The Queen of Everything

The Silence Project - Round 3

2011-08-21T22:21:00.000-03:00

I got off track for a little while with this project. It was hard with so much going on but I really wanted to get back on track. So when Sunday plans fell through I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to take the next step. 12 hours! SO I woke up at 7am in silence. I didn't log on to the computer, I didn't check my cell or send a text. I just started cleaning, planning, reading, hanging with the dogs, cleaning and before I knew it the 12 hours had passed. It was actually much easier that the 5 hours. I worked my ass off all day. I got so much done and I actually really enjoyed myself. I made a few great meals and got to hang clothes on the line. There were a couple of times I really wanted to update my facebook or find some info online, but I pushed past it. I felt really calm all day. At 2pm I accidentally said a word and at 5:30pm I made an exclamation/cuss when I burnt my hand. I feel really pleased with my overall accomplishment and I am really looking forward to the next round. I won't be able to finish by Labour day, life had set me too far off track but I will certainly do it before the end of the year.

The break up

2011-08-09T21:49:00.000-03:00

WAAAAAY back in 2005 I made mention on my blog a ‘friend’ who I was having a problem with, what said was this…

“I have this one friend who always seems to need SO much and it is exhausting, it makes me reluctant to put myself out there. She makes me doubt the intentions of other people and I hate that. Anyway sometimes you have to cut people out.”

That was 6 years ago and I never did anything about it. The same ‘friend’ continued to make demands of me, of my time and of my energy. I would be a liar to say that there were NO good times in there however in all honesty it was a draining, stressful and ultimately one sided relationship.

There had been time in the past 23 years that we had fought; times I couldn’t take it any longer and snapped and then we would have it out, we would say things to each other to be hurtful, sometimes we have not talked for weeks at a time but in the end one of us has always relented. Other times we would get busy and more time would pass between calls and I would pray that maybe we were entering that phase where you just drift apart and we could end things with a whimper rather than a bang.

She continued to view and her best, and really only, friend but on my end the relationship continued to grow worse. I began to resent the constant demands, the manipulations, both subtle and overt; I began to loath the whinging and whining about how her life was such crap and how that was the fault of every one but her.

I found my self increasingly screening my calls, being evasive about plans and periodically out right lying to avoid spending time with her. But my guilt button is easy to push so I just kept going back, believing that I was obligated to be in this relationship because … we had history.

On August 1^st I hit the end of my proverbial rope. I knew without a doubt that I was done. There would be no fight; there would be no whimper and no bang. There would be only stony silence. It is funny how in the end it really does only take one straw to break the camels back. One snippy, petulant text message and I was finished. Literally I felt something shift inside of me. I didn’t have the energy to dodge any more phone calls. I don’t like the way I feel when I am dishonest, it robs something from me. I don’t like the way this relationship makes me feel and done with letting guilt and Newton’s first law keep me from breaking free.

So I'm done. I broke up with a person who wasn't a romantic partner. It has been very weird and I have moments where I feel like a bad person but I am going to get over that and in the end I am going to be thankful that I did this thing for myself.

Thanks for listening.

WOOO!

2011-07-15T21:41:00.000-03:00

I don't know how it happened but somehow I went from thinking about buying a car to owning a car! Yeah, that's right bitches I own a CAR!!! Today I signed all the paper work and drove away with my own car.
I really don't know what happened in the middle. I was asked a few questions, I corrected people on the correct spelling of my name about 42 times. And then I owned a car. It's outside right now. It's blue and pretty and .... well it's mine!
MINE!!!
okay. I have to go and stroke my baby a little more. Pictures soon!

Grown Up

2011-07-09T00:29:00.000-03:00

Today I feel like a grown up. I went to the bank and talked like a grown up. I told the man I wanted to do a very grown up thing... and he basically said yes. So I am buying a car! Can you believe that? I mean it, I am going to be a home owner, a wife and a car owner. SHIT! That is so friggin' wild. When did my life become so middle class and weird and awesome? I have spent to whole evening shaking my head in wonder and looking at used cars. Life is so weird.

blarg.

2011-07-04T22:45:00.000-03:00

I am not sure what is the matter with me tonight but I am in a mood, the cranky kind not the "lalala flowers!" kind. I don't have a reason to be in a bad mood. Nothing bad happened today. No mean customers. No fights with my husband. No bad driving experiences. Just a plain ol' crappy mood. It happens.
Today I did something I have never done before. I took myself out for lunch... in the car. That was pretty damn cool. I really wanted out of the office for a little while so I just got in the car and went. I still feel like I am doing something naughty, like I am taking the car without permission but I am sure that will pass with time.
After having had the dogs in the Subaru a few times I am more determined than ever to buy a "dog car" for me and so I have made an appointment for myself at the bank later in the week. I am going to find out what I need to do in order to get a loan. I am nervous, I haven't ever done anything like this before. I feel like I am coming of age all over again. If only I had known 15 years ago what I know now.

The first day of the rest of my life.

2011-07-01T23:20:00.000-03:00

So yesterday was the last day of our thirty day Totally Supportive and Slightly Belligerent writing challenge and I am ready to call it a success, counting yesterday I missed three days however they were three days were I was enjoying life too much to sit down and commit to writing. Enjoyment of life is more important than anything, including writing challenges. The other thing about yesterday is that I successfully completed my road test. I was so over the moon with joy but oddly enough was not doing much driving because I was just too excited to concentrate. But today, today was a different story. Today was the first day of my life as a driver. I drove with a dog in the car, I took Gil with me for our first trip out just to make sure that I could handle it. Oliver got his IV catheter out AND he had a good bathroom experience AND he ate from a bowl!!! I had to hold it but he ate from a bowl. Big day for our boy! When he was all settled and Gil had the situation in hand (they were all settling in for an afternoon nap) so I took my opportunity, grabbed my camera and the car keys and took myself on my first solo car ride. I had my iPod with my tunes, I had my A/C cranked and I just drove. It was awesome. There was at least one part where I became a little nervous but I think that I handled myself well. I am not just tooting my own horn. I don't think that passing my road test had made me a magically great driver, I am not deluded; I have a long way to go before I become a good driver. However I was able to keep myself calm and do what I needed to do to feel safe. My camera and I stopped along the coast in Cowbay to take some pictures and to just take in the event. I felt like a million by the times I got home. I can't wait to get out and do it again. I have a feeling this car and I will be best friends before long. I know that it might get boring eventually but for now, for now it is amazing and freeing and just incredible. I know that I had to do it when the time was right, I know if I did it before I was ready I would have failed but now, 24 hours later, I wonder how I never did this before. People said this would happen and it is true. My list of things I want to do by myself is growing by leaps and bounds. Sometime this weekend I am taking Lulu and we are going to the beach, just the two of us, girls day out.

My first solo car adventure!

Day 29 - stress

2011-06-29T22:19:00.000-03:00

I never in my life imagined that I would have a child with an eating disorder. Nor that said child would be the four legged variety. Most people think of dogs as mindless eating machines. I certainly did and to be fair one of mine is. But the other, my big baby boy is suffering. His anxiety is getting the better of him. When we got him he was almost dead on 80 lbs. today he weighed in at a mere 65 lbs. He is breaking my heart but we will continue to do WHATEVER we have to do to get and keep him well.

Day 28 - In which we are grateful I don't have a time machine.

2011-06-28T23:28:00.000-03:00

Wow it is really hot in this house tonight. Talk about extremes. Today I finished my last drivers ed lesson; I got a certificate and everything. I was getting my first one roughly 18 years ago, how is that for ironic? Okay maybe not ironic, don't kill me for not fully understanding the meaning of the word, personally I blame a certain unnamed female singer with a string of hit in the late 90's.
Anyway if it's not ironic it is at least amusing. Life sure has changed a lot in 18 years. I never could have predicted the path my life would wander. If some one had told me I would be here I surely would not have believe them. At 18 I knew EXACTLY how my life was going to go. After our trip to Europe I would go to university, Paul and I would both finish up at SMU and I would likely go on the get my B.Ed at Acadia or St.FX.
We would be married within 5 years. I knew the church, the colours, the flowers and the attendants. I knew we would start a family right away. I knew the names of the children we would have.
I knew who my friends were and who would be beside me forever. Everything, my whole life, was solid and secure the way only a person so young can imagine it to be. I didn't know I was on a precipice. I had no way to wrap my head around the fact that there could be bumps in my road and some of those bumps would be so huge that they would alter the course I took forever.
Part of me wishes I could go back and give my younger self a sneak piece. A few choice bits of advice. But I worry that if I could do that I might not end up with Gil and that would be the worst thing that could happen.
The 18 year old, if she believed me at all, would be devastated. She would not believe that life could be so wonderful without all the things she'd pinned her hopes on; without the boy, without the children, without the career. She would not/could not believe that she would find a man who in every way is her match or that the boy would be married to exactly the person he should be with their children, but she might be the tiniest bit relived that at least they didn't use her names.
She could not fathom that she could feel fulfilled with a life that did not include babies, lots and lots of babies. Her plan had ALWAYS included babies, long before she settled on a father she just knew that she would some day be a mother. I want to tell her that some Saturday morning when she is laying in bed reading with a cup of tea and trying to decide on where to go for brunch she will understand better; but I know she will have to wait and see.
She simply won't swallow the fact that her job with be earth shatteringly boring, literally sitting at a desk pushing paper, she would be incensed that we aren't DOING something with our life. And I would tell her we are happy to have a job, one that we are good at, one where we are valued and treated by our boss with respect and kindness. It isn't glamorous and we certainly aren't molding the minds of tomorrow but there are worse things, we could be flipping burgers or drawing unemployment. We get satisfaction in doing our job well and that is a good thing.

I wish I could tell her many things but I don't want to change the course of history, you never know what butterfly you might step on, but on thing I think I might sneak in when I get a chance is this "don't be so afraid of everything. Learn to drive. I promise you it is harder and more frightening at 36!"

Day 27 - From the ashes I rise!

2011-06-27T22:01:00.000-03:00

I have pretty close a couple of times in the last few weeks to "re booking" my road test. By that I give you full license to read chicken out and quit because that would be what I was doing. Today is the closest. I actually had the phone in my hand, big fat tears running down my face, snot and the whole works. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to drive and I didn't want to humiliate myself by failing. At one point the stress reached such level that Gil and I lashed out at each other and I really thought that maybe this whole thing was going to hurt my relationship with my husband. I went to work, I vented, I cried, I ranted, I wrote a post that I am not put up because I really didn't mean what I was saying. And then when Gil came to get me after work he was sitting in the passenger seat. Talk about a vote of confidence. I am pretty sure that he is going to frog march me down to access on Thursday morning come hell or high water so I might as well just suck it up and keep practicing. So that is what I did. I feel confidant with just about everything except the parking, specifically parking our land yacht of a car. But tonight we went out again, when we were feeling well fed and in pretty good moods and we tried it over and over and over and over until I felt like I knew what I was doing and my successes were not just flukes. We are going to do the same thing tomorrow night and the same thing on Wednesday night and then on Thursday I am just going to get up and do it. That's it. If I fail it won't be for lack of trying.
Okay I am going to go watch True Blood and have a bath. I feel I have earned a bit of relaxation, I don't even care that I didn't get the dishes done. Bizam!

Day 26

2011-06-26T23:29:00.000-03:00

I am getting this done very late tonight, much too late for a Sunday evening especially since we have to be up extra early tomorrow for Gil's first physio appointment. But it was a long day and I didn't get a chance to really sit down and write so here I am at 11:15pm tired and struggling to find something to say.
It was a chaotic weekend here with lots of extra bodies around, many of them very small and very loud. Lauren is completely enamored with Uncle Gil and wants to have his attention all the time. To the extent that she attempted to join in him on a trip to the washroom. Wisely he had to break her little heart and tell her no.
Today alone there were 7 people here who don't live here full time. No wonder I can't get anything clean!;)
I had my second to last drivers ed in car lesson this afternoon and I didn't kill anyone so I am going to call that a victory. My brother came out with me tonight so I could practice parking my big ass car in the Access Nova Scotia parking lot. Gil and I are going to go out every evening from now until Thursday to run through the routes and practice the parking. I don't feel 100% confidant yet but I think I might actually make it to the road test this time. Gil had promised he won't let me chicken out. I have come too far to back out.
We went to see Auntie Leona today and she told me how proud she was of me and that just made me want to keep going. I just need to NOT let my nerves get the best of me and I have to be okay with failing if it happens. It could happen. If it does it is not the end of the world. Get drunk, feel sorry for an evening and then get back up on the horse and keep trying. At the same time I can't go into the test thinking that I will fail otherwise it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. The best thing I can do if to just keep practicing, be mindful, be attentive and do my best.
Okay great pep talk!! Now it is bed time. Night ya'll!

Day 25 - In which I learn a lesson from Billy Crystal

2011-06-26T00:05:00.001-03:00

Last night I was feeling pretty miserable. I was tired and cranky and I was done with this long ass week. We got home from being out much too late to find that a certain almost 4 year old had been playing in our room and moved stuff around, which normally wouldn't bug me, but being tired and mopey I just broke. I was laying in bed and taking advice from one of my favorite all time movies, When Harry Met Sally, I just laid there and started to moan.

Sally: Will you be able to sleep?
Harry: If not I'll be OK.
Sally: What will you do?
Harry: I'll stay up moan. May be I should practice now.
(moans....)
Sally: Goodnight Harry.
Harry: Goodnight.

(Both hang up the phone)

(Sally's light is out)

(Harry keeps moaning... and eventually lights out)

I was doing a pretty decent job of moaning and feeling sorry for myself and I think that

Harry would have been pretty proud of me but the problem was my dear husband who is

woefully ignorant about all things Harry and Sally.

It seems that my carrying on led him to believe I was either deep in distress or having some

kind of stroke.  I decided that for his sake I would stop my impression but I have to admit up

'til then I was finding the moaning very therapeutic.

Honestly I think that sometimes we are so frightened to express our negative emotions we forget

that they do actually server a purpose. Not that I think we should DWELL

but I do think we should express is some form, writing, painting, punching pillows, primal

screaming or laying in bed and doing our best impression of Billy Crystal.

What ever gets the dark out so that it doesn't become stagnant and fowl.

Frustration and disappointment, fatigue and stress these are parts of life. You take the bad with

the good but learning how to deal with it, that makes all the difference in the world.

I don't know where this sage wisdom is spring from but I am going to give Billy the credit.

Thanks Billy.

"Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash."

Day 24th

2011-06-24T23:25:00.000-03:00

This was a long hard week and I was really looking forward to the weekend until I realized that I have 9 hours of drivers ed this weekend and a shit tonne of house work. Damn. When do I rest?? I can't WAIT until I have my two weeks vacation. Our house is such a little nexus of chaos at the moment with extra animals, extra people and extra stuff, it is hard. I mean I don't mind it is just a lot to adjust to when you are used to it just being Clan Richard. Next weekend will be even crazier when my in-laws arrive for two days. Oh lordy!
Is it sad that I am looking forward to the quietude at work next week. LOL
I am so tired tonight I can't really write a big bunch. I want to. I have stuff to say but I am really spent. I am going to do a better post tomorrow. I swear. I will be good. Please please pretty please still love me.

