Catching Up Is Hard To Do

As I mentioned in my last post (almost two weeks ago), my kids have two weeks of spring break. Two! Weeks! And…we’ve only finished one of them. If you’re the praying type, may I ask that you pray for my husband? He’s responsible for filling their days while I’m at the office for ten hours a day. I’d ask you to pray for me as well but he needs it more than I do. I get an hour-long lunch break, I get to talk to other adults and, in the case that I don’t want to talk to others, I can shut my office door. I get the better end of the deal, for sure.

So what have we all been up to for the past week? The kids went to Grandma’s for five days (we picked them up a day early) and had a blast. Matthew got in one last snowmobile trip with his buddies before the season is done. And me? Well, I went to Toronto for two nights. I was only supposed to be there for one night but (doing that three-hour time change twice in two days might kill me dead, and) I wanted the chance to see a couple of good friends of mine.

Katie picked me up from the airport and we went out for dinner. We also took the subway downtown in a (failed) attempt to get the data working on my phone (KIND OF IMPORTANT)(I figured it out ALL BY MYSELF later that night) but all of the lame customer service at Rogers aside, we had a great visit. Katie may be one of my “bosses” at The Bad Moms Club but she was my roommate at Blissdom Canada and is someone that I consider a close friend. She’s Good People.

Miss Ali Martell joined us as soon as her family got back into town and then I got to spend the night at her place. I finally met her kids! They’re as cute and awesome and hilarious as she tells us in her stories about them and it was so great to have the chance to chat with them before they went to school. I still haven’t met her hubby Gav – a late night out and my body clock being three hours behind kiboshed that – but BlogHer will be here before you know it.

Ali and I had a great day of catching up while sipping coffee on her couch and even hit up an all-you-can-eat sushi place for lunch. It was so great to have all of that time to just talk and hang out and, man. Ali’s another person that I consider a close friend and WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO LIVE ACROSS THE COUNTRY?

Someone needs to invent a teleportation device, stat.

I had to tear myself away from Ali so that I could be downtown for the reason I had been flown to Toronto and put up in a sweet hotel. I can finally tell you guys what I’ve been so excited about and I’m, um, excited to tell you.

I’m one of seven bloggers (two French-speaking, five English-speaking) who are going to be writing our own columns for General Mills Canada. I KNOW.

When I first heard about the opportunity and looked up the products that fall under their umbrella (Not just Cheerios!), I was surprised to see products that I use, but didn’t know were under the General Mills brand. Nature Valley granola bars, Betty Crocker, Green Giant, Pillsbury, etc. WHO KNEW? Well, maybe you did, but I did not.

Anyway! General Mills has a recipe site called Life Made Delicious and they want to add a personal element to it. This is where us writers come in. We’re each going to have our own section of the site, where we get to write about our individual food-related spin. My site is going to be a place where I share my favorite recipes (I love appetizers, but you knew that) and talk about entertaining tips, etc. I love to cook and bake and to host dinner parties and, so. I’m going to be paid to do it over at Life Made Delicious. FUN. Our sites won’t be live until May (for Mother’s Day), but I’ll be sure to let you guys know when we’re up and running. If you’re a subscriber to their newsletter you’ll hear all about us in May and beyond, as well.

It was great to meet the other writers, especially Kim from Mommy Knows.

I used to buy baby clothes for Emily from Kim’s former online shop and we’ve been blog/Flickr/Twitter friends for YEARS, but had never met in person. She’s fifty shades of awesome and we had a great time hanging out.

General Mills treated us to a fantastic dinner at Brassai on the Monday night and we spent all day Tuesday at their facilities. We were treated to amazing food for breakfast and dinner, learned about product testing and even got to do a blind taste test. We wrapped up the day in the test kitchen, learning food styling tips from a professional chef and food stylist named Adele Hagan. She learned her craft over in England and even made the Queen Mum’s 100th birthday cake (!). It was the perfect way to wrap up the day in my oh, so humble opinion.

It was such a fun day getting to know my fellow writers and our lovely hosts. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them all again in San Diego.

And as if all of the awesome that I packed into those few days in Toronto wasn’t enough, when I finally got home on Tuesday night I was treated to this sight:

While I was away, Matthew finished the kitchen table that he built for us (we’ve been using his parents’ 70′s oak table for ten years now) AND he set it with the new dishes we bought at IKEA last week. I love it.

As for the rest of last week, we attended a large family dinner on Friday night and then headed out just the two of us on Saturday night, all in celebration of Matthew’s birthday.

Isn’t he the cutest?

This next week is back to the usual work days/hanging out together in the evenings and I am most definitely okay with that. All of our activities (and shenanigans) last week were great and my self-imposed break from this here site was also great (though I feel rusty) but I’m looking forward to getting back into our “normal” groove. Those quotes are intentional, natch.