Getting older

Inside my head waiting at a stop sign yesterday:
"Gee, those kids are a little early to be trick-or-treating. Isn't it only on Sunday?
And they're kind of old to be doing it too.
Oh wait, they're just 'regular'-looking teenagers."

Wanted

Have you seen this chocolate bar?

If you have, report to me immediately!

Store review - Homesense

Yes, Homesense has finally opened in Quebec! Today was the grand opening of the stores at Decarie Square and Fairview Pointe Claire. Seeing as how I am a 20-minute walk from Decarie Square, I wandered over at lunch for a look. First, I would like to say that I have never seen so many cars in the Decarie Square parking lot. It's a fairly dilapidated shopping centre, and has declined further through years of neglect and wool carpet sales. Expect a bit of a hassle getting in and out, and long waits at the lights. Today, they had many parking attendants out assisting drivers looking for spots. This was absolutely essential and a very nice "we care" touch. The old Winners at the centre has been removed and both stores are combined on the second floor a few steps from the escalators. I was surprised that it wasn't a bit bigger, in fact a lot of the store layout appeared crammed. A small piece of advice: when you are having a grand opening and know that there are going to be boatloads of people in and out of your store, do not put those annoying island shelves in the middles of the aisles. They slow people down with carts and strollers. I know you want people to see your wares, but they aren't going to buy anything if they can't get through the aisles easily, they will turn around and leave. I wandered without a cart and still found it difficult. The winners side was much the same, some good deals, some not so good. I'm not paying $99 for a cashmere sweater at Winners.
The Homesense side was smaller than it should have been, and there was an enormous amount of knickknack stuff cluttering shelves throughout the middle of the store. I guess many people are searching for an antique-looking wooden car for their coffeetables, or another glass vase. I found it a bit off-putting, like a dollar store had exploded. The bedding section was nice, everything was neatly organized and decidedly not an ugly selection of sheets and bedding. The bath section was a little slim except for the towels. I was drawn to the kitchen section, lots of pots and utensils, no electronic appliances though. A small but good selection of dishware and glasses, and lots of holiday-ware for Christmas. The prices were fairly decent, I found many things around $20 and under. There's also a nice selection of frames and framed art/mirrors. There were a few larger pieces (chairs, sofas) in the back of the store, but they looked like they were there for display only. The current layout does not support large items. All in all, there are some good deals to be had at Homesense, but I think they should streamline the space and concentrate on bedding, kitchenware and bath, and decrease the floor space given for the knickknacks.

What not to watch

I watched part of the worst reality show I've ever seen last night. The Biggest Loser is a show about competitive weight loss. There is nothing about this show that is not disgusting, mean, and wrong. The poeple on the show are on two teams and they compete to see which team can lose the most weight weekly. The contestants range in weight goals from 30-100+ pounds. The teams are headed by two fitness instructors who seem to have no idea how to loss weight in a healthy manner. The first week some people lost over 20 pounds - how is that possible? One person is voted off each week, usually the person with the least to lose. The show's only goal seems to be to make fun of these poor people and provides no encouragement or self esteem building. I thought that The Swan was bad, but TBL makes that show shine.
A couple of years back, there was a show on the Life network called "Taking it Off" that followed a group of people who wanted to lose weight and get in shape. That show had realistic goals, showed people how to eat and exercise properly and the group had good motivation. If the producers of TBL started with that show concept, they really missed the boat.

Nice night

I had a very pleasant evening. Steve made a nice supper, Ben ate heartily, and then we retired to the livingroom to watch a few episodes of the fourth season of Futurama. Ben went back and forth from the tv to his room and emptied some recycling, threw toys all over, and dragged his laundry everywhere. One of his favorite new things is rushing into our arms for hugs -sigh, he's so cute! I missed a lot of the fourth season of Futurama because they kept moving it during the baseball season and I wasn't watching much tv. By the end of the evening, Ben and I were cuddled up on the floor. This past weekend we went and picked out a new pair of glasses for Steve. I hope that these are more kid-friendly than his current pair. I also reaffirmed my theory that all glasses look really bad on me, I'm glad that I don't need them -yet.
We have finally entered the sweater portion of the Fall season. Last night, it went down to 0. Time to get in gear and get those fireplace doors so we can have some cozy fires!

Short Thoughts

• Commercials for My Little Pony make me appreciate that I have a son.
  
• Things that Ben has attempted to eat recently: a quarter, hair, keys, socks, shoes, pom-poms, paper, kleenex, Steve's shoulder, mousepad, tupperware, footstool, my knee
  
• People who leave huge bowls of individually wrapped mini-swiss chocolate squares sitting within easy reach of my desk are evil.
  
• Pricing new computers for my folks is much more interesting than editing a 300-page upgrade guide.
  
• My hair is in dire need of a fairy godmother

Thanksgiving weekend was pretty relaxing, we saw the folks and did some chores and did some tidying around the house. I made my fabulous banana bread, but baked it in mini-muffin tins for Ben - he loves getting his little muffin and breaking it apart and stuffing it in his mouth. He's so cute when he's eating. He grabs handfuls of food and makes yum noises and hums and kicks his feet and enjoys his food. Ben walked all over the place this weekend, he's walking farther and faster everyday.
I finally got around to creating a brand-spanking new c.v. this week. I was looking around for inspiration and was surprised at how many awful microblah template cvs there are out there. Even the samples from web sites that sell cv writing services are grim.

Walking man!

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Originally uploaded by dina the mundane and oblivious.