Day 23 In my which my opinion of humanity is lowered.

2011-06-23T22:42:00.000-03:00

My road test is one week from today and I have been starting to feel pretty nervous about it. I had planned to talk to night about my worries about the test and also the impact that I think having my license will have on my marriage but my plan changed when I was sitting at a red on my way home from work this afternoon and I became the victim of a hit and run.
I am so upset that this happened to me. I am mad as hell about the damage done to my car and I will make damn sure the guy pays for it but what REALLY upsets me is that this man hit us and did not stop to find out if we were okay. How does a human behave that way towards his fellow humans? When you make a mistake, when you have an accident you own it, you don't run away like a moron. I learned that lesson way back in Brownies. Shit, if an 8 year old can get it what is wrong with this guy? I mean really what if one of us had been hurt. What if the damage to my car had been worse than cosmetic? And for crying out loud it is the LAW! You stop at the scene of an accident, especially when you caused it!! And jackass, I got your license plate #. What did you think would happen? If you had stopped we could have just exchanged info at it would have been taken care of by insurance but now you committed a criminal offense!! Do you get that? was it worth it to get 30 seconds ahead in traffic?
Anyway I know that what really matters is that Gil and I are both fine. I am so very grateful for that. But I have to tell you that guys like that are part of the reason I don't already have my license and although I am going to keep going my plan it certainly gives me pause. One bad apple ... leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Day 22 - The Silence Project - Round 2

2011-06-22T22:04:00.000-03:00

What a difference a few hours makes!

Today I did step two of my silence project; 5 hours! I have to tell you it was a totally different ball game. I don't know if it was because of the sheer length of time, the fact that it is the middle of the week or that there are so many more people about at the moment but this was a totally different beast.
To start with I wanted to start right at the end of my work day so I didn't have to stay up too late writing my recap which means really I started even before I left the office. I explained to my boss what I was doing and she was totally cool but I was really self conscious while I waited the 10 mins. for my drive to arrive.
My next challenge was that I had to stop at the grocery store to pick up some stuff for dinner. Likely the ladies who I encountered thought I was either really shy or I didn't speak English but they did look at me a little closer when I only answered their questions with a nod or shake of my head.
At home I was greeted by my 14 year old nephew who was bound and determined to push me until I spoke to him. I let him read what I wrote for round 1 and eventually he stopped but it was very frustrating. Also we have a house guest staying with us for a few weeks and I had given her a heads up but there were still a few moments where my gestures were not getting the job done.I did notice that people started talking less after I really wasn't going to answer. Our house guest is a very chatty, sweet girl and I did notice that as the evening progresses she was using more gestures and less words.
I also noticed that Gil, without my prompting, will not just randomly volunteer to information to me. We usually discuss our work day in the drive home and tonight he was content to sit in silence with me for the most part.
I did not spend anytime feeling like I was acting like a person in silence and I didn't spend a whole lot of time focusing on what I was going to write beyond making mental notes that I wanted to remember X or Y to share with you. Honestly I was too busy just getting stuff done to really enjoy the side effects of the silence, however I did enjoy a nice glass of wine out on the deck in the sun and I got a lot of stuff done around the house because I wasn't wasting my time on Facebook.
I find it interesting that I have been done for half an hour and I have uttered a grand total of 4 words "Man that was tough!". I think it is difficult to just launch back into conversing when you have stopped for a while. I cannot imagine what it will be like after a whole weekend.
Finally I should tell you that I did break the silence once, not a word but a loud exclamation of pain as I fell getting out of the bathtub. It was entirely a reflex to scream out and I don't think it really counts.
Over all I am proud of my effort but I hope that next time I can be more mindful of the quiet.

Day 21 - Getting my Barbara Walters skills on

2011-06-21T23:07:00.001-03:00

I was giving some serious thought about Chris' challenge to do some writing about a friend. I wanted to do something fun and upbeat and I have had the thought for a while now to do an interview piece so I thought I would combine the two and interview my very best friend... My husband. Hilarity ensued!

Meg: Do you remember the first time you met me/what is your earliest memory of me?

Gil: At Karen and Corey's apartment, I remember you sitting on the floor and thinking "her hair looks funny!" (it was pink)

Meg: It was pink, good memory!

Can you believe all this time later we are MARRIED?

Gil: THAT IS CRAZY

Meg: If there was ONE chore around our house that you NEVER had to do again, what would you pick?

Gil: Cleaning up doggy messes :)

Meg: Fat chance baby!

Meg: Okay, explain in layman's terms what it is that you do for a living.

Gil: I am a computer programmer specializing in communications systems. I also do a lot of the system administration and installation support as well.

Meg: Sounds like pretty smart stuff there!! Do you have a title or anything? *nudge nudge*

Gil: I do, and now I want to know what these questions are for :)

Meg: I told you they are for my Blog *sigh*

He never did volunteer his title but since I'm his wife I already know he is the director of software development. I like it, it's got a ring to it!

Meg: Okay let’s go a little “Inside the Actors Studio” of a while. What is your favorite word? Gil: I don't have a favorite word

Meg: Really? I like persnickety! That is a great word. What is your least favorite word?

Gil: I do not hold any word in favour over another

Meg: Somewhere out there James Lipton is weeping. The next question is supposed to be "what turns you on?", but this is a PG blog so I am going with what excites you?

Gil: My Lovely Wife Smiling

Meg: Oh man, You are killing me here. I love you. You are the best husband ever. Okay back to business? What turns you off?

Gil: My Lovely Wife Crying

Meg: Yeah, I can be such a buzz kill. What sound do you love?

Gil: Bacon frying!

Meg:What sound do you hate?

Gil: My leg breaking LOL

Meg: Yeah that is pretty gross. What is your favorite curse word?

Gil: Fucktard

Meg: Well there goes my PG status. Okay next up. I already know the answer to this one but the folks out there don't so what profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

Gil: Plumbing
Meg: What profession would you not like to do?

Gil: Toilet cleaner.

Meg: Well it is a good thing then that I clean out toilet!

Gil: yeah!
Meg: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

Gil: We’re all filled up go back.

Meg: LOL so funny

Meg:Do you think I am silly for doing this?

Gil: Yes

Meg: Do you read my blog?

Gil:No.

Meg:Will you now that I wrote about you?

Gil: Probably not .

Meg: LOL

Gil: If you could meet one famous person who would it be?

Gil: Les Claypool.

Meg:Don’t you have his autograph?

Gil:Yes

Meg:Then didn’t you meet him already?

Gil: No my friend Jeanine got it for me.

Meg: Do you wish I would stop asking you questions so you could go back to playing your video game? Gil: No I can do both.

Meg: You’re so cool.

Gil: You are cool.

Meg: No you are

Gil: Yeah!

Meg: So do you have any last words of wisdom for our viewers at home.

Gil: Nope! *yawn* 5555555555555555555555555556 (that last bit was a kit0ten helping my type)

Day 20 - Mister Golden Sun!

2011-06-20T08:11:00.000-03:00

I am so thrilled to be sitting here in a puddle of sunshine, tummy full of toast and peanut butter, sipping my tea with is still hot. Molly Johnson and Big Sugar are in the background extolling the virtues of Midnight and I am feeling the kind of calm that only the sunshine can bring.
It is almost hard to believe it is Monday morning and I have to be to work in an hour. Other than the fact that Lulu has claimed another victim (my black Chuck's that I bought in Vegas *sigh*) than I would say it is the perfect morning. I wish every day started like this. Usually I am running around like a ballistic chicken trying to find underwear or keys or glasses or cleaning up dog vomit. No wonder my co-worker told me the other day that people find me unbearably cranky at work in the morning. I am NOT a morning person. I need to do things in my own good time. I don't like to talk first thing in the morning which is why I always try and get up half an hour before Gil. I can't rush my brain into anything, I sure there is some kind of car analogy about a motor warming up but I am not a car person so what do I know?
And this sunshine is so uplifting. It is hard to feel sluggish and cranky when the sun is out there calling me. I damn near went out to try and mow this morning least the rain return by this evening but I realized that my neighbours might not see things the way I see them and no matter what Robert Frost said about good fences I know it is really good SENSES that makes good neighbours. I am just going to have to put my faith in the forecast that says we are due to have this lovely ball of fire in the sky for at least two days. It is just so hard to believe when we have had our spirits drowned all spring.
If it is still nice this evening I am going to do the following....

mow the lawn
make dinner on the BBQ
enjoy a glass of wine on the deck
take me shoe chewing maniac for a long LONG walk.

Have a great day everyone. I hope you have a lovely Monday and that some sunshine touches your life today, even if only metaphorically.

Day 19 - Father knows best

2011-06-19T23:16:00.000-03:00

My Father's Day story doesn't have an UNhappy ending but I am not going to give you the cotton candy version either. I have a great man in my life who I do call dad. I love him. I know that he loves me. I know that I could go to him with anything and he would listen to me in his own way. We certainly have a special relationship but I do not delude myself into thinking that it is the same kind of relationship that he has with his other kids; the ones he sired or the ones he married into. I also know that this is not a fault of his. This is a relationship that could be a lot stronger, a lot closer and the hold out here is me. This is not my first go round with a father figure, and while it has technically been the longest, the first two left such deep gouges in my soul that I will never be able to fully commit myself to a male parent. The scars are so deep that I don't even feel a genuine longing for that type of relationship. I watch other people, specifically my female friends, to see what they are like with their dad at it is utterly foreign to me. And it is not just the Daddies Girls, although it seems like that is more often the case, but most daughters seems to have a deep connection to their father or the man that raised them. All you have to do is look at facebook today to see the number of people who updated to their status to say that their father was "the best in the whole world" and ... well you get the sentiment. And I am not shitting of that AT ALL. I think it is WONDERFUL. It makes me happy that there are so many great dads out there. I just don't get it. I don't crave it. I don't miss it. It is like the scar gave that part of my brain/heart/soul amnesia.
And this is something that I believe pretty much started out of the womb. Maybe everything that I heard while I was in there started to prepare me to one day feel like a father was lovely like an uncle or a grandfather but not a necessity, not like a mother. I remember being 5 or 6 and crawling up into my mothers lap, wrapping my arms around her neck, staring lovingly into her face and saying "Mommy, I love you so much more than I love Daddy." I wasn't trying to be mean. I wasn't trying to curry favour; it was a simple, honest childlike statement of fact. I didn't see any use for my father. He did nothing beyond make our lives difficult that I could tell. I didn't hate him. I hated how he treated the people I loved but he was always good to me when he was present and sober. I think he certainly scared me, specifically when he was drinking but I didn't hate him. I still don't. But I think that is because by then the amnesia had already started to take hold. Watching for so long the insanity of my parents relationship. Watching my alcoholic father spiral further and further out of control. Each emotional cut added to the scar tissues so by the time I was 6 I was already going numb.
Things got worse after my mother died. Someday maybe we'll talk about it but not now.
When I was 13 I found out he wasn't my father at all. I found out that the scaring had started even earlier by a biological who was only a whisper of a memory. But then I found a gap in my scar tissue and I let the idea of this biological father in and he grew in my brain, along with my hunger for a father, a REAL father, a good father. I became convinced THAT was why I had never truly loved my dad, I knew at a genetic level he wasn't my own. I was a teenager what did I know. My life became a song from Annie ...

Maybe far away
Or maybe real nearby
He may be pouring her coffee
She may be straightning this tie!
Maybe in a house
All hidden by a hill
She's sitting playing piano,
He's sitting paying a bill!

Betcha they're young
Betcha they're smart
Bet they collect things
Like ashtrays, and art!
Betcha they're good --
Why shouldn't they be?
Their one mistake
Was giving up me!

So maybe now it's time,
And maybe when I wake

They'll be there calling me "Baby"
Maybe.

Betcha he reads
Betcha she sews
Maybe she's made me
A closet of clothes!
Maybe they're strict
As straight as a line...
Don't really care
As long as they're mine!

So maybe now this prayer's
The last one of it's kind...
Won't you please come get your "Baby"

Maybe

He became this epic, perfect, handsome, doctor/scientist/humanitarian Father who was out there somewhere looking for me. Like I said I was kid, what did I know. It didn't matter that my brothers tried to gently warn me, or that my Auntie tried did her best to give me a truthful picture without hurting me. They didn't know him like I did. They didn't know how he'd changed. He just needed to find me and we would be a family.

a deep, dirty cut, the kind that is so deep that your pain receptors can't cope so they turn off. I don't feel sad about it, I am not angry although if I push on it a little harder than normal, like have done in writing this I feel a negative emotion that my brain steps in and deflects before I ever get a chance to qualify it.

I guess in the reading of this it may come off as sad, but sincerely that is not how I feel. I love Dave, that's my foster father. I think he is truly one of the great men of this world. I look up to him, I am very loyal to him, it was important to me that he like the man that I married. A few years ago when he had a heart attack I felt my whole world come to a crashing halt. I can't even contemplate a world without him; but my heart will not let me take that one last step, the one that makes you feel fully 100% accepted by him because as long as I have one toe out the front door I can trick myself into believing that I am safe.

Day 17. Flying Fur

2011-06-18T00:13:00.000-03:00

I find myself tonight asking myself some very very difficult questions. I know that I am tired and frustrated and that it hasn't been the easiest time of my lift (though my no stretch the hardest either) so I am trying very hard to keep that in perspective.
There are so many souls under this roof. Even without house guest both human and four legged. Even without the slumbering 14 year old in the living room. When it is just our core family there are two people, two cats and two dogs. It can feel very crowded and very fury some days. I feel like there is always someone demanding something of me. I LOVE my four legged babies but days like today I feel like just loving them isn't enough. I honestly wonder if I am the best human to be taking care of them. I get so frustrated and I have to ask myself is it fair for them? Is it fair for me? I don't have an answer. I don't know what the right course of action is. I know that things need to change. I know that I either need to be a better pet parent or I have to look at finding some who can and will do better than me. If these were children I wouldn't even think about this. I would just keep struggling because parents don't ask themselves am I the best option? I would never just abandon my animals please don't get me wrong but days today I really feel like it is possible I bit off more than I can chew. Lulu needs to be more engaged, she needs to be run ragged. The reason why she gets into so much trouble is that she is board. Oliver is in a constant state of crisis. His anxiety is crippling for him. If am in another room and he needs me he just cries and cries and cries. Tikka is.... god I don't even know where to start with that poor cat but she is miserable and she hates sharing the house with the other animals which makes her a total bully. Only Mango seems totally without complication and even she is a pain in the ass with her never ending attempts to get outside.
I don't know what I should do. I think I just need to sleep on it and come back to thinking about it when my head is clear, when I am not upset about the loss of my brand new, $125.00 black leather Mary Jane's. When I am not so tired and frustrated with life in general.
I love all of my fur babies. Please don't misunderstand me.

