[1] Old Navy's Black Friday Sale, specifically for their Active line. This morning, I made my one and only Black Friday purchase and ordered some of their workout gear for cheap. $11.50 sports bras and $14.50 compression leggings? Be still my heart. 

1. Eli has started calling us by our first names. "Amy, GET OVER HERE!" and "Where's Peter?" I don't know how he even knows those are our names. Then he cackles hysterically.

2. We made a batch of wine for our anniversary. The fourth-year anniversary gift is traditionally fruit and flowers, and we were like, fruit = grapes = wine. So we went to visit a winery and made a batch of wine. But here's where it gets fun. We thought our batch was going to make 10-12 bottles. It actually made 30. So now, we have all the wine. And homemade wine is like, knock-you-on-your-ass wine. I'm drunk writing the post and I'm not quite done one glass. It should be an extremely festive holiday season.

3. I started making a wreath on the weekend and ran out of burlap halfway through, so now I have this:

I bought more burlap and I would finish it now but I'm drunk.

4. Pete and I and some friends ran the Lucky 7 relay on Nov. 17! It was three legs of 7km. My running goal for 2014 was to complete three races, and this was my third. My secret goal was to run my longest run ever in 2014, which hasn't happened yet, and OOPS now the cat's out of the bag, this wine is really going to be a problem. I haven't run longer than 12 miles all year. Get off me. Anyway...Lucky 7 was a lot of fun and I'm excited to have three new t-shirts in my drawer from this year's races.

5. I took last Friday off to do my Christmas shopping because I thought it was Black Friday. All day long, I was buying things and thinking "these don't seem like Black Friday deals but just go with it, tightwad, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU." Realized this week I took the wrong Friday off.

That's about it. Going to go have a glass of water and put some Gatorade by my bedside for tomorrow morning, not even joking. Happy Tuesday kids!

[+] flannel sheets, because it's not already hard enough to get out of bed in the morning.
[+] printed compression capris, because if you're going to be stuck in the gym, you might as well have cute pants.

Lately, I have been oddly drawn to things that are making me feel very confused. I can't decide whether these new things I'm seeing are modern marvels and I want them - if I NEED them - or if they're actually horrifying and/or fugly and I should run, not walk, away.

Part of me is curious. Part of me is appalled. I don't know who to ask for advice, so I turn to the internet. Here are just two of many recent examples:

I am a girl with straight hair, SUPER straight. Like I'll go get it cut and the stylist is all, "do you flatiron your hair every morning?" in a disapproving tone, and I'm like, playa, PLEASE. I would kill to have hair that curls. If you look under my bathroom sink, it's like an As Seen On TV graveyard of hair curling apparatus which all garner the same results for me: zilch. My hair holds exactly two looks well: greasy seaweed and frazzled horse tail. I have been trying to have curly hair since I was about nine years old.

Which is why, when I saw the Curl Secret commercial on TV, I was intrigued. "A revolutionary new way to create one beautiful shiny curl after another." It certainly looks effortless in the ad. Will this actually work for me? I wondered.



Then I read some online reviews. Like this broad's, who claims her hair got caught in the motor. This is the stuff of nightmares. The Christine of styling tools.

Don't these just scream apres-ski? Don't you want to build a roaring fire, get your Bailey's-and-coffee day-drunk on, and lounge in a pair of these suckers all day long while a snowstorm howls outside and your man brings logs in from the woodpile shirtless but wearing one of those ear flap hats?

"Why yes, honey, I could absolutely go for more caffeine and booze and shortbread cookies. But first, why don't you come over here and give me a peek at that yule log?" But this is real life, and in real life, where do you wear Fair Isle leggings? Are they for ski bunnies only? Are they like Crocs or going braless, i.e. not permissible outside of your own yard? I don't know what to do with all this.  I mean, I wouldn't show up to the office wearing what is essentially a pair of patterned long johns, but could you make it work with boots and a long sweater? And is there an age limit to these things?  These are the things I think about when I'm not obsessing over work, food, sleeping, whether or not Eli is in danger, if that sound I'm hearing is the dog throwing up as I'm falling asleep, or whether I can get one more day out of my chipped nail polish. Any thoughts?

Your second birthday was cloudy and drizzly, a lot like the day you were born. You came downstairs and were greeted by a new train set (which you were thrilled about) and some new clothes (less thrilled). You ate Mickey Mouse-shaped waffles for your birthday breakfast and put on your "I Am 2" shirt, in case anyone wasn't sure why the house was full of balloons and tissue paper.

As our latest move in our quest to obtain the World's Worst Parents title, we've decided not to have a birthday party for Eli when he turns two years old on Sunday. At least, there won't be a big, themed, invite-everyone-we-know affair. We're going to keep it simple and invite his family over on his birthday for pizza and cake. There will be balloons and a few presents, but there won't be themed decor and corresponding invitations and treat bags. We are taking low-key to the max.

There are a few reasons for this. The biggest is that his birthday falls on the Remembrance Day long weekend this year, and a lot of people are going to be out of town on Sunday and just getting back on Monday. The following weekend, the local Christmas parades are happening (does November 16-17 feel obscenely early for Christmas parades to anyone else?) so a lot of families will be running around to those. And doing it two weeks late just seems pointless.

Plus...he's turning two. He's going to see his family and get a few presents and hear everyone sing him Happy Birthday - this is exciting for a two-year-old. It's not as though he's going to suffer PTSD because he didn't have a second birthday party. He knows, like, seven kids total and he hangs out with four of them at the sitter every day. Basically every day is a birthday party for Eli.

So there you have it. Worst, meanest, laziest parents ever. Instead, we're hoping to get together with some of Eli's little friends over the next few weeks so he still gets to hang out with his buddies, just not in a wild birthday bash scenario (but probably one that he'll enjoy just as much.)

One thing I want to establish with Eli from a young age is that holidays are about experiences, not huge 'dos and a million presents. Halloween is about carving a pumpkin, putting together a costume, and watching scary movies, not just about how much candy you can cram into your bag. Christmas is about baking cookies, listening to Kenny and Dolly and going for a drive to get hot chocolate and look at neighbourhood lights, not how many presents Santa brings.

That's not to say we are putting the kibosh on birthday parties - not at all! But right now, while he's so young, and this year in particular, with the long weekend throwing a wrench into things, I think we can make sure Eli still has a happy birthday and tons of fun without stressing too much over a Pinterest-caliber bash.

What do you think? Are we being horrible people?

I've seen this Friday feature on a few different blogs lately, namely here and more recently, here. This feels a lot easier today than waxing poetic about gratitude or sharing the picture of Eli in his Clark Kent costume yet again.