allows you to create your own radio station by building off one artist or song that you like. My first choice is an R&B type station because I typed in "London Bridge" by Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, and the second one is more of an acoustic-y, reggae, salsa type of station I got by typing in Lily Allen. You can either listen to my two stations or have fun creating one of your own. (It eliminates having to listen to adverts, at the very least.) I got into it as I've been downloading our entire CD collection onto the computer to have it then downloaded onto our Ipod. So far I've got almost 4 gigs done (2.5 days of listening - which makes being stuck on a desert island with my Ipod a little less boring) and another tower of CDs to go! I don't know if this is another one of those "make-work" projects because somewhere along the way I've forgotten why I was doing it in the first place.
Oh, I know! I was trying to come up with the ultimate "walking playlist". When I walk Jessie every morning, I noticed that I could cover a lot more ground if I could find some up-beat tempos to walk to. After a few days of trial and error, (which included walks where either I was walking as if I were slowly advancing up the wedding aisle or booting it so fast I was getting shin-splints) I finally came up with the ultimate playlist. I even have a built-in pauses in the tempo for those absolutely necessary poo-retrieval moments - which is assuming I can get Jessie to cooperate and do it in the exact same place every morning...
Here's the playlist if anyone's curious to see what gets me moving around the park:
A Little Less Conversation 3:33 Elvis vs JXL
Love Machine 3:25 Girls Aloud
Aint Got No... I Got Life (REMIX) 3:22 Nina Simone
Absolutely Everybody 3:43 Vanessa Amorosi
My time 3:15 Dutch feat. Crystal Waters
Ray Of Light 5:20 Madonna
Cha Cha Slide 3:40 DJ Casper
Follow Da Leader 2:32 Nigel & Marvin
Pump It 3:33 The Black Eyed Peas
Vertigo 3:14 U2
Burning Down The House 3:37 Tom Jones & The Cardigans Huge
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