Day 16 - Notes from my sick bed

2011-06-16T22:26:00.000-03:00

I am home from work AGAIN. I hate missing work. I mean it is okay on weekends and vacations and stuff but missing work to lay in my bed and feel miserable... well it is boring and useless. My head hurts, my eyes hurt, my skin hurts. I know that going to work would make me feel worse, probably make my coworkers sick and generally suck big time.

It keep having these insane flashes of heat/fever that make me feel like maybe I am losing my mind. God I hope that this isn't what menopause feels like!
As if to ad insult to injury the sun has decided to make a spectacular appearance. It looks very lovely from this spot in my bed. Leaves of green, skies of blue and all that other Louis Armstrong bullshit. Yeah I am a little bitter. Sue me. You know in a few days time when I am feel better and have the energy to mow the lawn or pull a weed it will be back to the same rainy, overcast crap we have had all spring. Still I guess I should be a bit more gracious and be grateful that I have a window to see the trees and sky through. Gil opened up the windows to let in some fresh air, cause it smelled like sick room in here and we put clean sheets on the bed. Everyone knows that clean sheets help you get better faster. Sleeping in the same icky sheets I have been sweating out this fever in just makes me gag. Which is why I also grabbed a shower. I know it takes a lot of your resources but I absolutely 100% fully believe that having hot, scrubby showers (plural) expedites the healing process when you have a cold. As does brushing your teeth but I always but a new toothbrush after a battle with germs. I might be a bit of a hypochondriac but I figure the $1.50 it costs me to replace the toothbrush is worth it to not be sticking that crud back in my mouth

Believe it or not there are some silver lining I have been able to find about this whole situation.

Netflix. If I have to stay in bed than at least I have hours of cheesy entertainment. The cold meds make everything so much more interesting.
My hubby. He worked from home today so that he could take care of me. LOL He wasn't able to do much owning to the broken leg and crutches. But I wasn't lonely and that counts for a LOT.
Kitty snuggles in the big bed.There is lots of time for snuggling when you are in bed all day and my kitties LOVE snuggles.

I have had this open all day typing on and off and I haven't really said anything of consequence so much for my vow for posts of substance. I promise I will try harder tomorrow if I am not too drug addled.

day 15 - death on a cracker

2011-06-15T20:47:00.000-03:00

I was going to take picture to show you what death on cracker looks like but than I saw that apparently whatever cold/flu this is also made me fatter and uglier than normal so I thought I would spare you.

I don't have the energy to write a big post. I have some sort of damn virus that is really kicking my ass.

Day 14 in which I reach 400 posts! (and it only took 5.75 years!)

2011-06-14T22:11:00.000-03:00

Look at me go! 400 posts! You probably think I have something REALLY special planned for my 400th post. You probably think it is something I put a lot of thought into because it is a pretty big milestone. Well sadly you are wrong. I didn't even know that I was close to 400 until I logged in tonight but fortunately I am really good at wining it and so instead of a thoughtful well planned post you are getting this!

400 -

the year 400ad/cd was a leap year and it started on a Sunday
400 is the square of 20
The 400 market is located just south of Barrie, Ontario off Highway 400
Highway 400 is located in Southern Ontario and link TO to the more agrarian southland. I don't know if I have ever driven there.

2005

In 2005 I was 30
In 2005 I was not married
In 2005 George W Bush was sworn in for he second term... that worked out well.
in 2005 the population of the world was 6,453,628,000
In 2005 Hunter S Thompson, John Paul II & Rosa Parks died. All of those things made me cry.
Transformers the Movie, released in 1986, was set in 2005. I saw no sightings of Robots in Disguise.
The top grossing film of 2005 was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
On August 23rd 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. Almost 6 years later the still haven't finish cleaning up that mess. (see line 3)

I have had a lot of fun with this blog over the years. I wish that I had used it more to say things that I felt strongly about. I wish I hadn't gone months at a time without writing but maybe this project is the kick start I need to really get my voice out there. Here is to 400 more!! Cheers!

Day 13 - and sometimes there'll be sorrow

2011-06-13T22:22:00.000-03:00

Today is Uncle Walters birthday.

Uncle Walter was not my uncle. He was the first husband of my mother. He was the father of my brothers. Most people don’t get to really know the ex-spouse of their parents let alone develop a relationship with them but Uncle Walter was a special man and we are a very special family.

I grew up knowing that my brothers had a different father than I did although I didn’t really understand it. I would go through these bouts of deep anxiety that my brothers wouldn’t love me as much as they loved each other because I was only their HALF sister. We never used that word in our house growing up so I am not sure how the notion got in my head but every once in while it would gnaw on me. I didn’t know what I know now, what I learned from Uncle Walter and his family, that genetics doesn’t make a family, love does, along with red wine and spaghetti.

I haven’t been ready to talk with anyone about what happened in February, not even Gil. I am going to try today.

In December my brother Mike called me; his father had had a stroke and was in the ER. He didn’t need to ask I would go right away to be his eyes and his ears. It was a long night and it turns out that Uncle Walter had not one but two strokes. The nurses explained every thing to me even though they had already explained it to Auntie Leona and Kim. I got to go in and see him. He seemed totally fine, his speech was mildly slurred but he looked healthy and bright and he was cracking jokes. I was able to tell both my brothers that their dad was fine. Mike made it home for Christmas holidays a few days later. Uncle Walter wasn’t able to get out for Christmas and it was weird to have the family Christmas party without him but he was on the mend.

We didn’t know there was a sickness in there and it was biding it’s time. If we had known we would have done things differently. I would have made a point to go visit more. Stephen would have planned a trip home sooner. We would have talked more. I would have asked the questions I have been working up the courage to ask for 25 years. Questions about my mom only he could answer. I don’t know why I was so afraid to ask, I guess I thought it would be awkward for him or for me. But I thought I had more time; we all did; we always do.

The end of January rolled around and I was surprised but not alarmed when Mike told me that Uncle Walter was going in to have surgery to replace the valve they had only put in two years before. There was a bug in his blood that had caused a blockage or a cyst in the valve but it was a surgery with a very high success rate so there was no real need to worry. And I wasn't worried. I planned on going in later in the week to say hi and check in on folks.

Then a couple days later Mike let me know that their had been some complications. There had been some excessive bleeding, they needed to go back in and try and stop it. At noon on Saturday I touched base and was told things were starting to look good. At dinner time I was told that Michael was on a flight home. The family was gathering to say good bye.

A stunned sort of controlled shock came over me as I called my brother in England to let him know what was going on. I told him to book his flight and promised that in until he was there I would be his proxy.

We offered to meet Mike at the airport but he said to meet him at the hospital. I wasn't ready to go up when we got there so we waited for him but he didn't keep us waiting long. We went up together and joined Auntie Leona, Kim & Kenny and Gerry & Joy. The nurses came and told us to come in. I wasn't going to go it seemed to private but Leona told me she wanted us ALL there and I had made a promise to Stephen.

I don't know if I can do this... I don't know if I am ready. I am trying to write this and I can't.

How can I describe for you watching a wife kiss her husband good-bye? How can I make you understand the feeling of helplessness of watching my big strong brother buckle and cry under the weight of his grief? How will you understand that the only words I could find were "I don't understand." as the nurse told us it was over?

I watched a human being die. I was told at lunch time things were looking up and then I was watching him die. It's been four months and I still don't understand. And my heart hurts so much. I feel it for my brothers and sister. I feel it for Auntie Leona and I feel it for myself. I know that death is supposed to be a natural part of life but its so harsh. I don't understand why we aren't celebrating Walters 78th birthday today.

I'm sorry, I am spent. I don't have anything else so say.

Day 12 - in which I am filled with gratitude

2011-06-12T22:02:00.000-03:00

Well you may have noticed that I missed a day. I am so naughty but not really sorry because I was having pretty much the best day of my adult life and I thought "hey, people are totally going to understand if you don't stop having the best day ever to write!" and I am sure I was right.

What a big weekend we had. I drove more that 500km myself. Twice I asked Gil to take over when I was too tired or hungry to have sound judgement and he drove back to the inn after dinner last night so I could have some drinks, and boy did I!! It was so much fun, I can't remember the last time I feel in to bed drunk, exhausted and giddy but it has been a LONG time.
I loved all the driving and I did things I ever dreamed I could do from passing cars on the highway to confidently bopping down a twisty back country road to driving the car on and off a ferry. It was incredible.

On top of the driving I also ate more incredible food in a weekend than many people do in a life time. I am telling you I was spoiled. Utterly, completely spoiled.

Surrounded by beauty at every turn, eating better than the Queen of Sheba, with my best friend who also happens to be my lover and my partner on this crazy journey of life, I realized how incredibly blessed I am. I mean really, my life could have turned out SO much different. I don't know if it is luck or hard work that got me here but it was not the path I was on and now even at my most stressful times I can look around me and see that I have just about everything I have ever wanted. I think that my mother would be happy to see me where I am today, I think that she would be proud of the human that I have become and at the end of the day that is what I want to measure my success by. I look at my brothers and myself and I see that we are all cool, fun, loving people and it makes me sigh the big breath of relief. I did it, we did it. We got to be happy, healthy adults. We have great relationships with each other and with our friends. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that the three of us have this.
Okay this post has turned all sappy but it is because I am well rested, well fed and feeling both sentimental and grateful for the abundance in my life.
Now it is time for a hot bath and a cup of tea while I read my book in my own bed because everyone knows the very best part of going away is coming home again.

Day 10 – The one in which we flee the scene

2011-06-10T22:37:00.002-03:00

This is it kids, grab a change of underwear and get it the car, we are hitting the road! I sincerely love a good road trip. Usually I am the passenger so this trip will be really different for me. As the co-pilot I spend a lot of time day dreaming, watching the tree and houses and people in other cars. It is so relaxing.

Gil and I have LONG passed the point in our relationship where silence is uncomfortable; it is now a comfortable old pair of slippers that we wear together.

When we first started dating the silence scared me. I always wondered what he was thinking about, worried that he was ignoring me. I have learned a lot in the past 9 years. For example when Gil is driving he is very contentious and if he feels like the driving conditions require more attention he will stop talking, he won’t necessarily tell you first either, it took me a long time to pick that one up; there were a lot of insecure drives back in the beginning. I have also learned that when he says he isn’t thinking about anything he means it. He isn’t hatching a plan to leave me or tell me bad news, he isn’t thinking that my jeans make my ass look fat, he is just gone tabula rasa. I don’t think his mind goes blank all that often, usually when I ask him what he is thinking about he says “game”, which means he is plotting about D&D or Vampire and he is in his happy place so I leave him there.

Anyway back to driving…

This will be my first proper road trip as the driver. The farthest I have driven to date is Mom and Dad’s house in Shubenacadie which was fun because I got to play with the cruise control but hardly constitutes a road trip. Of course I am a little nervous because highway driving is fast and has that little kick of danger. Also I am not the best at passing yet and I know it is an inevitability on the 100 series highways.

Okay post game wrap-up

I was a total rock star!!! I drove the speed limit the whole way and some d-bag who cut me off promptly got caught in a speed trap. LOL Also I totally passed by two cars!!! WOO!!

It was so lovely out, green and sunny. From Kentville to Annapolis Royal I had the highway pretty much to myself. Gil and I had an awesome chat in the car. So far, totally awesome trip!!

Now I am going to walk away from the computer, night ya’ll! :)

Day 9 - In which we take a mental health break

2011-06-09T22:55:00.001-03:00

Well I have moved through the psychotic part of my burn out (see day 4) and have progressed to the weepy portion of the show. I put on a spectacular water works show at my desk this morning and decided it was time for a mental health day, or at least half day. I didn't sugar coat it for my boss, I told her that I was probably going to be useless so it would be better for everyone if I just went home and took some time to clear my head. I could have lied and said I was sick but I think she really appreciated that I was honest and told her I was just falling apart. My mental health is worth so much more than half a days wages. I am so lucky that I have a boss who totally understand that and even more lucky that I have the kind of job where I can afford to take half a day off without repercussion.
Other things I am grateful for include:
Tomorrow is Friday and I am going to wear my jeans to work
Terry made Gil and I the most amazing dinner so I got to visit with a good friend AND get fed
New stuff from Lush for my weekend away
No pee accidents in the kitchen all day!
14 years of friendship and I am still laughing and feeling valued.
"Procrasterbating"
The end of the day being better than the beginning.
You.

Day 8 - In which we lighten up.

2011-06-08T18:15:00.006-03:00

I had a subject in mind for today but then it got a little dark and heavy and I was already having a pretty rough day so I decided that I needed to do something a little lighter. Let’s play the name game. There are no rules I am making them up as I go!!!

M – is for music at which I have no talent. I have been in choir, taken voice, piano and guitar lessons and never got very far with. My brain just can’t make any sense of it. Not to mention I cannot carry a tune in a bag. However I do LOVE music and will continue to sing at the top of my lungs, off key, to all my favorite songs.

E- is for emerald. More specifically the Emerald Isle where I very much want to visit. One of the great regrets I have about the time I spent in Great Britain is that I never made it to Ireland. Gil and I were going to go for our honeymoon but as it turns out honeymoons cost money so we have never had one. People often think that my dislike of St. Patrick’s extends to all things Irish which could not be further from the truth. I am very interested in my Irish heritage and I think it looks like one of the most beautiful places in the world.

G- is for Grand-niece. Any excuse to talk about my little Brookie Wookie. She is getting bigger and cuter and smarter every day. I can’t believe I haven’t seen her in SO long. I need to have a snuggle with her soon or my heart will break. I keep a picture of her on my desk so that when I am feeling uber stressed out I can just look at her perfect little face and everything is a wee bit better.

H- is for holiday. Like the one I am taking this weekend. Oh god I am excited. My plans include sleeping, eating, sleeping, getting a pedicure, sleeping and taking pictures. To quote Madonna (back when I didn’t think she was creepy) “If we took a holiday, Took some time to celebrate, Just one day out of life, It would be, it would be so nice”

A – is for abacus. Haven’t you always wanted to know how to use one of those things? I have. Imagine how much fun I would be at parties if I whipped out an abacus and started doing fun math tricks?! I would be queen!!

N – is for New York! At the very top of my bucket list is The Big Apple. We were supposed to go this spring but life happened. I want to do every tacky tourist thing you can think of. Time Square, Lady Liberty, Empire State Building, Central Park… I want it all!

Do you remember doing these when you were in elementary school?

