Hey look, it’s New Year’s Eve and I managed to get a few minutes reprieve to put some thought into my favourite albums from the past decade. An entire decade!
iTunes shows I have 8,004 songs from the past decade. Let’s dig in! I’m not counting reissues but the Beatles had an incredible reissue campaign in the past decade.
Alice in Chains – Rainier Fog 2018
Arcade Fire – Reflektor 2014
Bad Uncle – The Surgeon’s Lament 2013
Big Wreck – Ghosts 2014
Billy Talent – Afraid of Heights 2016
Black Ribbons – Neuromancer 2012
Manchester Orchestra – A Black Mile to the Surface 2017
Boxer Rebellion – The Cold Still 2011
Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder 2017
Cannons – Open Letter 2013
Collective Soul – Live 2017
Dan Mangan – Nice, Nice, Very Nice 2010
Dear Rouge – Black to Gold – 2015
The Dears Acoustic: 2001-2005 (2016)
The Dears – Times Infinity Volume Two 2017
The Devin Cuddy Band – Volune One 2012
Fontarabie – Fontarabie 2014
Glen Hansard – Between Two Shores 2018
Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles – The Grand Bounce 2010
How To Destroy Angels – Welcome Oblivion
July Talk – July Talk 2013
Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur 2012
Les Cowboys Fringants – Octobre 2015
LIVE – Woodstock ’94 2019
Loon Choir – All of This and Everything Else 2015
The Lumineers – The Lumineers 2013
Matt Mays – Coyote 2012
Megadeth – Dystopia 2016
Metallica – Hardwired…To Self-Destruct 2016
Metric – Art of Doubt 2018
Murray Lightburn – Mass:Light 2013
Muse – The 2nd Law 2012
My Chemical Romance – Danger Days 2010
The National – Sleep Well Beast 2017
Nine Inch Nails – Add Violence, Bad Witch, Not The Actual Events 2017
Patrick Watson – Adventures In Your Own Backyard 2012
Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt 2013
Postdata – Let’s Be Wilderness 2018
Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool 2016
The Reverb Syndicate – Odyssey 2015
Rob Zombie – Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor 2013
Roger Waters – Is This The Life We Really Want? 2017
Royal Canoe – Today We’re Believers 2013
Sam Roberts Band – Collider 2011
Silversun Pickups – Widow’s Weeds 2019
Skye Wallace – Skye Wallace 2019 (this one is tricky…I literally got this album a month ago so I don’t know if it has the staying power to be the best of a decade. But it’s definitely the best of 2019 and it’s still going strong into 2020!)
The Smashing Pumpkins – Oceania 2012
Sound of Lions – 11:44 2011
Spencer Burton – Don’t Let the World See Your Love 2014
St. Vincent – MASSEDUCTION 2017
Tame Impala – Currents 2015
Taylor Swift – 1989 (2014)
The Tea Party – Live from Australia 2012
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks 2010
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Social Network soundtrack 2010
The Trews – …Thank You and I’m Sorry 2012
U2 – Songs of Experience 2017
The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding 2017
The Weeknd – House of Balloons
Whale Tooth – Search Party 2012
William Patrick Corgan – Ogilala 2017
Wintersleep – The Great Detachment 2016, In The Land Of 2019
It’s really interesting going down the rabbit hole of memories of all these great albums that have impacted me.
And for the greatest disappointment of the past decade…30 Seconds to Mars. You were destined to take the top spot from Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. Then you produced crap for an entire decade.
I’ve run a little late with this entry considering I’m writing this on January 16, 2020 and there’s a whole lot of snow on the ground. It’s strange to see that we were outside at the park like this six weeks ago! I do remember getting worried about the lack of snow for Christmas.
December was a fun month with Sierra. She is grasping the concepts of giving gifts, opening gifts, asking for items from Santa. Her attention span definitely wanes though. The evidence of this is her advent calendar which still isn’t completely opened yet!
