Cat Skinner Club

Thrifty Mommy

I ran away to my parent’s house in Hamilton on Tuesday, which was the night before our moving day. It made more sense for me (and my breasts) to be available to little Noah, and let’s face it, everyone is happier if I’m not a big stress ball. Witnessing the move would have made me a big stress ball, and so I enjoyed the quiet of my parents’ home instead. No trip to Hamilton is complete without a visit to the local thrift store, and my parents live within walking distance of one of those chain department style thrift shops.  I spent a total of $71 and here are some of the treasures that I found…

shams

$3.99 ea – Quilted pillow shams for the girls’ room. I want to work on making their room a little more age-appropriate, and I thought these colors were great inspiration for two girls who don’t like pink. I was lucky to find a pair of duvet covers at Ikea that complimented these pillow shams beautifully. Now I just need to find some turquoise and lime green accents.

albums

$4.99 – A generously stuffed seat cushion for me in our classroom. It’s a simple but pretty green and purple print on a white background. I know I already have a lot of cushion for my booty, but I’ll appreciate the support if I’m spending more time writing.

$1.99 – A vintage scrapbook/photo album, untouched, with black pages

$.99 ea – Handmade paper scrapbooks with shoe lace style binding for the girls. We read a very cute book recently about a summer vacation, and I’d like to have them each work on a summer vacation scrapbook like the little girl in our story.

linens

$7.99 – A queen sized vintage bed sheet in perfect condition with a sunny butterfly pattern. I’m either going to use this on my bed in my new room, or use it to build collapsible tee pees for the girls to play in outside.

$3.99 – A huge April Cornell cushion cover in black with magenta and fuchsia butterflies. I’m collecting cheerful linens in warm tones for the quiet nook in our classroom.

mobile

$2.99 – This darling, brand new mobile for Noodle. The little stuffed animals are all made of natural fibers, and the tags were still on it. It’s perfect for above his change table, and when he grows out of it; I can cut it apart and give him some little friends to play with.

train

$4.99 – Brand new, tags still on soft leather shoes for Noodle. I love these kinds of baby shoes. They are the only kind that stays on their feet.

$.99 – A wooden train and train car, hand-made, for Noodle. We love wooden toys for him.

thriftclothes

$7.99 – A green and black tie-died Calvin Klein sun dress for me. I’m looking for some breast-feeding friendly summer attire, and I refuse to spend money on over-priced and often ugly clothes that are specifically designed for breast-feeding.

$3.99 – A navy blue Gap tank top made of very sweet eyelet cotton and jersey. It’s scandalously low-cut, but Noodle can just reach in and grab a snack!

I can hardly wait to check out the local thrift shops in our area. My plan is to pick an afternoon when someone else can mind Noodle and just get lost inside the stores for a couple of hours. I find it so satisfying when I locate interesting items and good deals, and Daddy has wisely shown me a very clever way to hunt for re-sellable book titles, so I can now finance my occasional trips without dipping into our household budget!

What are your some of your second-hand treasure acquisitions?

The Landing Page

homesweethome

Three days after our moving date, we’ve completely moved in. The contents of our four bedroom house in the city would not fit in the 26’ moving truck we hired, so Daddy and Chacha had to make several trips back and forth with our van to complete the job. What an epic task it’s been! Those guys deserve a relaxing Saturday here, for sure.

Mama S and I held down the fort here, first unpacking the girls’ room, and then tackling our own rooms. I’m one of those maniacs who will stay up all night unpacking because I cannot stand to live in chaos and boxes. Alas, I am prevented from such ideas by the amount of energy required to tend an eight-month old. I managed to unpack all of my clothes, Noah’s things, and Mama S’ clothes yesterday despite this. Daddy’s mum, our Amma worked away at consolidating food and kitchen items while cooking some amazing food. She’s a tour de force that lady! I think I should feature some of her recipes here because her cooking really is out of this world.

It feels good to be here. I don’t feel any of the strange displacement that I was expecting, and maybe that’s because I’ve grown so familiar with this house. Daddy’s family is so wonderful and warm, it’s hardly an adjustment to be sharing space with them.

The girls love their new room. It’s big and bright and they have a working fireplace! I picked up some new big-girl bedding for them at Ikea and they spent the entire day in there yesterday reading Archie comics. I actually thought they were outside because they were so quiet.

We’ve talked a lot with them about how settling into a new home is a process, even if that home is a familiar place. Hannu in particular has been stressed by all of the boxes and mess because she shares my love of neatness and order. We’re working like ants, just a little at a time, to set up our home and merge our households.

Daddy was a bit disgusted by the volume of our stuff. I think the move had inspired him to reduce more clutter, which is wonderful. It’s really astonishing how we amass so much and tell ourselves we need all of these things. My weakness is my sentimentality – I have a lot of keepsakes that I can’t bear to part with, but I’ve managed to fill two huge bags of stuff to donate while unpacking, and I swear this is not just an excuse to visit the local thrift shop!