M- Marvelous O- one of a kind M- majestic

I am pretty sure we did one every year and I was always terrible at them. One year I am pretty sure the only M I could find for my mother was Mammal. What a great kid I was. At least I knew the word mammal and that my mother WAS one. That is impressive right? I have this image in my head of a sheet of fools caps with my ‘poem’ in the center and those horrid little flowers you made by wrapping a bit of ripped tissue paper around the end of your pencil, dipping it in glue and pressing it to the page. Do you remember those? Someone else MUST remember that.

Day 7 ... Uninspired

2011-06-07T22:40:00.000-03:00

I started a great post today while I was at work but I forgot it there and now I am home with a kitchen full of dirty dishes and no inspiration but I figured if I just started writing something would eventually come to me. It is a trick I used a lot during Nanowrimo because the more I dug around for things to write about the more stuck I would become.

Okay since starting this post I have...

done dishes
done laundry
wrangled a cat
given a lesson on how to feed my neurotic dog
helped a friend apartment hunt
take the dogs out twice
taken some pictures of a rainbow
yelled at Lulu three time for stealing and chewing my ugly wannabe croc flip flops
Watched 2 episodes of Breaking In.
edited a picture for my 365 blog
procrastinated!
taken the dogs out for a third and fourth time

I don't know where my mojo went but it is definitely on holidays without me. I think it is actually napping with of course I highly resent since sleep is so elusive to me. I think that might be part of my problem today, I have really been sleeping poorly the past few nights, worse than usual which is really saying something. Part of it is that I am staying up too late and Lulu is waking up much earlier because it is light out so early now. Part of it is that poor Gil can't get comfortable any more. His cast has begun to really bother him and he tosses and turns trying to find a position that works for his body and his leg. Unfortunately for me the best position seems to be diagonally with the blanks pulled off kilter. It's not his fault and I really feel for him because I know he is sooo tired to. I can only hope we get some good sleeps this weekend while we are away... even if that means separate beds.
While this bout of insomnia is fairly fresh I have actually been living with insomnia in general for most of my life. The earliest instances I can remember I was about six or seven years old. It was so hard for me to articulate what was the matter. I knew it wasn't that I was too hyper or that I had too much sugar or even that I wasn't tired because I was EXHAUSTED but I would toss and turn and after a few nights like this I would be so tired I would actually be in physical pain and be crying because I was so tired. Many times it finally would be alleviated by something rather simple like changing the position of my bed in the room or I would flip round and sleep upside down in the bed head to foot. I used that technique right up until I shacked up; I have no intention of sleeping it my head down by Gil's feet!
At least when I was a kid once I fell asleep I would stay that way. In fact I was a VERY deep sleeper. They had to put a smoke detector right over my bed just in case because I had actually slept through one outside my bedroom door on several occasions.
However in my early adulthood I stopped being a deep sleeper and I stopped sleeping through the night. In the past 15 years it is MUCH more uncommon for me to sleep the entire night without being up at all than vice versa, and that was BEFORE we got dogs!
Anyway all this is by way of saying I really am a nice person with interesting things to say I just spend an awful lot of time being tired. And all this time you just thought I was a bitch. ;)

Day 6 - The driving story

2011-06-06T18:46:00.000-03:00

I wasn’t one of those kids who turned up at the DMV the day of their sixteenth birthday ready, eager and willing to get their beginners license. Of course I was aware that I had passed this milestone but I was in no rush to go out and do anything about it.

Maybe it was because I lived in a group home and there was a different kind of normal going on. There was no family car that I could take out and practice on, I would have had to had my social worker sign a billions forms to drive someone else’s car. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

Or maybe it was because, despite all indications to the contrary, I have never really been one of natures risk takers.

Whatever the reason my 16^th birthday came and went, and then my 17th, and then my 18^th.

Unfortunately in the plan that elapsed, between my 17^th and 18^th birthday’s, I was in a major automobile collision that came incredibly close to ending my life; that I didn’t die that night is nothing short of a miracle as far as I am concerned and one of the main reasons why I have not yet entirely given up on the notion of a benevolent god. But one of the many repercussions of that night was that I went from no interest in driving to a full blown phobia of driving.

Months after the accident I would have an anxiety attack whenever I got in a car, I was the worst passenger ever. I would get so upset driving anywhere that it would cause a fight between me and my boyfriend who I know was a very good driver but I would accuse him of being reckless and trying to kill me. We were teenagers driving around town, cruisin’ and looking for places to park should have been the highlights for us but instead it was pulling us apart until one day he had enough and he told me that I was never going to feel safe in a car until I learned to drive. I let him plead his case and it seemed to make some sense, plus I loved him and I was afraid that the issue was going to break us up so I conceded and I went to get my beginners and I enrolled in drivers ed at school. And the kick of it is, he was right. The first few times were a nightmare but when I got a little more comfortable I really started to enjoy driving… right up until the day of my road test. I still have no idea what happened that day. I made it TO the test but I couldn’t get in the car. I was completely frozen. I don’t know if I was afraid of an accident or failing or of the examiner, who pop culture has told me is a very mean man bent on making me cry, but that day my fear got the better of me and I quit. My beginners expired and life went on. I was more comfortable in the car so that problem was taken care of and as time passed it seemed like I didn’t really need my license. I did go back for my beginners a few times but I never made it back to the road test. It became my thing.

And then one day earlier this year I woke up and I was 36. 20 years had passes since I was first eligible for get my license, nieces and nephews were now getting old enough to drive and I started to think that maybe this was something I finally do for myself but I didn’t get a real catalyst until February and it came in the worst way.

On February 5^th my brothers lost their father, the man I affectionately dubbed “Uncle” Walter. It was an awful time for my family and I was so incredibly sad for my brothers to have lost there dad who I know they loved so much. But the thing that hit me like a blow to the gut was watching Auntie Leona cope with the loss of her husband. I am a wife now and watching her struggle tapped into my deepest fear, something happening to my husband. Now Auntie Leona is not a young woman anymore and having been married for such a long time she had grown accustomed to her husband doing certain things for her, from operating all the high tech TV remotes to driving her where she needed to go and now she was scrambling to not only deal with the tragic and very unexpected loss of her husband but also to learn to turn on the damn tv. A few days after he had passed she pulled me a aside and hugged me and said “Maggie, don’t end up like me, go get your license right away. I have a perfectly good brand new car that I am going to have to sell because I can’t even drive the thing!” So I promised her. I admit that in the past I have made promises that I haven’t kept but something just keeps compelling me to keep this one; something about the look in her eyes and the conviction in her voice. When I go in three weeks to do my road test I am going to get in that car no matter how scared I am, I am going to pull myself together and drive. And you know what. I am going to pass. I am going to do it for myself and I am going to do it for Auntie Leona, ‘cause she believes I can.

Day 5 - The Silence Project - round 1

2011-06-05T21:36:00.000-03:00

For many years now I have tossed around the idea of taking a vow of silence. Not a permanent one of course but a temporary one. I have read of people who go on meditation retreats or other spiritual journeys where they have encountered this self imposed silence and it has always resonated very deeply with me. There is too much noise in the universe both externally and internally. People are afraid of silence and there must be a reason for that right? They are afraid of where their minds will take them without the distraction of noise. I am afraid, that is why I need to do it. I decided that now would be the perfect time because I could tie it in with this writing project.
My Goal: To eventually work up to one full weekend in silence. That is to say my own silence; I can not impose silence on anyone else, especially my husband.
The Plan: I am starting with one hour (today) and then I will work up from there, 5 hours, half the day, one whole day and then a weekend. I would like to get it all done in June but that just isn't going to happen. So my current ETA is Labour Day.
The Rules: Well the first is pretty clear. No speaking. Unless there is a real honest to god emergency I will not utter a word. In addition I will refrain from texting, tweeting, facebooking and any other forms of social media that I may have missed... with this exception of my two blogs.
What I hope to accomplish: I have no idea! I am sure that I will figure it out as I go.

One Hour - The results show.
One hour was a breeze as I suspected it would be especially since it took place between the hours of 8 and 9 pm. I meant to do it earlier in the day but plans got messed up. I did however start before my company left and my husband was home and he did ask me several questions.
It was a very pleasant hour that passed very quickly and I felt like a serene little bubble of silence flitting through the evening. but then it dawned on me that how I really felt was fraudulent. I was behaving in a way that was mimicking how I thought a person in silence would act. I made myself an herbal tea, I sat our on the deck in the fading light and watched the trees. But it felt put on. Like how you behave differently in your own house if a new person is visiting. I imagine it was because all I was thinking about was the project; what was I going to say in my blog post; hatching grandiose plans about becoming enlightened; how cool people would think I am when they found out I had become enlightened. I imagine when I add time to my silence I will stop thinking horse shit and get on with the business of life... in a quiet manner.
Two things of note did cross my mind ... the first was that I can't hold on to a thought for shit. My mind bops ALL over the place and it is all very very superficial. The deepest place my brain went was "Do I even believe there is a god?" and then my brain wigged out decided that was WAY too much and skimmed right past it in a manner suggested it was very afraid that stopping there might get it roughed up by some meaner, deeper thoughts.
The second thing of note was how interesting every sound became. It was like my brain in an effort to quiet my mouth turned up the volume on the world. I became hyper aware of every little sound around me. I would like to explore that further as I as time to my silence.
Over all nothing earth shattering changed but I am glad that I have started this and I am interested in taking it further.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Day 4 - welcome aboard the pity party express

2011-06-04T21:35:00.000-03:00

I had this great post planned for today and I won't spoil the surprise 'cause I plan on coming back to it but for now I am going to say fuck it and just rant about this shit show I have been calling life.
Yeah I am in a bad mood. Yeah I really am feeling pretty sorry for myself right now. If you are bothered by either of these things the door is over there, the big red X in the corner, please feel free to use it.
So a month ago my husband fell in our driveway and broke his leg in two places. He wasn't doing anything reckless or careless or any other kind of less so I can't really be mad him; accidents do just happen sometimes. I feel awful for him because I know he is uncomfortable and restless not being able to doing anything much beyond sit with his leg up and heal. Healing is important business and right now that his number one job. It sucks that this happened to him. But you see it didn't just happen to him. It happened to US. When you are in a marriage or marriage like relationship everything that effects you effects your partner as well.
Gil broke his leg and that sucks but this is about ME DAMMIT *insert foot stomp here*
Gil isn't one of those husbands who only does "man chores", he is a dish doing, laundry washing, dog peein' fool. In addition he does many of the chores that are considered to be mans work and I have been content to run with that stereotype because frankly I fucking hate taking out the garbage! Yes as long as we have lived together Gil has been a 50% percent partner in all the household crap that needs to get done so that you don't look like you live in the "slums of Calcutta"

(You can thank my Mother for that little ditty. When I was a child I was often told that my bedroom was messier than the slums of Calcutta.

God I am turning into my Mother, but that is a rant for another day.)

Truth be told if we got out a scale and weighed what we each did on a regular basis I would have to honestly say that Gil does more around the house than I do. And maybe that is why this is so god damned hard because now I am doing it ALL. Every load of laundry, every dish, every god forsaken dog pee, as well as the garbage and the groceries and the driving and a shit tonne of extra stuff I have never had to before. I can't go to bed early when I am tired because someone has to take the dogs out for the last pee of the night. I can't sleep in because.... well the dogs need to pee. Who wanted to dog?? Oh yeah, that idiot was ME! Speaking of my little angels on top of their regularly scheduled feeding, walking and ablutions Lulu is having a total melt down over what I presume is some issue with her daddy not being able to play with her much these days. She is destroying things that belong to him and having DAILY accidents in the kitchen. DAILY. For a month. DAILY. I feel like I spend half my waking hours cleaning the kitchen floor no matter how often I take her out.Clearly she is mad about the broken leg too and acting out in the only way she knows how. Sorry dog but eating Daddy's book and pissing on the floor will not heal those bones any faster and I am the one who has to clean up after you so giving me a fucking break!!!
It doesn't matter if I have a screaming headache or cramps or if I am just tired of doing it, it needs to get done. I can't keep up with it all and things are really starting to fall behind. Did you know that after you mow the grass if has the balls to just grow back??!! Our lawn looks to ghetto it is embarrassing. I can't stand to think was the neighbours must be saying. I think that our kitchen smells (thanks Lulu) and I have reached the point where I am so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start so I get stuck and do nothing.
And here is the worst part.... my lizard brain is mad at Gil. See when Gil goes away for business I am a woman of action, I get shit done, I rock this job. That is how I know that most of this I CAN do without him. I can take out the garbage, I can mow the lawn. I have take care of all the four legged babies. Hell I am woman hear me roar, I can do anything. BUT the difference is that Gil isn't around. When he is away for work he is a phone call at the end of the night and a text in the morning. But now he is here, sitting in the computer room, playing a fucking computer game and my lizard brain just can't cope. My lizard brain despite my assurances other wise interprets his inability to help as unwillingness to help. My lizard brain is a prehistoric lump who hates taking out the trash, and she isn't going anywhere so my job is to figure out how to ignore her and go on with the show. In order to do that what I need is some sleep, I need to give my rational brain a rest so that it has the strength to keep lizard brain from beating Gil to death with his crutches. But I can't sleep because the dogs need to pee... and here we go 'round the mulberry bush.
For what it is worth I know how I sound and I do feel awful that I am so selfish. I know that the last few days I have the added fuel of PMS stoking lizard brain's feelings of frustration (read rage). I also know I have had a lot of offers of help from friends and that I should take up those offers. Honestly there is a tug of war there between the part of my that really wants help and the part of me that is embarrassed at how dirty the house is and at the moment I am not sure who is going to win. Also I know logically that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, Gil's leg won't be in a cast forever and when he is better he is going to totally suck up and take the dogs for lots pee's and mow the lawn. I KNOW all these things and I am trying very hard to keep them in perspective but tonight... tonight I am tired. Tonight I came home after spending 6.5 hours in a drivers ed class, had to clean up puddles of pee off the floor, feed all the humans and all the critters their dinner and try and find some time to clean up the kitchen; when all I really wanted to do what take my PMSy ass to bed and get an honest to god good night of sleep.

The is my story folks and I am sticking to it.

Day 3 - How discovering my inner geek made me a better person...

2011-06-04T00:10:00.000-03:00

9 years and two months ago the closest thing I had been to roll playing was watching my cousin’s play a Marvel RPG on the living room floor in the 8^th grade. I wanted to be the Silver Surfer but I couldn’t follow the rule so I just watched while the boys played. My one and only brush with the RPG world until I hit 27 years old.

[Well that is not entirely true, my sister and I did spend an inordinate amount of time playing Wizardry but by playing I mean making up characters based on our favorite Terry Brooks novels making it halfway through the first level, dying and then going back to make new characters]

Then 9 years ago I my life was in the shitter big time. I had really hit the depth of despair and I didn't see a way out. I was basically homeless because I had made some really poor life choices.I had dropped out of university,I had no job, and no prospects of a job. I was totally miserable. I hated my life and I hated myself. I was staying at my sisters which is almost always a bad idea because as much as we love each other we are terrible under the same roof, but most of the time I was laying in bed feeling sorry for myself and crying.