For the second year in a row, we wanted to try and open up gifts for a series of days instead of opening them all in one morning. The way we see it is that we are stuck inside for the Christmas break, why not have something special to look forward to each day? Sierra was definitely blowing through a few gifts on Christmas morning until she stopped at the greatest gift ever…a fishing game. We stopped everything and played that game. We also played it the next day. And the next. Every time we asked if she wanted to open up some gifts, she said “No, I want to play the fishing game!” It warms our hearts to see that she actually enjoys playing with the gifts she receives instead of blowing through them and leaving them in a pile on Christmas morning.
Before I forget to mention, this past month (or past season…it’s been so long!) has been the time where Sierra isn’t the nicest person in the world. She constantly says no to us at every turn. “Let’s brush your teeth.” Non. “Let’s get you dressed.” Non. “Let’s leave daycare so you can go home.” Non. Argh! It is very frustrating right now. We are trying to give her a reward system like “Hey, if you get dressed to go to daycare you can watch television tonight.” but it doesn’t seem to phase her. When we point out that she can’t get something special, she just says “It’s ok.” like she’s consoling us! Hopefully this phase will pass soon enough because it’s getting too frustrating in the morning when I’m trying to have her speak quietly so she doesn’t wake Ezra but at the same time she’s saying no to everything!
Onto some photos!
Typically on a weekend I try and get away with both kids to give Maman a break. This must have been the day where Ezra was still sleeping in so I decided to hit the road with Sierra. First stop…breakfast!
We were pretty lucky to see Santa Claus while we were out at the grocery store!!
Sierra is starting to not like her picture being taken.
Etienne and I made a photo book of ourselves for the Christmas gift exchange at work. We were pretty disheartened when we found out at the last minute that there was NOT going to be any exchange this year! Luckily Kelly didn’t get the memo either so we did an exchange between ourselves. She was over the moon with this gift and proceeded to bring it to every meeting she could in the proceeding weeks.
Sierra’s first advent calendar! Note for next year: get the cheap ones where the chocolates have a different design to them. This kinder one was the same exact chocolate each day.
Preparing for her first job.
As parents with two kids, you sometimes have to split up when it comes to activities. Vero headed downtown with Trish to see Damien Robitaille at the opening ceremony for the Christmas lights in Ottawa. Jealous that they got to meet him on their way into the event! By the way, if you don’t have his new Christmas album, go get it now. It’s great!
Sierra showing me how the ratio of icing to cookie should be at least 50/50.
Sierra and I went to David’s Tea to pick up a gift for Maman and they treated her to some decaffeinated tea. Yum!
Bahaha!
Helping put up the Christmas decorations. Stan Lee’s Santa hat came out for the event!
I got a calendar notification reminding me to infiltrate the girls’ Christmas party with a gift of my own. I sent a long a photo book of my life. Vero thought it was hilarious and supposedly there were a few people fighting over the item!
Holly won it in the end and she tells me that her kids look at pictures of Uncle Ryan each night.
This is probably the photo they like to look at.
Tis the season to make sausage dip!
Sierra insisted that our tree had a star on top this year so we went out and picked one up.
The best part of Vars is their annual Christmas celebration! Someone tried to get me to play tunes for the kids but I wasn’t prepared in time. Luckily they got the guy who had been doing it for years and he knows how to get the kids entertained!
Sierra and her friend were more focussed on crawling on the floor than singing and dancing!
Ho Ho Ho!
I had a homework assignment for the month of December. I was going to play some Christmas tunes for the daycare along with our friend Vero. There has never been a French translation of Frosty the Snowman …until now! The daycare had this book and I copied the words down and figured out how to play it in French.
Clearly they had fun at daycare today!
I’m not sure if I have already posted this but this is this year’s school photo. I put in another two minutes of effort on her hair that morning. Usually it’s a rat’s nest.
For YEARS I have gone to the department’s Christmas party and they only had tea or coffee on hand. Finally, they have smarted up and offered up some hot chocolate as well!
Ah, the work Christmas party. Always a fun time. We now reserve Le Troquet for our festivities and rightly so! We spend most of our time there during the year anyhow!
