a peek inside the fishbowl

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photos by yours truly via Ottawa Family Photography

Sorry folks, this is not a giveaway. (I wish it was!)

A couple months ago I was offered to test drive a new Ford Fiesta for a week. I agreed to do it. Why the heck not? As much as I like our Prius I figured it would be a great opportunity to drive something small and sporty.

There was a bunch of back and forth emailing between me and the PR agency. And then, by way of an offhand FYI I was told that the car I’d be driving is a standard. (Surprise!) I replied that I didn’t know how to drive standard. I wrote, and I quote; “If you don’t have an automatic it’ll have to be Mr. Fish that drives and reviews it. Not sure how you feel about that…”

They didn’t seem to care that although the review was supposed to be mine I didn’t actually know how to drive the car. I questioned the usefulness of this, buuuuut the got the car anyway. Is it worth posting about my view from the passenger seat? I’m not convinced, but Mark agreed to jot down a few words. Here they are! (With my interruptions … because that’s what I do!)

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had a flood of giveaways here at the Fishbowl. And as much as I love giving stuff away, I need to know:

Thank you! Your vote helps make the Fishbowl a happier place.

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Let’s talk ADVENT.
I need to write it down before I lose track of what we’ve done. I feel like I haven’t been very creative with our family activities this year. I am feeling burned out – not by Christmas – just by life. I feel like there’s this pressure for me to be a happy homemaker. And I am – to a certain degree – a happy homemaker. At the very least, I know that I’m a happier homemaker than many women out there, but I can’t help but feel like I am seriously lacking in the Christmas department. What is wrong with me? This is why I love all things Martha Stewart, and I hate them almost as much. Nothing makes you feel more inferior than a perfectly decorated sugar cookie. I feel like I would be a better mom if I loved baking and decorating (and scrubbing the baseboards, but that is a whole different post) and lovingly darning the socks of my delightfully well-bred offspring. 

The truth is, I suck at baking and decroating cookies. I don’t love doing it, and for some reason I think I should. I love having a tree but I need to force myself to decorate it. Where does this come from? I can’t figure it out.

 There’s a house around the corner with a huge four-season front garden and decorations that come out at each major seasonal interval: Easter, Halloween, Christmas. How do they do it? The living room is really the only place I ever have the energy to decorate.

Gah. Enough of that. Here’s the lowdown on what we’ve been doing:

Day 6 – Mini pedi spa day (a.k.a. Keeping Up With Personal Hygiene)
Day 7 – Decorating the tree
Day 8 – Was going to be “dress up for dinner,” but Emma had something going on right after school so we turned it into a mashup of “wear hats at the dinner table” “eat dessert before dinner” (I made a kick ass pudding. Kick.Ass. I must post the recipe.) and a last-minute “Get take-out from The Works because mum didn’t plan anything for dinner. Just pudding.”
Day 9 – Sarah had an art class at 4Cats Arts Studio, which I first wrote about here. (It was amazing. Here’s what she created!) and we attended a fundraising party at Emma’s school, AND topped it all off with two holiday TV shows before bed.

Today I am waiting anxiously for a delivery of a new camera. I ordered a Nikon D90 from Henry’s. Mark agreed that it was time for an upgrade. I was hoping it would arrive yesterday and the whole thing is making me squirrely.

In other news I am making a little somethin’ Christmassy for YOU too. It’ll be a downloadable kind of thing. Stay tuned for that.