Then Gil came along.

[Well to be fair Gil had been around for several years as a very good friend and I am told he was around for about 30 years before that but not in my universe so it doesn't really count.]

Gil was worried about my mental health (good friend that he is he had been to the hospital with me at least once for a psych-eval when I got too close to the end of my tether) and he decided that I needed out of the damn house and I needed to interact with other humans so he dragged me somewhat kicking and screaming to a D&D game. He told me I didn't have to play, I could just watch, but I needed to be in the company of people for a while.

And that was it, a gaming group was created in that calescent apartment. Over the years we moved on to different games and added more people, and lost some, but in a very real sense a family was born. They are the people in the world I am the closest to. This is getting WAY mushier than I intended but I love these people and I think ya'll should know that.

This is how my life has changed since then.

1. I like myself. Honestly, I do. I feel good about what I have accomplished with my life. I like my job. I like that I have been employed pretty much steadily for the last 9 years even when I hated what I was doing. I like that I have become responsible with my money, I pay my bills before I do anything fun. I hate being broke but I love the way I feel when all the bills I am responsible for are paid. I always pay them down to zero when they are due because I learned that when you only pay the minimum you get screwed!

2. I have learned that having a creative outlet like role playing sets my synapses firing. Not just character creation, which I must say I still love all these years later, but also having to think and act as another person. To try and compartmentalize the Meghan and let the comfort zones fall away. Not only that but there is always the violence. Let me tell you a bit about the violence... I love it. First of all, it is fake. Fake violence hurts no one, ignore what they tell you about violence in video games. After an awful week at work there is nothing I love more than describing in detail how I smash the face of some jackass. I once almost killed an NPC (non-player character) by kicking him the balls, it was AWESOME! But see he had it coming. He was a BAD GUY! In these games I almost always fight on the side of good. I get to take on murders and rapists and ... bad folk and vent all my frustrations at being so ineffectual in the world. I had no idea how much anger I held inside of me until I tapped into it with role playing and now I am glad that I have someplace I feel safe to explore those darker aspects of my self.

3. I learned simple arithmetic. Something 13 years of school was unable to teach me. There is a lot of basic addition and multiplication involved in role playing and I finally have a grasp of it. I don't know what else to say about that except it is a damn miracle.

4. I can make shit up on the spot REALLY well. I use this trick at work ALL the time now. Role playing is for all intents and purposes an elaborate improve and no one likes to be the person heming and hawing over what they are going to do next. A situation arises, you react. Someone asks you a question, you answer. Sound as confidant as you can and hope to god along the way you are making some kind of sense. Of course at work I don't make stuff up but I do think fast on my feet. It makes me an excellent customer service professional. You want a solution and I am going to give it to you fast and as sincerely as possible and as soon as I get you off my phone I am going to make sure I can follow through.
I fear I have stopped making sense at this point 'cause I am kind of tired but I hope this all makes sense to you.

Geek Pride!

Day 2 - "... Gil won't know 'til the mourning."

2011-06-02T21:25:00.000-03:00

Would you like some insight to how my brain works? I warn this is a little bit like Morpheus offering you the red pill or the blue pill, the only exception being that I could never EVER pull off those cool armless glasses that Morpheus wear, I would lose them in about thirty seconds; unless I stapled them to my face, but how uncool would I look with staples and blood all over my face?

Okay back to red pill/blue pill proposition, here is the turning point, walk away now with your curiosity unsatisfied but with all your mental faculties intact (I am presuming a lot aren’t I?) or follow me down the rabbit whole.

If you are still with be at this point I say Bravo! You deserve a treat. Are there cookies in your kitchen? Maybe some ice cream in the fridge? Go dig in with my blessing; I am proud to (almost) know you.

If you are from my neck of the woods than you know that last night we had one hell of a thunder and lightning extravaganza. It certainly does not compare to what our neighbours to the south in Massachusetts endured and my thoughts go out to those who lost their homes and worse their loved ones, last night. Nonetheless we were walloped by a storm the likes of which I have never seen before and while in general I find the shock and awe of lightning fun last night I was actually pretty scared. It was coming so close to our house it shook our bed. I could see tear of light streak across the sky and hear the sizzle of the ozone burning before the thunder had time to clap. At one point is struck so close that our bed moved and I was fairly certain it had either hit our house or our car and so investigation was required. Fortunately our home and property all seemed to be spared but I could feel lingering electricity in the air. It is possible that I am crazy. I should get that out there right now. But as I lay back down in bed I SWEAR I could feel the charge in the air, the tickle of it dancing on my skin. And of course this worried me. As Gil drifted back to sleep beside me, my secret alter ego, Morbid Meggy, was just getting going.

Morbid Meggy is the insomniac who worries that at 36 she may have as little as 40 good years left and what the hell good can you do with 40 years?? Morbid Meggy whispers sweet nothings about my mother dying at 44 and how at 36 she also thought she had 40 good years left. She also thinks that 2am is the perfect time to remind me that if I don't get off my ass and lose some weight I will likely follow my mom to an early grave.

Last night MM started off a bit goofy; worrying about getting electrocuted by lightning ... in bed and even I was able to scoff at that. But then her idea became increasingly nefarious and my sleep deprived brain started to follow her "logic". I could feel the electricity in the air, I was SURE of it. And if I could feel it on my skin what was to stop it from entering my body? And if it gets in my body my poor heart, with all the stress of being over weight and having high blood pressure, will explode and I will die of a massive coronary. I will die in the blink of an eye right here in the bed where Gil and I make sweet sweet love and he will be soundly sleeping right next to my corpse and he won't even know it 'til morning. 'til morning. 'til morning... click...morning... click... mourning. He won't even notice until mourning. And suddenly I am in bed, laughing my ass off at this ridiculous play on words and drifting off to a fitful sleep filled with dreams of burning ozone.

Totally Supportive and Slightly Belligerent Every Day Writing Club - June Writing Challange

2011-06-01T21:51:00.000-03:00

It started as a joke, harassing a writer friend who had fallen off her daily writing wagon. It is funny how so many great ideas start as a joke. Of course it snow balled. It went from a joke to a burgeoning plan and with in an hour it had a name and a nick name and some kind of rule set. By the next day it was a full fledged thing with a Facebook group and everything. So here I am on June 1st with a commitment to write a decent blog post every day for a month. I think it is funny that I always seem to undertake these tasks when I already have 42 balls in the air but it makes life interesting right?!

I suppose the difficult task for me is figuring out what makes a substantive blog post. I have been collecting ideas for topics for a while now; I certainly don't want to spend a month talking about the weather, my belly button lint (interesting though you may find that) or the inherent greatness/evilness of my dogs. I want to talk about things that matter to me. the problem with that is that I get a little stage fright. The minute I get a great idea I start to worry about what YOU will think about what I am saying. I worry YOU will think that my opinion is stupid or uneducated. I worry YOU will notice that my grasp of English grammar is tenuous at best. I worry YOU will know it actually took me ten minutes to figure out how to spell tenuous.
The crazy thing is I don't even know who YOU are. Should I worry about my friends and what they think of me. That hardly seems like a sound friendship is a dangling participle comes between us.
Are YOU a stranger who somehow stumbled blindly into the blog of little consequence that started off 6 years ago as a means for me to keep my brother updated on my life without having to write multiple emails. If so then Hello Stranger and why should I care if you don't like that I a liberal (mostly) pro-choice (mostly) mid thirty DINK with muddled views on everything from our Prime Minister to Spanx.
Why do I care what any of you think. Well I am sure there is some deep rooted psychology behind it and maybe I will Google that later but the long and the short of it is that I want you to like me. Nay, I want to you LOVE me. I want to be 100% accepted by you and I will do or not say anything to achieve that love. (You should be impressed with me right now, it only took me two tries to spell achieve. Do you love me yet?)
I don't know why I care if you love me. At 36 I really hoped that this was something that I would out grow, like jelly shoes and stirrup pants but alas I am still burdened with an abundance of giving a fuck. I really hope to start taking some small steps to remedy that in the course of this month, this challenge. I am going to try to talk about things as I honestly see them and not worry if my Facebook friend list suddenly gets shorter. (I have 302 on there now)
I think that is it for day #1. I have said my piece and it actually took me a lot longer to write than I thought. Of course in the midst of doing this I got groceries, fed the beasts, did some laundry, flossed my teeth and fetched my husband some milk and cookies. Okay that is a lie. I didn't floss my teeth.

2011-03-26T22:09:00.000-03:00

Taking some emotional down time this weekend as it has been a really big few weeks. I am tried both physically and mentally. I am happy that baby Brooklyn is finally here, I love her so much. But it is hard at the same time and has been emotionally difficult for me. Gil and I are certainly moving forward with our child-free life but that doesn't change the fact that we are not child free by choice. Babies and pregnancy are a blessing but they are also a reminder of what I don't have and some days it is hard to focus on the positive.
Anyway I am not having a pity party, I am just having a moment... or two.
In other news I started driving today!! Aimee let me go driving in her car and it was pretty awesome. I didn't even accidentally kill anyone! Go me!

End of February

2011-02-27T13:30:00.000-04:00

I know I have been absent for most of February which certainly runs contrary to what I had planned but it has been an incredibly difficult month for me and for my family and so even though I thought that my blog would be a good place to work through my emotions I was always just too tired or too freaked out or too busy to sit down and write. To be honest I don't know if I am ready yet to work through my emotions. Usually I am pretty good at talking about what is bothering me but this I am having such a hard time processing that I start to cry when I even think about talking about it and so for a little while longer I am going sweep it under the rug. I acknowledge that it is there and at some point I am going to have to deal but for just a little while longer I am going to focus all my energy on planning my bright and beautiful future. Gil and I have lots to look forward to this coming year and things might change, plans may get adjusted or even canceled but there is still a lot to look forward to. Next week we will be in Vegas and that is going to be a screaming good time. I am looking more forward to this trip than the last one even though it is shorter. I have more idea what I want to do while I am there and the weather is going to be a lot more tolerable than it was the last time we were there. I do not recommend the desert in the middle of August for what it is worth. We are going to take a trip in the spring to either New York or London. Then if there is any money to be found we are going to make a few minor improvements to the house/yard. I don't want to set myself up for disappointment by saying that after last year it can't possible be as bad this year but I do have a feeling this year is going to be better. It has to be better right?
I know that on top of the awfulness my family I am also feeling the effects of February-itis. I am tired and frustrated by the cold, the snow, the damp, the dark. I am tired of almost slipping and falling every time I go anywhere. The other day I slipped in the parking lot at Gil's work and I did an honest to god full front split. It was awful.I felt like I pulled every muscle from my belly button to my knee caps. I am tired of having to put on 18 layers of clothes just to take the dogs out for a pee.
But in two days it will be March and then on the 13th the time will change the days will be longer and then there will be gardens and tea parties and all manners of awesomess. I just have to plow on and smile through it.

2011-01-30T21:10:00.000-04:00

Today I did one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do in my whole life. I gave up a dream. I gave it up and I handed it to someone one else. With my own two hand I took the crib out of the room, down the stairs and packed it in the car. It was awful, it hurt like jagged metal in my soul. But a baby needs to sleep in that crib, not dusty dreams. And so now my great niece or nephew will lay there and have new dreams.
I am going to snuggle with my husband and start to work on some new dreams.

Farwell to 2010

2010-12-31T23:03:00.000-04:00

This was the year that...

I turned 35
I quit the hospital and went back to Maxwell
We brought home Lulu
Our basement suffered from three separate floods
We learned to lay a floor
I got my new DSLR camera
I started blogging about food
We discovered Three Dog Bakery
I had the best pizza I have ever had in my whole life, Mushrooms, caramelized onions, walnuts and blue cheese
I went to see Jann with Aimee and Jodi
SZJ- VI
We got a new car
I got to paint the basement orange
We had Easter dinner out of doors
Oliver turned 4 and we had a party
Grammy had a car accident
Phil and Nat got married
We got a new driveway and a new retaining wall
Lulu turned 2
I stopped colouring my hair. Go Grey!
Gil grew a green thumb
I discovered FIFA world cup soccer (and the hot Argentinian goalie)
I lost 30 lbs but then found it again behind the sofa
We spent an amazing afternoon sailing in Chester with dear friends who we never get to see
I hired and fired two people
Aimee and I discovered the awesomness of pool noodles.
Gil got a new tattoo
Hurricane Earl
I wrote a novel
I started a photo blog
Gil sent me LOTS of flowers
We celebrated 4 years of wedded bliss
Gil ate a $100 steak
I went to my first Con
We had an amazing weekend at White Point
Cha Baa Thai opened in Burnside
I had the best shower of my life (in Seabright)
Gil's sister Amy came to visit from Ottawa
Gil and I formed the Breakfast Club

There were other things for sure, lots of things some big some small, most not mine to tell but it has been a big year, a hard year and as scary as it is for me to be going head long into 36 I am happy to see the end of this year and even though it is really just another day I look forward to the blank slate.

The Baby Boom

2010-12-31T10:27:00.000-04:00

It has been more then a year now since Gil and I made the decision to focus on our selves and our marriage rather than adding a child to our family. I don't need to tell you that was a hard choice for us but ultimately we did what we had to do to preserve our selves, our marriage and our sanity. That does not mean that I suddenly decided I don't like kids and does not mean I stopped wanting to be a mother. I don't think that is something that ever goes away. Most of the time I am fine. Honestly. I feel like we made the right decision and I am proud of is for making the unpopular choice and sticking with it and yes even having to defend ourselves and that choice from time to time.
But I have to be honest with you there are times when it is really really hard. Christmas is hard because there is so much about Christmas that is all about children.
And baby booms are hard, especially when some of those impending miracles seem so ill timed or ill advised.
It is not hard for me to be happy for people, honest, but babies are not accessories or pets. I find myself editing in my head as I am typing this which kind of sucks because at some point I have become afraid of what other people will think of me. I am trying to NOT sound like I am saying people with no money should not have children and that is really not what I am trying to say. I am trying to say that children should be born to people who are able to take care of them. Anyway I can't seem to find the right words at the moment, I have PMS so that is not helping. There is a baby boom at the moment and I feel sad. I own it. I won't apologize for it.

The Count Down to.... 2011

2010-12-30T10:50:00.000-04:00

Things have been pretty busy with the holidays but today I have decided that I need to take some time to update. I have a butt load of other things to do to get ready for our first annual New Years Day Levée but sitting down to write is just as important and I need to start MAKING the time for it.
So far this has not been a very restful vacation for me. Gil is sick and yesterday I was down for the count with a migraine but god bless Aimee who came and took me for groceries in the evening so I am not trying to cram it it all in tomorrow when the stores are going to be a mad house. Of course I feel at the moment like I don't have enough food but in the end, like always, it will turn out to be way too much. LOL I try and keep that in mind but it is not my strong point. I am definitely an over planner. I am glad not to be doing a birthday party this year I don't think I could cope with planning two events this close together. The sad thing I have been "planning" this Levée for a year but somehow it still comes down to the last minute. Maybe 2011 will be the year I get organized... maybe.

