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I pick a magnet off the floor and place it onto the refrigerator. Our fridge, a white behemoth approaching the age of twenty, stands alone in our kitchen, isolated from the other black appliances, the newer and more cool crowd.
I read what the magnet says and ask my husband where this one came from.
His answer is one I’ve heard many times: “The flea market.”
I look at the other magnets and realize I could start a side business of fridge astrology. Yes, for a small amount of Canadian Tire money, I will read your fridge and make observations about the present and predictions about the future.
Here’s my fridge astrology.
Exhibit A:
Prediction: Once Don’t Lick the Minivan is published, no one who reads it will claim we’re a normal family.
Exhibit B:
Prediction: In five years, my house will be a second home to many teenagers. I won’t remember their names. I’ll be lucky if I remember the names of my own kids.
Exhibit C:
Observation: I frequently lose my voice. I sometimes find it hanging out with single socks, you know, the risque ones.
Exhibit D:
Observation: Both are Texas and hell are hot. Canada is not.
Exhibit E:
Observation: No wonder why I’ve been tired for two months…
What’s on your fridge?
If you have a non-magnetic fancy-dancy one, what would be on your fridge if you could stick things to it?
My husband picked out one of those fancy refrigerators that doesn’t hold magnets. Currently, I see a pink sticky note listing my son’s chores which — in the last few weeks — he has stopped doing. He has done these things since he was five years old, but since he turned 13, he seems to forgotten how to make his bed, how to put the blinds up, and how to do his laundry. He no longer does dishes, he has stopped bringing his garbage downstairs, he is not keeping his room clean nor keeping his shoe area neat.
On the side of the fridge, there is a tiny magnetic area where a few magnets live. One reads, “Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and men have no idea what to do.” another is a pad of paper which my husband has written “we need eggs.” I suppose we do. There is also a magnet for a party planner. My son’s bar mitzvah was in June. I can probably throw that away. Last, there is a copy of TechSupport’s latest report card. Why? Because I never got grades like that. And my report card never made it to the fridge.
You need to raise my kids. That is all.
Leanne, I get yelled at for having a ton of pictures of our kids on it hung up by magnets. God only knows what that says about me, lol!!
There are worse things to put on your fridge….
I tape ‘artwork’ to the fridge door in reach of the kids- magnets are for up top. Currently I have the first ever, recognizable as people, portrait of our family done by my 4yo. On the top is all the crap that the daycare sends home that I’m supposed to keep track of. It’s worse than a junk drawer.
I love kid art. I also love sneaking it out to the recycle bin when the kids are asleep.
Ours is filled with the kids art work as she tries to stay inbetween the lines and a handful of broken vacation destination magnets from where they knocked them off the fridge making room for their masterpieces. ~ on a side note, I noticed I have stolen, borrowd, or referenced your blog so often your name shows up in my Tag cloud. People will talk you know…
Ha. Let ’em talk. That about as exciting as things get up here!
And, nothing really beats broken vacation magnets as a reminder of the life you once had.
Oh geez. Not the fridge thing. I try to put the kids art up on it, but I always get chastized when I am removing the old stuff. Like I’m ripping pieces of their life away from them and mortal bleeding ensues.
Right now I have a calendar (gotta love those X’s when the day is done), a painting of the solar system, and a couple of “gift magnets” of embroidered feet from China.
Oh, and a cow. Gosh. Does my fridge me look fat?
Tell them Ninjas take art in the night…
Thank you. Oh, just thank you. I was looking for an excuse 🙂
The side that faces the family room, the side everyone sees, is totally filled with magnetic photo frames of all our family, including dogs. There are 29 frames! The far side, the kitchen side that only I see while baking, has the inevitable shopping list, plus magnets that friends and family have bought for me: “Keep me going, Lord” (which suits me well), “You make the word friend mean something very special” and “It’s a precious gift from God to have a mother like you” (which must be meant for someone else). The front is occasionally adorned with grandchildren’s art. That’s what fridge’s are really for, aren’t they?
Ha, Carol! That mother magnet was absolutely meant for you! I love looking at people’s fridges…photos and art are the best.
You always ask the best questions.
We have other people’s kids covering the side of our fridge (which is magnetic). Every now and then it makes me think, “Hmm. If I had one of these, would it be worth it for the jokes?” Your blog always makes me think, “YES.”
I’m going to start referring to my twins as “one of these…doubled.” 🙂
I laughed when I read your post, as we have similar magnets on our fridge my favourite at the moment is “i childproofed the house but they still managed to get it” Bx
I covet your magnet.
My favorite magnet says “Don’t make me go all Joan Crawford on your ass,” with a photo of the woman herself. It’s holding up a reminder card from the dentist.