We’ll get it all done, and likely most of it will be done this week. Meanwhile, my morning coffee is calling me, and I can’t wait to sit at the picture window in the kitchen and stare out at the fields and forest. It feels so right to wake up in the morning and see so much green. I love this place. Yesterday we were treated to a huge young deer and a coyote frolicking in the field. It seemed like they were pals, they were so comfortable with each other, and the girls were thrilled to have the binoculars out, watching the action.

Today is our first day home all together, but Mama S and I are heading back to the city this evening for dinner and a show. I never imagined the move in would take so long, and I got us tickets to the latest Boylesque T.O. show. It will be nice to take a little break from the boxes, and she and I rarely get to hang out just the two of us. There will be many evenings to spend as a family in our new place, eating lively meals around the big table in the kitchen, and chasing the kids up and down the huge driveway.

So far, this country life suits me well.

Bippity-Boppity-Boo-Ya

Glinda

When I was a little girl, I conjured all of the same fairy-princess fantasies of girls my age nearly everywhere in North America. I wanted to live in an ivory tower, with servants and ladies-in-waiting, and grand balls and feasts and the whole shebang. That fantasy was prominent until I saw the Wizard of Oz for the first time. Glinda, the Good Witch of the North rocked my world to the very core. I learned that not all witches were bad, that fairy-princesses could have magical powers, and that a magic wand was a much better accessory than a tiara. I decided to trade in the glass slippers for super powers instead.

Over the years, I’ve had many variations on the magic wand – plastic ones with colorful ribbons, natural ones fashioned from twigs and feathers, delicate glass and crystal ones (during my brief romance with Wicca). I no longer fancy myself fairy-princess material, but I’ve always kept at least one wand in my possession, in case there was something really mint that I wanted to wish for.

I’ve come to realize that there is only one magic wand that can make dreams come true.

The Hitachi Magic Wand is the greatest vibrator ever invented. It was originally introduced in the seventies as a personal massage tool. I have to believe that was truly the intended use, but somehow, somewhere along the way someone discovered that it delivers a truly powerhouse genital massage, and history was made.

The Wand is innocuous enough. As you can see below, it looks like a legitimate massage tool, or like a hand-blender. It plugs into an outlet, and has two speed settings: Holy Crap and OH MY GOD. This toy delivers intense vibes. So intense is the power behind this wand that masturbation gurus like the amazing Betty Dodson recommend that you add a protective cushion between your clitoris and the head of the Wand when you are first experimenting. A folded up face cloth does the trick, and you can work your way up to fewer folds between the wand and your vulva as you get used to the sensation. I’ve also read that a clean cotton sock does the trick.

The Hitachi Magic Wand became so popular as a masturbation tool that attachments were invented to heighten the experience. Silicone attachments that look like Gonzo from the Muppet Show are designed to pop over the round head of the Wand to stimulate the G-spot. They do the trick, but the Wand is also amazing on its own.

Some women have complained about the intensity of the Wand, and there are now speed-control attachments available. Imagine a dimmer switch into which you can plug the wand to vary the speed.

The Wand is a bit cumbersome, so it’s tricky for travel (though I will personally leave great shoes behind to make room in my suitcase for this bad boy). It’s also ridiculously loud. You’ll need background music if you have roommates, and whatever you do, don’t put it on the floor while it’s on if you’re trying to be discreet. It sounds like a crop duster.

Every girl should have a Hitachi Magic Wand. It guarantees that when the clock strikes midnight and your would-be prince turns into a pumpkin, you’ll still get the happily-ever-after ending you deserve. All great massages should end that way.

Playboy Mommy Recommends:

For your roomates:

For those of you who love dress up:

Goodbye City House

Baby Smiling

The Noodle will soon have a new sofa
to play on.

 

On Tuesday evening I drove away from our Toronto home for the last time. I peered over the tower of laundry that kept Noodle and I company in the back seat and felt such a strange mixture of wistfulness and excitement. The city will always be in my blood, but I’m excited to leave it and move on to new and exciting things.

Our house on Bedford Road was the first home the three of us shared together. (Click here if you require an explanation for ‘the three of us’.) We’ve had our share of fond memories in this house, but we’ve also had a great deal of sorrow. It isn’t easy to reinvent the wheel, and we’ve had to learn a lot of things the hard way. Hearts have been badly broken in that house, and the repair continues to this day.

Our little girls went on to their new country home on Sunday with their grandparents, but before we said goodbye, we lit a small candle in the centre of our living room and made a little circle. We all held hands and encouraged the girls to share some happy memories of their home, and had them say a final goodbye. It was very sweet – all of their memories are wonderful ones – and they got a little choked up. I think they were mostly interested in seeing which of the grown ups would cry first. Of course it was me.

I felt bittersweet. Happy that so many of their memories were precious, and sad that my own experience of our home was double-edged. Each configuration of our adult relationships has dissolved at one point under that roof, and not all of those relationships have been restored in the same way.