The one charm of the past is that it is the past. ~Oscar Wilde

2010-12-12T23:45:00.000-04:00

I had a very interesting revelation this weekend. In the midst of a migraine headache and a Christmas party I had a profound awakening.
I had the chance to speak with an old friend of mine who used to be a very good friend of mine and my roommate and we had a falling out a very long time ago. Somehow our causal conversation about what was new turned into a dissection of what happened between us and in the process I heard some very weird rumors about things that I had supposedly said and done back then that contributed to the demise of our relationship. For a moment I found these ludicrous stories hurtful and it started to dredge up some very old and painful feelings. I wanted to hear more and I wanted to have the chance to defend myself. I wanted to tell my own stories about the person who had said these things about me but then it dawned on me clear as day in the middle of the noise and the craziness and the conversation. It doesn't matter. Really, it has no bearing on my life now. It was more then 10 years ago. I don't hang out with those people anymore, I am not in the same place I was. I am in my life with my husband and my house and my dogs and my job and my friends and I love my life. I have a great life and what happened in the past is there, in the past. I have lived and learned and I am not going to get stuck in it. And you know what? That feels great. Honest to god it makes me feel light and happy which this time a year is a gift, a Christmas miracle.

Nectar Social House - The Brunch Experince.

2010-12-05T15:33:00.000-04:00

On Saturday morning Gil and I rolled out of bed very late, it was already after 11am which for me is just you sleeping the whole day away but we'd had a very late night and I had been up at 6am to take care of the kids. We cracked our eyes to find that is was a cold day and it was pouring rain so I was strongly just staying in bed but Gil bribed me out of bed with the promise of breakfast. We bundled up and headed out into the rain and I confess I wasn't feeling the love because I was over tired and it was really awful outside but Gilly was excited because it was after 11:30 which meant that the brunch world had really opened up for us and he had been dying to try Nectar Social House.

We arrived only moments afters they opened, we were greeted at the door and our wet clothes whisked away which was nice because no one likes sitting with wet wool. We were offered our choice of table or booth and the waitress came right away with hot coffee. While Gil was busy perusing the menu I was busy taking in the scenery. It is definitely as much a fest for the eyes as the mouth and the staff was more then willing to let me wander around be be snap happy.

Is it just me or do they look like gourds?

Our Waitress was very nice but not in our face which was good and our food came very quickly which was pleasant since it was early in the day and it could have taken a while to get the kitchen up and running.

I ordered the Asparagus crepes

Scrambled eggs, bacon and asparagus rolled into crepes served with smoked apple wood cheese sauce and house made potato wedges

It was really delicious. The cheese sauce was nice and light. I love hollandaise sauce but sometimes it can be a bit heavy so the light sauce was lovely change. I think that the only thing I would change would be the amount of asparagus,I think it could have used more personally.

Gil ordered the Eggs Bombay

Poached eggs and sausage served on basmati rice, smothered in a mild curry sauce, and sour dough

toast

Gil was kind enough to allow to to have some the sausage and I have to say it was just about one of the tastiest things I have ever eater. It was spicy but not hot, I wanted to order another one just for myself.

We took out time, ate slowly and had a great conversation and had our coffee topped up and it was a really lovely morning. We even more pleasantly surprised when the cheque came and the total was only $32 and change. We were really happy with every aspect of our Nectar experience and we can't wait to go back and try a few more things on the brunch menu.

Friday night....

2010-12-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

Watching TV is so weird. Every couple of minutes they interrupt the action to show me a very mini show that makes me hungry and want to buy a car or take a trip somewhere. I guess I have been watching too many downloaded shows.I am enjoying some chill time in front of a TV while I babysit for a friend of mine who lives up the road from me. Both little girls are sound asleep so we are chilling out, my man and I. Sadly rather then making out on the sofa as we may have done if we were 15 we are each sitting with our laptops each doing our own thing. LAME, Funny but lame.
I am trying to find something interesting to say but I find my brain being suck out by the pretty picture box. It is also not helping that it is after 11pm so I am totally falling asleep. I am such an old lady.
It is weird the news is showing snow storms all over the place, Europe is practically in a state of emergency and New York is insane but here it is just day after day of rain. Today was down right balmy. I want snow dammit. Just enough to make it pretty. Enough to make it feel like Christmas is only three weeks away!

I am so sorry

2010-11-28T17:49:00.000-04:00

Wow. It has been WAY too long since I updated my blog. November has been nothing short of insane. I took place in a project called NaNoWriMo which meant I spent all my time writing for the novel. In addition I have been working on 2 photo projects and trying to have something that resembles a life. But after writing so much I want to keep going so I am going to attempt to write at least twice a week here. I know I have made such promises before but it can't hurt to try again... right?

So what is new other then the fact that I wrote a novel in 25 days? The house is still standing which is a good thing. Sadly neglected during NaNoWriMo so have lots of house work to catch up on and it is also time to start decorating for the holidays. I am worried about Lulu vs the Christmas tree so it will be going up in stages. Yesterday I had Gil bring up the tree and we left it in its bag in the living room for about 24 hours so she could smell it. This afternoon I put the tree up and it will stay naked for a few days until I can see how she treats it. So far she has basically ignored it which is a good sign. On the other hand Mango won't leave it alone but that is pretty par for the course. Oliver will be terrified, I don't think he saw the tree last year because he never left his crate. Oliver who is at the moment basically laying on top of the baseboard heater in the living room, it is so cute.
I am going to try and get myself into some kind of routine so that I can get my shit together. I did okay with the depression in November because I had NaNo to focus on but as I am heading into December and that is a bad time to be doing battle with the depression monsters. I am going to make a game plan and I am going to stick with it. Depression sucks. so there.

Sick Day

2010-09-21T14:31:00.000-03:00

Feeling down and out with this cold/flu/throat infection thing. I feel like I swallowed two golf balls covered in fire ants while simultaneously being beaten with a baseball bat. I want to sleep and then sleep some more. But oddly enough I still hate just laying in bed. I have been in bed since last night at 5pm. and I have slept for rather a lot of that. When I have not been asleep I have been staring at this computer waiting for something to entertain me and make me forget I feel like I have been hit by the dump truck of misery and quite frankly it is boring. Being sick is boring. I would actually much rather be at work where at least I would feel marginally useful. I am going back to sleep. Bah humbug.

A weekday morning!

2010-09-17T07:22:00.000-03:00

The last few mornings I have been trying an experiment. I have deliberately NOT set my alarm clock. Rather then tossing and turning and cracking my eyes open every 10 mins. I have decided just to wake up the first time I look at the clock. Okay not the FIRST time because today that was sometime in the 4am hour but the first time it is reasonable. What I have discovered is that my body gets up all on its own at about 6:20am with no ill side effects. I get up, take the dogs out for their business. These days it is still dark at 6:20 so I have to grope around in the dark a bit to find my robe or sweat pants but that's not so bad. I have a cup of tea, I hang out on Facebook, check out Flickr, read the paper online and watch the sun slowly creep into the sky. Some mornings if I am feeling ambitious I throw in a load of laundry or scoop the litter box but mostly I just give my self an opportunity to wake up at a more leisurely pace. As a result I have noticed I am less hostile in the morning when I rouse my sleeping husband at 7:30ish. I forget less and feel less frazzled as I am running out the door in the morning. I feel less guilty about being away all day because I have spent roughly an hour extra hanging out with the dogs. All and all I call my little experiment a success... and just in case I keep on sleeping? I have a back up alarm set on my cell phone to tell me when it is 7:30 :)

... signifying nothing.

2010-09-13T21:32:00.000-03:00

Today was one of those Mondays that give all the other ones a bad name. Although it started off great with a very productive 6:30 start it quickly went to shit, literally Oliver had a poop accident while I was in the shower and Lulu peed on the dining room floor while I was getting my shoes on to take them out. I wasn't going to let this dampen my spirit. I made a cup of tea, folded some laundry, put a new load in and checked my facebook. I also got Gil up and dressed and we both out the door with plenty of time to spare. I knew I would have a little extra work on my desk when I got in today because I was off on Friday but I wasn't expecting the MOUNTAIN of work waiting for me. Nor could I have foreseen the 8 billion customers would call first thing in the morning each with an urgent rush order. Certainly I didn't predict the my co-worker would be out sick with the flu so I would have to juggle the madness on my own with no time to stop for breaks or lunch.
Anyway I got through the day just fine with the help of many cups of tea and a very understanding boss. But when I got home my tummy started bugging and now it has developed into a fully on tummy ache which totally sucks. I had plans to get some stuff done this evening but I really only did dishes and some laundry, which I suppose is better then nothing. The house is really starting to come back together which is making me very happy. I just need to put in a little effort everyday to keep it that way. I don't want to slide into winter funk and have the house look like one of those crazy houses on Hoarders. It helps that I am hosting book club at the end of the month and really want people to not think I live in a sty. I can't wait until the Autumnal Equinox so I can bring out all my beautiful fall decorations. I think I might love them even more then Christmas decorations.
Anyway it is getting late and I have another full day tomorrow. 6:30 comes SO early.
Sweet dreams.

Another round of Sunday mornning muisings.

2010-09-12T10:12:00.000-03:00

Sunday morning, dogs are sleeping, husband is sleeping, cats are wandering the house in pursuit of phantom bugs and the tea is steeping. The only noise is the low hum of the dish washer and the rustle of the trees outside. That will change in the next hour as it is Air Show weekend I live under the flight path so I plan on enjoying the quiet now. Speaking of things changing... We have truly gone from summer to autumn in the blink of an eye. This morning I have all the windows closed and I have pulled out socks and a sweatshirt. I don't mind at all, this 10-15 degree weather is my VERY favorite but it is just weird because last week it was 41 with the humidex. It really is like someone just flipped a switch.
I just walked into the kitchen and found Mango on the stove trying to eat the beautiful Gerbera daisies that Aimee brought me yesterday. I guess I know who spilled the vase all over the dining room table last night. The same dining room table where my laptop and camera were resting for the night. That is one lucky cat let me tell you. If either were permanently damaged she would be in the stew pot tonight.
So in totally not related news I have decided to submit a couple of my pictures into a photo competition. It is a "just for fun" thing but I am pretty excited. I have working hard at improving my skills. It isn't easy with no training whatsoever but I plan on fixing that soon. In order to keep my self out of the depth of despair about our canceled Mexico trip I plan on focus all my energy on getting better at photography and planning a trip to NYC. I don't want to give into the winter blues this year so I am developing a game plan.
Gil just woke up and we are going to have some breakfast

Lest We Forget.

2010-09-11T07:49:00.000-03:00

All my life I have been touched in some way by Remembrance Day. We always attended the ceremonies both because my Poppa served in WWII and because my brother was a drummer in a Scottish pipe and drum band and he was usually playing at these events. It was always cold and rainy and as a child I was bored after the first ten seconds. 1984 my sweet mother passed away the day before Remembrance Day and it has tainted every subsequent year. Because of I was so young when that happened I never grew to appreciate the true meaning of the day. I was mired in my own loss for so long I did not see that we were coming together to give thanks and gather comfort for a much larger loss. And then September 11th 2001 happened.
It was the first time in my consciousness that the world lost together, suffered together, wept together. It was the first time I felt depth and breadth of humanities ability to unify, to love and be compassionate. It was also the first time I truly understood the hatred people can harbour in their hearts. This is my Remembrance Day. And though I will continue to honour the great men and women who serve in the Armed Forces on November 11th. I will continue to be sad and grateful for all they sacrifice; I can't help but feel my connection to 9/11 in a much more visceral, tangible way. I will be able to recite for the rest of my life when I was, what I was doing, how I felt and how my life was directly changed by that day. I am so fortunate that none of my loved ones were lost that day. I have no direct connections with anyone involved in the events that unfolded but I am a member of the human race and that is enough to have been wounded by that day.
The years that have followed, the wars, the loss of lives, the insane rampant racism, the civilization living in a constant state of hyper alertness, these have taken a toll on our humanity.
We can not honour the fallen with violence. We can not grieve with malfeasance. We can not heal with hate. As the great Doctor said "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
Don't burn a book today. Don't look with suspicion on a man getting on an airplane because he looks "Arab". Don't cast judgment on a woman who chooses to express her faithfulness and fidelity to god by covering her face. Don't left fear a suspicion take a foot hold in your heart. Remember what happened 9 years ago, feel it, talk about it, try and understand why it happened. Be angry and sad and mourn but then go out into the world and love because that is how the good guys really win.

2010-09-10T08:18:00.000-03:00

Sorry I have been so absent lately. I have been focusing on the picture a day blog and it ate my brain a little.
Last week I was totally consumed by getting my neurotic dog healthy again. In the course a massive anxiety induced melt down he managed to shed 12 lbs. which is a lot when you are dog, specifically when you are a Greyhound with precious little mass to start with. It took many days of hand feeding and gentle encouragement not to mention some very expensive anti-anxiety meds but he most certainly on the mend. In fact he seems to really doing well on these pills, he has become much more outgoing. The other day he was even PLAYFUL. In fact he got so excited that he bit me. Of course I freaked out and screamed (it was a reflex) and he ran back to his crate but not for very long, he recovered very quickly as did it. No worries about my hand, he didn't break the skin.
Lulu continues to be a crazy bag of fun. Her daddy isn't too impressed with her this morning because she had a MASSIVE pee in the kitchen. He was on pee duty because I have the day off and wanted to sleep in. Poor daddy, no one likes to wake up to a lake of urine in the kitchen, but that is why I get up at the ass crack of dawn, I don't want to spend my morning cleaning up the pee.
Anyway. I have been negligent but I promise I will try harder. I have some food stuff to tell you about so stay tuned!

Summer Day

2010-08-28T23:00:00.000-03:00

Why I am who I am ... another addition.