One side of our fridge has the magnetic grocery list. (Woe betide the one who uses the last of something and doesn’t put it on the list. No babies in this house any more.) The other side is full of calendars and schedules from the three schools, a marathon registration form from 2011. Guess I’ll go clear that off now. The front is all the show-off stuff. When the boys were little it was always covered with drawings and report cards. Now that they’re big it’s a little more sophisticated. Currently displayed are Slick’s ACT ticket for Saturday’s test and his scholarship award certificate (!!!!) to his first-choice college. Next to that is Caboose’s rehearsal schedule for chorus, and a field trip notice.
Man, I never realized just how much junk I have on my fridge.
I want that magnet, too. Well, tis the season to covet.
Don’t you hate how when something is on the fridge for more than 24 hours, you cease to see it?
I need to up my magnet game. We’ve got magnets from the Chinese take-out place (prediction: my pants will stop fitting in the next month) and magnetic chip clips shaped like bow ties (prediction: so, my pants will stop fitting probably tomorrow?).
At first, I thought your “prediction” was in a fortune cookie. Can you imagine?
Fortunately nothing sticks to our fridge front. Now the bulletin board around the corner is a different story… calendar, drugstore receipts, photos, tickets, a Danish paper Christmas ornament (not put up this year) and extra magnets so we can always add more!
Those Danes know how to do Christmas. I’m not even being sarcastic here.
We have an old fridge as well with, a picture of me and my daughter, a business card with my daughters doctor appointment and doctors phone number on it, a menu for the BBQ place down the street, important phone numbers, a note pad to write the grocery list on, and a ton of magnets.
I want a BBQ place down the street. But I live in suburbia.
Well..I have.a magnet that says “I clean my house every other day. This is NOT the other day.” And I have photos of our family, but my children covered the faces with cat butt magnets, graciously given to me by my sister.
Yes, you read that right.
Pam
Cat butt magnets? Bwahaha!
Google them. In case you need more stocking stuffers.
I have those magnetic Umbra frames which I put a picture of my dog in one, a postcard of a Jackalope in another, and mostly hilarious pictures from the internet in the rest – classics like “They are happy because they eat lard” and that xkcd comic where the little stick man can’t go to bed because someone on the internet is wrong 😉
Your fridge sounds like my happy place.
Why thank you – that’s a good way of putting it 😉 it’s a very happy place, it makes me smile too!
My daughter likes to leave notes for my husband who works swing shift. She usually puts them on the refrigerator with our collection of “it was free” magnets. Last night, however, she taped a note directly to her forehead. I agreed to let her sleep on the couch and she was worried my husband might carry her to her real bed when he got home. So the note read: do not move me. I will be in a better mood if you leave me here. I would like pancakes for breakfast.
I think she might have a future in writing . . . for a refrigerator magnet company.
That is stellar. Can I love your daughter?
She is impossible not to love.
I got a ton of magnetic photo holders from the dollar store and covered the fridge with shot of friends (old, new, passed away) my parents, our wedding the kids, my inlaws etc.
One magnet says: “The best antiques are old friends” and another is filled with lovely thoughts about women who changed the world.
Otherwise, the fridge is dotted with artwork, coupons, a baggie for “Pizza Money” and an LCBO card worth $25. I predict that the card won’t make the weekend….
Dibs on the LCBO card. Except we don’t have LCBOs out here. I’m remembering the days of The Beer Store when I lived in Ontario…
I always think that when my comment is at the bottom of a long list of comments that it won’t get read and this is SO important, nothing to do with what’s on the fridge but about the fridge itself – KEEP YOUR 20 YEAR OLD FRIDGE. You will never find another like it. When our four yr old fridge quit the store rep that sold it said, well, that’s the life time of a fridge now. Now I have to make old lady statements like my mom and say, they just don’t made things the way they used to.
Ha. I’m reading this. The fridge is still doing well. The ice maker died. But we adapted. Of course, we could likely fix it…via Dr. YouTube.
Our fridge is strange the “big door” as my youngest called it when she was three is covered with what is left of the Blue Clue’s and the ABC’s magnets that have not been lost or stuffed under the fridge by the kids I baby-sit. The little freezer door is covered with the “important” papers held on there by smile face clip magnets and under all those papers are my magnets. There are the Star Wars one from KFC, ones from business (the new business cards as hubby calls them), photos of my kids when they where babies, and then the ones I hope are keeping me sane. They are: “Thought for the day…..Stressed spelled backwards is Desserts!”, “I may be Left Handed But I’m Always Right” (and yes I am left handed), “ and my fav’t is “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I just hope it not a train.”
I always wished I were left handed. My brother and mom are.