For the past two years, Nanny Ruth’s Christmas sweater (I’m wearing it in this photo) has one the Branch’s Christmas sweater prize! We were going to go for a third year in a row which I mistakenly thought was four years in a row. So you will see that everyone’s t-shirt says FOUR FOR FOUR accidentally. I never told them the truth and if they are reading this now…sorry? My team loves Nanny Ruth’s sweater so much that they rallied behind the cause of winning another year in a row and we got some t-shirts made for the event. Unfortunately, we were completely shut out of winning this year…we didn’t even make it into the Top 3! I think that’s a little unfair, but whatever. At the end of the day, there’s no tears shed over losing a sweater competition. It is Christmas after all! Nanny, if you are reading this, I hope you enjoy seeing how much joy you bring to my colleagues! Special thanks to the great group I work with and the fun times that were brought to the Branch Christmas party even though most of you were severely hungover from the previous night’s party.
Now that Christmas has passed I can start posting photos of a project I was working on. I was going to attempt to make a cribbage board for my parents as well as another one for Vero’s dad. I got these biscuits from Emile at work who had taken down a few trees on his property. I let them dry over a month’s time on the heater at work. I had purchased a router to do the middle portion but after speaking to Dad I realized that the router needed bits and other things that I wasn’t prepared to purchase so I returned it and worked at carving out the middle portion for the cards.
I sat on the project for a few weeks seeing that the clock was ticking. I needed to get this done! I then took an old credit card and drilled a few holes in it to act as a template to drill over 300 holes into the board. As you can see from the photo above I marked it with a pencil before going all out!
Birthday party fun!
Everyone loves a good marshmallow.
Sierra pulling Maman on the sled!
After some varnish.
Making some Christmas cookies
Note the Mr. T action figure!!
Might steal this idea for next year.
Finished product! The only thing that really messed up with this entire project were the custom playing cards I ordered…the box they came in was larger than the spot I carved for them!
I can’t figure out if the cribbage board or the custom playing cards were the best part of the gift!
It’s been a long Star Wars ride but we went and watched Rise of Skywalker on opening night and it was great!
For a few years I have been suffering from styes that form on my eyelid. I was having a good run of not having any for a few weeks but it came back in full force. I hadn’t had it this bad since when it first started up years ago. Hopefully one day we’ll figure out how to get rid of them but as the specialist once told me: “You won’t die from it, but you will die with it!”
Sierra riding the escalator at my work
There were carollers so Sierra and I sat down in the lobby to listen to a few songs.
Santa was nice enough to pay us a visit at work!
After awhile at work, it’s time for a break.
It was great to see some of the old gang from when we worked together back in 2010. It’s also crazy to think that some of us still work together! Hey, when you love your job and the people you work with, why would you leave?
Clearly Sierra was not too happy with Mina trying to watch her iPad.
It’s Christmas eve and the cookies, milk, and carrots are ready for Santa and his reindeer!
Christmas morning
Alright, some context is needed for this five minute video, but it is well worth watching. A few months ago while eating a smoked meat sandwich for lunch, we asked Sierra what she wanted from Santa Claus. She thought about it for a bit and then said “a smoked meat sandwich!”. We thought this was quite funny but when we asked her a few more times as Christmas got closer, she had the same answer. But she also added a few things…”un smoked meat sandwich puis un non et un oui!” Only Santa could figure out what she meant by this and Santa delivered! Sierra was VERY excited to see some smoked meat come her way for Christmas.
Smoked meat!!!
Prepping Christmas dinner.
What a great Christmas treat! Poppa, Grandma, Abbey and Maureen came to visit us for a few days! Too bad it was freezing rain most of the time!
Sierra enjoyed the activity tablecloth that Grandma brought for Christmas.
I had a good laugh at this one on Facebook.
Sierra enjoyed the slippers that Nanny Ruth made for her.
Kitchen party!
I love how this photo makes it look like I’m playing to an audience of one.
I modified the recipe from the site above and it came out decent. Vero really likes it. I feel there’s a little bit of flavour needed. The comments section mentions someone adding some brown sugar as they like a sweeter taste, I may try that next time. Update: I did try the cup of brown sugar and while good, I wasn’t a fan. I need to figure out the missing ingredient.