2010-08-14T01:45:00.000-03:00

Okay so I have told you the cast story and you now have a pretty good picture of just how weird I am and yet you are still here so I have decided to trust you with yet another vignette.
A broken arm was not the only strange with I had as a small child. I also REALLY wanted to have my tonsils out. It seemed SO romantic. You got to stay home from school. You got to eat all the Jello and ice cream you can stand. You also got LOTS and LOTS of attention; this was probably the most important point. Anyway I was desperate to have them out. I begged, I plead, I begged and plead but my mother wouldn't relent. There was no way for me to help things along; I was NOT take my tonsils out crazy.
Anyway after a few months of this my mother and her infinite patience grew weary of my pestering her and she came up with a fool proof plan, she declared tonsillectomy day! For one day and one day only I could stay home, I could watch day time TV(woo!), I could eat all the ice cream and Jello I could cram into my body. Best of all my mother would stay home with me all day and wait on me hand and foot. It was perfect. Of course there was a catch, my mother was no fool. In exchange for my day of total decadence I had to swear an oath of TOTAL silence. You see you can't talk when you have had your tonsils out, not a word, not a whisper not a peep. Not talking is SO hard for me, it is pretty much impossible. So in getting to spend of day of quality time being spoiled by my mother I couldn't have so much as a conversation with her. The lesson was a good one. Getting what you want is NOT always a good thing. I think it is an important lesson, really I do. I just wish we had known what a valuable opportunity we had that day. Those opportunities to be alone together, to talk, we wouldn't have very many more of them.
Anyway for what it is worth when I was in the 10th grade I did end up having my tonsils out. I didn't eat Jello or ice cream, I could hardly swallow water. Day time TV sucked. And mom was right, you can't talk when you've had your tonsils out.

Poor kid, she looks so normal.

Funny story...if by funny you mean deeply disturbing.

2010-08-12T22:30:00.001-03:00

I know you might find this a bit difficult to believe, but I was a really demented little kid. Really. I mean I am okay with it, I didn't have the most conventional upbringing as I am sure you have managed to piece together. Anyway I did lots of crazy things mostly in an effort to get some attention and this is one of those tales.

I don't know exactly how old I was; we'll call it second grade-ish. I desperately wanted to break my arm so I could have a cast. I tried everything I could think of; I tossed myself down the stairs, down a steep hill near my house, banged my arm in the kitchen counter repeatedly. Seriously, I needed a shrink. Anyway, I finally had a grand, fail proof plan. One night when my parents were out I went into the kitchen and appropriated the meat tenderizer. Oh yeah I just heard you groan, you figured out where this is going. So yeah, I took the meat tenderizer up to my room and started to wail on my arm. When my mom got home I went to show her that I "hurt my self". What I didn't count on of course is my mother having a brain or the fact that meat tenderizer leaves a very distinct mark. I suppose at this point my mom realized that I needed a little help. She didn't take me to a shrink but she did get me a cast. She brought home all the supplies needed from the hospital and made me a cast in our bathroom. I know it sounds like I just learned that if I take extreme measures I get my own way but the story has an epilogue. My momma was one smart cookie because about 5 hours after the cast went I was bored of it and I wanted it off. But no! She wouldn't take it off!! She made me keep that damned thing on for the whole weekend. Maybe it wasn't 6 weeks but it was so annoying. Lesson learned (maybe!)

Well adjusted cutie pie or prepubescent sociopath? You decide!

Kitchen creativity...

2010-08-11T23:06:00.000-03:00

A couple of things to note... My husband and I own a house. You know this. You also know, especially if you also own a home, this means we are in deep deep debt... especially after the crummy year we have been having.
You also know we like food... a lot. SO ... in order to tighten our belts, save a little money and still eat great ... we are going to try cooking at home!! Isn't that novel? Most of the time we are just gonna cook regular old food certainly not worth blogging over but from time to time we are going to experiment, try something new and that I am going to share with YOU! Don't you feel lucky.
Gil wanted to jump right in trying something new with a recipe he found on line for Watermelon juice. It was super duper easy and very yummy.

Start with a nice juicy watermelon. We picked a seedless one because it was easier to strain and you don't have to worry about swallowing bits a pureed seed.

Scoop out all the pretty pink flesh but avoid the bitter white stuff it is yucky!

You can scoop it into a bowl and work it over with a potato masher first but we opted to just scoop right into the food processor.

Then you gotta puree crap right out of it!

This becomes....

THIS!

Next up you have to strain it with a thin mesh stainer or a cheese cloth. You don't HAVE to stain it but I do recommend it or it is just too thick. We added half a cup of water but no sugar as we felt the watermelon was juicy enough all on its own. Then we put the pitcher in the fridge and chilled it for a few hours. The result?

Delicious!!!

Home.... still... bored!

2010-08-04T18:17:00.000-03:00

So I have been home from work for 7 days now I am going stark raving mad. The first few days I was so drugged up and sleepy I didn't know how bored I was. Now I am on drugs that have me a little more lucid and I can see how awful resting really is.
I'm cranky and I can't seem to find anything else to say.

2010-07-20T22:09:00.000-03:00

Despite my best efforts the universe seems to be conspiring to make me realize that I am an adult. It had been creeping up on me in a stealthy kind of way; first there was the wedding and then the home ownership. Those clues should have tipped me off. Then there was the financial advisers, the lawyer, the will and the debt. All very subtle hints that I was entering the world of grown-ups. I dug my heals in grasping on to the vestiges of my carefree adolescence (HA! Like I had one of those) by pawning all the adult stuff on Gil. Really he is three whole years older then me, all the grown up stuff is his and I am merely along for the ride.But today that illusion was shattered. Today my boss gave me a monumentally adult task to perform and I was terrified. But you know what? It was alright, in fact it was even kind of fun. It felt good to be trusted with a grown-up job. I even think that I handled myself with a certain amount of grace and self-assuredness. Maybe 35.5 is an okay time to start to feel like joining the adult community... at least from 9-5.

Down and Out on the Boondocks...

2010-07-18T10:15:00.000-03:00

Yesterday was HOT and HUMID. It was so hot that I didn't want to eat at dinner time and I most certainly did not want to cook. Around 7:30 my body finally decided it was time for some food and I suggested to Gil that we head down to Fisherman's Cove for fish and chips by the water where it would be cooler. Fisherman's Cove is located in Eastern Passage and it is a picturesque still active fishing village. In recent year it has been converted to also be a popular tourist destination with lots of shops, restaurants and best of all a spectacular view. Because it is perched right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean it also usually a few degrees cooler then the city.
After a little hunting we found parking, not that easy on a sunny Saturday evening, and made our way to Boondocks. It has everything a good Nova Scotia tourist trap could want...

....light houses, lobster traps, a giant sign eating shark.

We were seated quickly in the large dinning room, there were a good number of people but it was by no means full to capacity. There were some nice looking seats out on the patio facing the ocean but as I have mentioned I am not really one for eating outdoors. inside the decor was... okay it was tacky, over the top tacky but in a way that doesn't surprise you about a place that has a giant sign eating shark bursting out of its roof. I can look past tacky if it is done right. Give me a break here I am trying to find good things to say ....
As I said we were seated quickly by a young woman who clearly had too much on the go. She rushed by us at lightning speed, never made eye contact, never told us her name. I appreciate the place was busy and I understand that food service is a stressful job ( I am not being sarcastic, I could not do food service I would have a total mental breakdown) but please for the love of Pete look me in the eye when you are speaking to me.... maybe that way you will remember my drink order.

However our food did come quickly...
Two HUGE pieces of fish, a plate full of fries, coleslaw, tartar sauce and ketchup. It looked glorious, artery clogging but glorious. I was literally salivating. Sadly however this is one of those times where the meal just didn't live up. (Like how KFC NEVER tastes as good as it smells)
First off the portion size was just too huge. I couldn't eat all that to save my life. I didn't even finish one of those colossal pieces of fish. It might have been a good dish to split if someone else had wanted fish and chips but in the end I think I just like being able to choose how many pieces come with my meal. The fish it's self was largely tasteless, it was white fish so most of the taste came from the batter and the grease both of which there was plenty of. Myself I am big fan of tartar sauce. It is a pretty easy recipe, even I can make a half decent tartar which is why I was so disappointed that my meal came with two tiny pre-packaged Kraft tartar cubes. I mean no disrespect to Kraft but come on.... You gave me half a tonne of fish here and two tiny little cubes of prefab sauce is not going to cut it.
Next up were the chips. A rare indulgence these days so I am little more picky then usual. What can I say, they were fries. They were bland and greasy because the fish leaked on to them. The didn't do it for me. Same with the coleslaw, a bit flavorless and boring. At the end of my meal I was full but in a icky greasy feeling way and not really satisfied.

Gil wasn't too hungry and he had a bit of a headache so he opted for a smaller meal in the form of seafood chowder. Because I love my life more then I love you I didn't try the big bowl of death although as always I forced my poor husband to point out to me which fish is which and try and describe the taste to me. Nothing on earth can convince me that scallops don't taste like marshmallow. Anyway I am no position to review this but I can tell you that when I asked my delightful, intelligent husband what he thought of it his replay was " It's Yiiicchhh" followed by the yucky face. When asked to please be more specific he explained, after he was finished rolling his eyes at me, that the soup/broth portion of the chowder was largely flavorless and seemed to consist mostly of white wine which he is not a fan of. His opinion was that the chef should learn to use some spices or herbs.
The bill came to about $35 which is by no means a wallet buster however neither of us loved our meal and the service was as lack luster as well. At the end of the day it filled an empty belly but I won't be running back to try again any time soon.
Also strike it off your list if you are looking for a meal later in the evening as they close at 8pm. No really I am not kidding, 8pm on a sunny July Saturday... that is just weird.

Are you Epicurious?

2010-07-17T17:18:00.000-03:00

This morning for brunch Gil and I consulted "the list" and decided we would head back over the bridge to north end Halifax and see what's going on at Epicurious Morsels.
We found this cute little bistro tucked into the very middle of the Hydrostone Market. The Hydrostone is a very popular mini shopping district sporting many eateries and cute boutiques, it touts its self as "Halifax's European Shopping Experience". Parking was slightly difficult to find however it was a lovely morning so we parked a few streets away and walked through the Hydrostone neighborhood which is a part of Halifax I particularly enjoy. If you want to know more about Historic Hydrostone... click here!

I liked the cute little patio seating and was pleased to see the waitresses frequently went out to refill water glasses and make sure the outdoor customers were happy, but I have a thing against eating out on the side walk so we went inside which turned out to be a great idea because inside was a cool and calm oasis from the summer heat.

We were greeted right away by a waitress who was sweet but not TOO enthusiastic, too enthusiastic is almost as annoying as total apathy to your presence... anyway she was neither, she was great.

The decor was lovely, clean and very much what I imagine when I think about Parisian cafes.
The menu was nice and simple. There were only six selections for brunch. I like that sometimes because I have a hard time choosing when there are 56 things to pick from. Four of the six items had no meat, one had ham and one had salmon. I thought it was refreshing that nowhere was there a breakfast fry up of eggs, bacon and home fries. Nice as those things are I was craving change.

While we waited for our breakfast we were served our coffee. I don't usually gush over coffee, especially since I don't drink as much these days but I must gush now. What you see here is the best cup of coffee I have had in months, nay... YEARS!
I can't tell you what was so perfect about it except that it was just the right strength, there wasn't a hint of bitter, if was very flavorful and the perfect temperature. Now I am not one of those "coffee people" I can't really tell you the difference between dark roast and mild. I can drink Tim's or Starbucks, I have even had instant once or twice in a pinch, but I am here now telling you...I had a relationship with this cup of coffee. Yes, it was good!

We also got bread while we were waiting. BREAKFAST BREAD! How decadent. I have been trying to not eat bread when it is served before meals but Gil insisted I try it (okay okay, my arm was very easily twisted) and I was not disappointed. Warm, chewy, crusty baguette with a smidgen of butter. I have never been served bread with my brunch before, not unless it was toast, so found it a bit odd but it was so yummy and truth be told it made me feel a bit Continental ( she says with her pinky finger stuck out).

Then came the main event!

This is the California Croissant, it is served with a poached egg, avocado, tomato & Mornay sauce. Mornay sauce is a Béchamel sauce with shredded or grated cheese added. Usually, it consists of half Gruyère and half Parmesan cheese. It was lighter then a hollandaise sauce and the flavour was very mild but extremely pleasing. I have to tell you right off the bat that any breakfast that includes avocado is a winner in my books but this was even more delightful then I imagined. It was the perfect size with the one poached egg. Kudos to the cook for making a soft poached egg that was actually soft. I find that hard to come by in many breakfast spots. I found my meal filling but not stuffing...

And speaking of stuffing....

Gil had the stuffed french toast. I am pretty sure he licked the plate but not before gifting me with a taste of this french toast filled with a mixture of strawberries, banana and cream cheese. Thank you for sharing Gilly, that is true love. It would have been too rich for me to eat the whole thing but as a nibble it was superb!
The service was great, she didn't hover but dropped by to make sure we had enough of everything and offer refills on the coffee. Everything was quick but we felt no rush to leave, there were a few other patrons but it certainly wasn't packed. The bill came to $26 which is pretty much mid range. Over all I give Epicurious Morsels two satisfied thumbs up and can't wait to go back some evening to try some of the delights I glimpsed on the dinner menu.

Anatomy of a day all to my self...

2010-07-17T00:35:00.001-03:00

As I mentioned once or ten times my boss bullied me in to taking a few days off; and by bully I mean highly suggested that if I didn't take some time off I was going to burn out. I was a little hesitant because I really wanted to save ALL my vacations days for Mexico but she was right I really need this time. I deliberately did not make any plans for today but I made sure I had my camera on hand so I could document how a day all to myself unfolds. And because I KNOW how much my life interests you I thought I would share.
Well my day started at 6am... 'cause let's face it my dogs don't know I am on vacation. But then I crawled back into bed and fell directly back to sleep where I stayed until 10am!! Honest to god I have no IDEA when the last time is that that I slept in that late. It left so amazing I just uncurled and stretched and laid there in the middle of the big ol' bed. I woke up feeling like I was actually rested! RESTED!! I mean how cool is that? I usually wake up panicked and cranky and worried about finding clean underwear. This morning I was thinking .... "ahhh!"

------ This is what pure satisfaction looks like.

Whereupon I shambled down stairs to start my day. The dogs seemed very surprise at my appearance, I suppose they presumed they had the place to themselves for what ever canine mischief they had planned for the day.

The first order of business was food. Sleeping in works up a mighty hunger. What I am about to show you might be shocking to you. I suggest you ask any small children to leave the room because it might cause nightmares for years to come.
There is a reason why I don't blog about cooking in our house...I am no kind of cook....

-----

Burnt toaster

waffles!

-------

Second time around.

Yup this is why we eat out for breakfast just about every weekend. My other options we dry, cold cereal, moldy toast or oatmeal. Boiling oatmeal in 26 ° heat didn't seem like a sane option. The waffles, for what it is worth, are whole wheat and are only 2 points for two. The margarine on the other hand... excessive.
Anyway now you know my dirty little secret, I can't even toast waffles with out burning them and breakfast basically doesn't exist in our house. Don't judge me! :)

Of course no morning is truly a morning without a cup of tea. This morning I got to sit at the table, my table, start a new book, drink a cup of tea that was STILL hot out of my favorite mug. It was perfect. That is the only way to start a day. If I had my druthers this is how every day would start (minus the frozen waffles). In the summer I would like to sit out on the deck with a book, the paper, my laptop, whatever... and a cup of tea and just sit there. I actually like doing this really early when it is still a bit cool and damp. Summers gone by when I would go down to the cottage for part of the summer I would get up before everyone else, make a cup of tea and sit out on the dock while the sun came up. It was so calming and beautiful. A wonderful thing at a time when I really needed some calming influence in my life.