I can say with confidence that all of our grown up relationships are better than they have ever been. I can say that we have created much more emotional safety and security for all of us. It’s no secret that this path has been hard, and heart wrenching. I think the key reason for our struggle was lack of knowledge. Even with a few clever books, we didn’t really have a roadmap, and the best road map in the world is useless if you don’t know yourself.

Therapy and determination are the only reasons why my family is together today, and stronger than ever. Even in the midst of the darkest hours of chaos and pain, I could feel in my soul that our paths were meant to be together, and I think I must have shared that feeling because here we all are. Without the guidance of our wonderful therapist, I don’t think I ever would have found the courage to fight for what I wanted, which was our family, together.

I’m not so very religious anymore, but the way our relationship has persisted against all odds has taught me a kind of faith that is greater to me than the faith of religion. It’s a devotion that is tangible and real, something I can see and feel every day in the smiles of our children and the warmth of our home, wherever it may be.

251 Bedford Road is growing mushrooms in the basement. Our old house grew a baby in my belly. The bricks and mortar sheltered Hannu and Aylu as they grew several inches and many miles in maturity. Our city house at the corner of a busy street grew our three souls into three separate worlds that unite beautifully and peacefully shelter their own stratosphere. These worlds continue to revolve, and we pilgrims continue to discover the richness of our strange and wonderful shores.

Thank you city for starting me out on this amazing journey.

Measuring Yard Sale Success

yardsalefeature

With our big move out of the city upon us, you can imagine it’s been hard to post! I’m sorry I’ve missed a couple of days, but I’ve been drowning in cardboard and doing battle with gigantic dust and hair clumps.

Did I lose any of you by writing about getting it on? I hope not, but if sex advice isn’t your thing, I promise to only post about naked fun on Fridays. That way you can skip that day and preserve your saintly opinion of me, or some of you can skip the rest of the week and just read the juicy stuff. Ha!

This weekend was illuminating. When you drive by a yard sale and catch a glimpse of pile upon pile of other people’s junk, please consider how much effort goes in to putting such a sale together.

Purging and prepping for our yard sale took an immense amount of time and energy. I’m mostly to blame, because I can’t do anything simply it seems. I wanted a quirky and fun yard sale – one that the neighbours would delight in and insist that their friends come to see. I wanted a yard sale that would inspire people to solicit my help in culling together their own piles of crap. That’s right, I wanted a yard sale to boost my ego.

surprisejunk

I meticulously sorted things into categories so that all of the like items were priced ahead of time and boxed together for convenience. I delighted myself with my stroke of genius – I pre-packaged dress up ‘costumes’ for the low, low price of $5 a bag, and I brilliantly heaped handfuls or plastic toy junk into $1 brown paper surprise bags that were either gender specific or gender neutral. How smart am I??

surprisebag

I enlisted the girls in running their own lemonade stand, sure that their adorable-ness would draw a crowd eager to purchase our cast offs. I made craft kits, and stacks of similar magazines tied with pretty ribbon. I organized jewelry into tiny baskets. I drew up a plan for layout and bought cute aprons for us to carry change about.

lemonade

I GOT A $335 FLOAT FOR GOD’S SAKES!

We set up later than most yard-sale types prefer, this is true, but we advertised the time accordingly. Our wares were painstakingly laid out and then we sat back to enjoy the busy onslaught.

Pride is man’s folly, and Mother Nature had a lesson for me I suppose. A lesson in remembering to let go of control I think. With our moving day around the corner, this was a timely lesson for me. Saturday the rain fell with great vigor each and every time we tried to peel the plastic drop cloths off our tables.

rainedout

By one o’clock we had made exactly enough money for two gluten-free pizzas for lunch. At one point, my mother had taken the baby for a walk in his stroller and then the rain came on with such force that I called her to see if she needed rescue. “No, we’re fine!” she replied merrily, “We’re indoors at a rummage sale at the church on Bloor Street.”

Hmmph.

sadlemonade

The girls did quite well with the lemonade stand. It would take a cold heart to drive by two soggy little angels trying to make the most of a crap-tastic day. It was like an adage come to life before our eyes. They were pleased with themselves indeed.

Rather than despair, I was able to reflect on how much fun we had setting up and getting ready. This is big for me, because such an epic flop would have sent me deep into the bowels of Grumpy-ville once upon a time, but my desire to model good behavior for my children offers new perspective.

I apologize to the second hand store that received boxes and boxes of soggy goods. I sincerely hope they were still useful. Also, I think it’s amusing that Sunday was a perfectly gorgeous day. Sigh…

Mother Nature and the Powers That Be had another trick in store for us. Our very last customer was a gentleman who took great interest in some bits of merchandise from our family business that Daddy set out in the off-chance that he could unload it. That very customer returned the next day and dropped a couple grand to help us get rid of some product, and thus our rained-out yard sale made a killing.

Isn’t life funny sometimes?