Love the “light at the tunnel” punch line.
First, our fridge has recently started making this sound periodically (and I quote): “SKREEEEEEEEEATTLE ATTLE ATTLE ATTLE ATTLE ATTLE Siiiiighhh….” I think that’s a good sign, don’t you?
It has the following on it:
1. animal pictures
2. a magnet photo of “Miss Atomic Bomb 1955”
3. word-poem magnets on the theme of getting outdoors.
4. A Pablo Neruda poem from our wedding
5. A Lao-Tzu quote, “If you don’t change direction, you may end up where you are headed.”
I have Miss Atomic Bomb 1956 on my fridge! Or not..
Love that assorted collection. It’s the animal pictures that surprise me…
I don’t want to point fingers or suggest disapproval, but all of the pictures have been put up by one person in my marriage. And it’s not me.
Isn’t blaming the key to marital bliss? Well, at least from one person’s lonely perspective…
Just the laugh I needed this morning! Our fridge is covered in photos, kids artwork, postcards, magnets – you name it. My fave : “Enough with the damn juice boxes! Mommy needs a drink!”
They should make tetro-packs of wine with straws attached.
Those are clever magnets! We have a fridge in our pantry that is covered with words. When I go in to get a glass of filtered water, I always fiddle with sentences!
I had fridge magnet poetry once. But whatever I made sounded really suggestive. I think it was the cooking edition. Everything was rising and steaming and baking.
Hahaha! And licking the beaters? 🙂
I have a non-magnetic fancy-dancy one – but it’s covered with thousands of fingerprints and various scotch taped artwork by the kids. The astrology in that is “woman with many children has much to clean”.
PS – I relate to the calendar.
When we visit my parents, their stainless steel fridge looks like it’s been dusted for prints..every where. I can’t imagine that 24-7.
We had a different stainless one before this that NEVER showed prints. It was a cheaper version of the one we have now…that shows EVERYTHING. Makes no sense. :-/
What’s on my fridge is the newest “art” that gets sent home by the preschool, otherwise known as two squiggly lines on a page. They literally send every thing the kid has touched at school home in the backpack.
The recycle bin is a very, very hungry monster.
I have the same white fridge among the newer, black appliances! I’ve had black epoxy paint ready to go for about a year, but slacker Mom here can’t find time to paint the fridge so it can join the cool crowd.
Anyway, my two current fave magnets say, “I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it!” and the one my kid just gave me for my birthday with a picture of Wonder Woman and “Mom’s got it under control!” (I wish.) I LOVE that you have the Davy Crockett quote, being a Texan and all. Come on down anytime you need some heat! 🙂
You can paint a fridge? That’s a fab idea that I likely won’t get around to.
And Texas heat sounds very good around now… -12 C this morning.
Good gravy! I had to look that up, and it’s 10 degrees Fahrenheit! I’m looking at a high of 78 today (25 C, I think).
We put pictures of friends and family on our fridge. You may think this is lame and unfunny, but in my defense you haven’t seen our friends and family.
Bwahaha. For that very reason, I keep pictures of myself off of people’s fridges, including my own.
Leanne- my mother in law bought me this magnet when my second boy was born 4 months ago: “was it her imagination…or we’re all the men in her life babies?” Love it! Makes me wanna cry but instead I laugh and blog at http:houseofq.weebly.com. Thanks for your inspiration.
Hilarious, Jill. Sounds like you have a great mother-in-law. I lucked out in that department, too.
You need to market some “Ironic Mom” fridge magnets. Seriously.
Coming soon. Maybe. Who knows. 🙂
Mine fridge boring, so boring in fact I hade to got and look at it before deciding there wasn’t anything interesting enough to write about except maybe a recycling timetable for kerbside collections from 2 years ago, the emergency numbers for the school one of my kids doesn’t attend and one of those awful twee magnets relatives gives you. This particular one says something along the lines of great mothers have filthy ovens, dirty floors and happy kids. Well the oven would scare even the most hardened crime scene investigator, the floor traps people who walk across it in socks and the kids are currently trying to kill each other. Now I have fridge magnet envy, I think I need a support group…………………….
I think fridge magnets make perfect stocking stuffers (I originally typed “stalking” stuffers). May you get yours!
Leanne, I love your magnets and humorous takes on what they say about you. We haven’t seen our fridge in years. It’s being held together by magnets – souveneirs from trips, cartoon characters, wedding and anniversary memories, photos of movie and music icons, etc.
I’m sure mine would baffle a trained psychologist, but I enjoy our magnets, too.
Thanks, Judy. It is an interesting study, isn’t it? Just don’t look in my closet. Or purse. Or junk drawer(s). I’ll be committed.
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