Ingredients
2 Pounds Lean Ground Beef
3/4Teaspoon EACHSalt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder
1PoundSpaghetti Noodles (this is one package of noodles)
1 jar of tomato and basil spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 Jars of water (just use the jar from the spaghetti sauce)
1 large (28 oz)CanDiced Tomatoes
Instructions
Set the Instant Pot to saute’ and add the ground beef. Add the salt, garlic powder, onion powder. Cook the meat and seasonings, breaking the meat up until it’s completely browned. Turn the Instant Pot off. Drain any excess grease from meat if necessary.
Break the spaghetti in half and place on top of meat in the Instant Pot. Pour over the spaghetti sauce, diced tomato, and water. Push the spaghetti down with a spoon if necessary to make sure it is completely covered in liquid.
Seal the instant pot and set it to manual mode, high pressure, 8 minutes cooking time. When the time is up, use manual quick release to open the Instant Pot. Stir the spaghetti well. Serve immediately
Theres a lot of spaghetti to eat, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have leftovers for two more nights.
And if you’re really lucky, they give you this once in awhile:
Ezra is full out screaming at me 50% of the nights but then other nights he’s content to hang out with me. You never know what you’re going to get! But he’s doing good for the most part. I don’t feel he’s got any health issues that we need to be concerned about. What do I know? Maybe the 50% of the time he’s screaming at me is because he’s allergic to hanging out next to his Dad?
A typical evening for me is to return home, help out with Sierra to put her to bed and then I bring Ezra downstairs and we watch some TV/movies. Somewhere along this ride he gets a bottle and then if I’m lucky he’s all smiles for 30 minutes and then he starts to get cranky so I rock him to sleep or wrap him in a blanket and he falls asleep next to me for an hour until the next feeding. Feedings are slowly stretching past the two hour mark. Sometimes he’s can go another 30 minutes, sometimes not. That’s on a good day. On a bad day, he’s crying after I give him the bottle and he doesn’t let up for two hours. I even had to employ this handy device one night:
I’ve learned to watch Star Wars with the subtitles on.
He’s enjoying the Christmas lights we have put up. Vero tells me that he stares at the Christmas tree a lot.
Onto the pictures!
Mom’s still got the Midas touch!
We’re teaching Sierra how to take photos.
Two beauties!
Maggie Simpson.
I’ve never seen this outfit before. Is this supposed to be Mickey Mouse?
Sierra gets some cuddle time with Ezra before bedtime usually. At a quick glance you would think Sierra is looking at the camera but we all know she is staring at the television behind us.
Vero goes out for the night and the supper of champions emerges!
Vero would probably tell you that this is a typical morning for Ezra. Having a nap while taking a walk around the neighbourhood.
Taking Ezra for a sled ride.
It was the just the three of us one night so Sierra helped give the bottle while I cleaned up the kitchen. They both did quite well!
The snow comes and goes around Ottawa so we took advantage of it when we could. It’s interesting to see how Ezra reacts in the cold. If there is the slightest gust of wind it takes his breath away so we generally have to bundle him up in blankets. But on a day like today he was doing good.
I think they are both getting used to having photos taken.
I saw this at the Canadian Tire toy section and I thought “Yep, that sounds right.”
Fredo and Ezra hanging out.
THIS is what we like to see in the evenings!
Ezra enjoys the time spent in his little play yard.
Checking out what the family is doing.
Relaxing.
Watching Christmas specials on a Saturday morning.
Sierradinosaur and Ezra were really into Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Ezra was loving playing with this.
And this!
Damien Robitaille! Trish and Vero got to see him play a few Christmas tunes down near City Hall.
He has a new Christmas album out this year which is a great listen (and a great gift under the tree!)
And so it begins! With the Rise of Skywalker coming out in a few weeks I decided to take Ezra on the journey of watching six Star Wars films with me.
For Holly’s Christmas party I infiltrated with a gift of my own…a photo book of my life! It was a hot ticket item for the gift exchange!
Sausage dip!
Ezra was helping put the Christmas tree up.
Ezra and Sierra got to meet Santa at the Vars Christmas celebration!
I have to take tips from this guy. He was a great entertainer.
The afternoon was a hit and we give thanks to the Optimist Club for putting on this great event each year.