But I digress...

The next step in my day was getting clean. Having no plans is no excuse for being skeezy.

-------------------Look at that fresh face!

It is important to keep a beauty regime, here is a sneak peak of mine...

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This is me before! Can you believe I am putting this picture on the internet? Aren't I brave or crazy?
Look at that hair!!

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This is me after my beauty regiment. WOH! What an amazing difference. Okay, I know what you are thinking, all I did is put my hair in a pony tail, but you are wrong!! I also but on lip balm! So there!

Up next.... entertainment. This is easy to find in my house crank up the iTunes and play with the dogs.

Lulu and ColMcNutt who is her new best friend. They go every where together.

My boy!

Shortly after I was done playing with the beasts my internet connection died which I took as some kind of sign that I should leave the house and seek adventure in the wider world.

So I set out with all the essentials, a rain coat, after all it is July in Nova Scotia, at some point in the day I am likely going to require rain gear, a book,my wallet, a liter of water and my camera.

I love walking in my neighbourhood because there are so many beautiful gardens and no one, so far, seems to mind if I stop and take pictures of the flowers. I must have stopped in front of a dozen homes today and I was seen by many people and for the most part people just looked amused. Here a smattering of pictures from my walk downtown today....

See Mr. Bee doing his thing? I watched him for some time. It was really cool!

Totally cool hedge made of raspberry bushes. Talk about creative!

I was tempted to nibble but did not.

Eventually I ended up in downtown Dartmouth and realized I was really hungry so I called my hubby to see if he want to meet me for lunch, which of course he did and went to one our favorite pubs to find us a table.

This is why it is always good to travel with a book. But I didn't get very far before handsome showed up.

Okay so he won't smile pretty for my camera anymore but you can see how cute he is anyway.

After lunch (which I shall review at another time) he went back to work and I continued to adventure. I made my way to the library and wandered for a while. There are always interesting characters but I felt it would be rude to snap pictures of them. I sometimes forget how much I love the public library. I mean it is like one HUGE book store and they will let you take just about any book for free! How cool is that?! Nice idea folks.

After the library I started the long wander home. Lots more gardens and an aborted attempt to hit the Dartmouth Heritage Museum. (I lacked the $2 for admission and they don't take debit if you are wondering.

Here are a few more pictures of my wander home...

Post walk, I am red, sweaty and gross.

At this point I decided that it was time for a cold shower and nap. It was the perfect way to spend the rest of my alone time! I had an awesome day. When Gil got home Friday went back to normal, dinner and then off to J&A's to geek out for the evening. All told it was a perfect day and I am glad I spent it wandering on my own, I was great company! And now I bid you good night. I need to get my beauty rest so I can start the madness all over again tomorrow.

2010-07-15T22:26:00.000-03:00

I am sitting here on my deck, laptop, camera, Starbucks, pre-dusk and all I can think is, this is true contentment. Oh sure I am sweaty and probably a little smelly; true I am being eaten alive by mosquitoes (I swear I even have a bite on the bottom of my foot!) But the air, it smells just like summer should. There are kids running maniacally up and down the road. I can hear the sound of a pipe and drum band drifting up the hill from somewhere. The sun is a low orange ball in the sky. There are birds singing, Really it is as picturesque as you can imagine. Evenings like this when all is right with the world it is so easy to count my blessings. I really do have it all... and what I don't have I can live without no matter how hard it seems sometimes. It is so easy to over look the little wonderful things each day holds, especially when I am tired or stressed or melting from the humidity. I sometimes feel like I come across as negative and I don't like that aspect of myself.... but tonight I am happy. I am just going to roll with it. Peace out homies!

My first restaurant review!

2010-07-11T00:50:00.001-03:00

Gil and I are card carrying members of the Breakfast Club. Ok so there are no cards and we are the only two members but we LOVE breakfast and on the weekends we really enjoying going out `doing brunch`. The thing is we have found ourselves going to the same spots over and over and having the same things over and over and we got bored. So we started a list. The Breakfast Club List! It has been growing and changing and things are broken down into categories. It is a great list and today we decided to put it to use. We were *going* to hit the Coastal Cafe but the plan changed due to rain and laziness (sorry again Sara!) and we ended up down the road at Mary's Place Cafe.

I had been to Mary's a couple of times in my youth but let me tell you it was a completely different animal. According to my husband, who knows a lot of stuff about stuff, the universe is governed by some pretty basic and fundamental rules, like gravity, the second law of thermodynamics and the rule of three. The rule of three states that in the food service industry you get good, fast and cheap but you can ONLY have two of them. Good and cheap, fast and cheap, good and fast.... you see where I am going? Well Mary's, according to my very smart husband, breaks the universe. Because they honestly had all three!! We sat right away. The placed was busy but not packed, a nice diverse crowd which I always find a good sign. The menus were already on the table which I love because it meant when the lovely waitress came over we already knew what we wanted. The owner of Mary's is Syrian so there is a lot of Middle Eastern flare to the menu, which again I just love. But there were LOADS of healthy options for example turkey bacon and whole wheat flat bread. As well there were tonnes of vegetarian/vegan choices, not that I am but I still inclined to go veg more often for health reasons. My eye was immediately drawn to the Middle Eastern breakfast and WOO was I pleased with my choice!

What you see is baked eggplant and tomato on a whole wheat flat bread with an egg topper. OH MY GOD! The eggplant and tomato was pretty spicy and I definitely had some heart burn afterward but it was worth it. Every mouthful was pure bliss. The eggs were done perfectly; runny yolks but no runny whites. The home fries were hot and crispy.

Just another shot to show you the perfection of the eggs. I am a little funny about my eggs. Some might even say I am fussy but I likes what I likes.

Gil opted for the "Healthy Choice" breakfast which featured the turkey bacon, whole wheat toast and rather then home fries a kind of potato pancake. It looked a little boring but once I tried a bite I was sold. It was likely they best thing we had, and that is saying something.

It seemed to be made from mashed potato and hosted a variety of other veg but what was truly great about it was the light curry flavor. I am telling you breakfast might never be the same again!

The service was super friendly and REALLY fast, we were in and out in half an hour. Even better was the price. Two full breakfasts and two cups of coffee for $15. We left full and happy and will most certainly be making the trek over the bridge to go back again. I recommend you do too!

2010-07-08T22:25:00.000-03:00

I am hot and melty tonight so I thought that instead writing ad nauseum I would regale you with some of my more recent photos. As you may know I LOVE taking pictures, I might not be the greatest photographer but I have a lot of fun doing it.

These are the first strawberries of summer. And for me the sign that summer is really and truly upon us. I love strawberries.I could live on them so this year I have started buying a few pints every time we hit the grocery store and then freezing them. I know I could buy those frozen ones at the grocery store any time but somehow these ones just seem better. But you know me I am weird like that.

This is a little sweetie who is working overtime in my irises trying eat all the dang aphids, and ma'am there are a LOT of aphids to eat. Darn little critters are having a field day and I could find was this one little lady bug at the all you can eat aphid buffet. Is it true you can tell how old a lady bug is by the number of spots they sport on their... shell? I know that isn't the right word but if I go to wikipedia right now I will get lost in all its wonder and I may not make it back to finish regaling you. We'll just leave it as a question for another day shall we?

I have lots of beautiful flowers in my garden but there is something about the simple beauty of a daisy that really resonates with me. It is the flower of childhood; of wild bouquets; it is the flower I always doodle.

It is sweetness and innocence.

And we don't even have to plant them god just grows them all over the place for us!

Speaking of sweet flowers looks at these precious Pinks (Dianthus) aren't they so cute? I love them, I am glad they grow in such perfusion in my front garden.

They make me so happy, they look like they should have little fairy's running beneath them.

Our favorite summer meal... the Cold Plate! Gil and I are both nutty because with a cold plate anything goes, there is no way to make it wrong. This cold plate is heavy on the meat and cheese (trust me the scale will not thank me later) but you can also throw in breads, more veggies, any kind of salads you can quickly throw together. And you have to have to pickles!! The point is that you don't have to turn on any appliance except the fan, perfect for those hot, humid summer days when even the thought of turning to BBQ on is too much. In July and August we probably cold plate once a week. I must say Gil learned the art of the cold plate from his Dad who is also a master and I am very grateful to have been let in on this divine "dish".

I thought I would finish off with this one, not because it is a great picture but because it will leave you with a smile on your face. Lulu and the worlds biggest water dish. Isn't there anything we won't do for these mutts? Probably not. :)

Hot stuff!

2010-07-07T22:20:00.000-03:00

My usual rule, or my lately rule anyway is no distractions while blogging. I set a timer, close Facebook (I am sorry dear friend and sit someplace comfortable and then start going off at the mouth, or the fingers as the case may be. Anyway tonight I am making an exception... I have some classical music playing and I in bed with Lulu because this is where the fan is and we both want to be naked in front of the fan, which of course is easier for Lulu as she seldom wears clothes. On that note, please not to try and thing about the fact that I am naked in front of the fan but it is July in Nova Scotia by god it is hot and humid. most definitely no blankets on the bed tonight. Of course having a warm 60 lbs greyhound plastered to my side is not helping at all. But she had no accidents in the house today so I am giving her a little extra treat here in front of the fan with me.
I had a very weird thing happen tonight that I am going to share with you. I have a friend who is studying to be a councilor and he needed someone to a practice session with so I volunteered, because I want to be a good friend and because I like this guy a lot and we don't see each other very much. So when I got there and we started he asked me if there was something I would like to talk about and I opened my mouth and all this STUFF just came tumbling out. I told him all about my "Now I lay me down to sleep" problem and how crazy I feel for being so afraid of something so universal and then we talked about how I don't drive because I am afraid of having an accident and all these FEELINGS just kept pouring out. It was so weird. For a little while he wasn't my biddy he really was a councilor. I hope he doesn't think I am some nut job. Really I feel like I came across as really crazy but the fact remains I have a big death problem and I need to get some help and this is the first time I really talked to anyone other then Gil about it. I think I should really get myself a real shrink. Also as a side note I think that this friend of mine is going to be really great at his job someday when he finishes school. I mean he just looked at me and I started talking!
I am s tired tonight. Maybe it was all the emotions doing the tango around my head tonight, maybe it is the heat, maybe I am still in migraine recovery mode from yesterday or maybe it is that I ate naughty food for dinner or some combo of all the above but I feel like it should be Friday and I should not have to get up for work tomorrow. I can't WAIT for my two extra days off. I am so glad I decided to take them. I don't even care if it rains the whole time. I plan on doing big fat nothing with those two days. I might read or scrapbook or watch some West Wing (I <3 Josh!) but I am not PLANNING anything. I might go all photo crazy or I might go on some big walks or I might sleep all dang day! Who knows?! I won't be talking on the phone I can tell you that! I won't be answering a million inane questions or crunching numbers. I won't be worrying about finding work clothes in the morning or packing lunch or worrying about where my keys and glasses are. NO SIR! I will of course still have to take the dogs out in the morning but then I am free to crawl back into bed or have my tea on the deck. LOL it sounds a lot more like I am off for a month then 4 days but at this point honestly one is as good as the other. I know in the end it will have gone by too damn fast because that is what happens, maybe I will even wish I did more with my time but I still refuse to "make a plan". Too much of my life is a plan. I need to learn to fly by the seat of my pants! A plan can be a very good thing but there is no reason that NOT having a plan can't be good too... in the right situation... like this one. My inner planner is screaming at me right now but I have decided she needs to shut up, just for a little while. My inner planner is VERY strong willed and very used to getting her own way, some might say she is a control freak. But she has learned from experience that in most cases a plan makes thing flow easier, I can't really blame her for that. But she really needs to understand that plans tend to change. Good things can still happen when the plan changes but shit happens, life happens. If you can't learn to go with the flow you likely miss out on a lot of fun things. We don't want to miss out on fun things. We want to be right at the heart of fun things. Fun things 'R us! So that is why I am not planning anything for my staycation. I am going to let the fun find and carry me. I am going to go with the flow. "and I am going to have fun dammit!" See there is that control freak again.
Whatever happens I will be sure to keep you in the loop. Now I am going to get ready for bed because I have a cramp in my hand from typing and even with the fan only high is is still hotter then heck in here and it is making me restless. My kingdom for an air conditioner. I don't really care at this very moment about the consequences to the environment (but I suppose that is why it is in such a mess isn't it?!) I want to not be hot and sticky and icky. I suppose I could go sleep in the basement, it is cool down there, but it is the basement and it freaks me out after dark so I guess that is not really an option. Anyway, what I mean to say is good night and keep cool.

Here I go again...

2010-07-05T22:00:00.000-03:00

I sincerely had the most messed up dreams last night! I blame my friends for being so creative in my presence, nonetheless it meant a restless night with poor sleep and that meant a long tired day today. Work was busy but sporadic, like it would be CRAZY for 15 minutes then nothing for an hour. I can't work that way. Can't my customers make a nice schedule to call and annoy me? Oh well at least the phones are ringing which means the money is coming in. I can't ask for much more then that. We did have something scary happen at work. A shipment of stock was coming off the truck and the cheap pallet snapped in half and dumped roughly 2000 lbs of stock from about 6' on to the floor where only moments before our shipper James had been standing. It was so close and so scary it totally messed up the rest of everyone's day. We were all thinking the same thing... "what if?" and "Thank God". It must of been even scarier for my boss because not only is James a valuable employee but he is also her oldest son.
Back to nicer subject matter but sticking with the subject of weight. Gil and I were in the grocery store this evening on the way home from work and we were in the produce section so he took me over to the potatoes and put 25 lbs of potatoes in my arms. I couldn't believe how heavy it was. How could I have lost that much weight? Where was I keeping it all? Where did it go? And most of all if I lost THAT much how come I don't really look any different? Is there a certain point when all fat just looks the same? I mean please do not get me wrong, I am SOOOO happy to have shed those pounds but I am curious to know when I can expect to look in the mirror and see some difference. I hope it is soon. I need something to push me to my next level. I need some motivation and some positive feed back from the mirror so I can find the will to keep going. I did get out for a big walk tonight. I need to do that at LEAST 3 days a week but really it should be more. I don't mind once I get going but it is the getting up off my ass and getting out the door that is hard. Just like going to the gym. Plus I have to add a greater variety of activity to me routine. But I really hate working out. Really I do. I was doing the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred DVD and I hated every second of it. I yelled at the TV I hated it so much. It was just too hard for me to do. I am not that kind of exerciser and I don't really want to be. I am sure there are other ways for me to move my body and be healthy other then doing crunches and push-ups. I swear to you, I can't do a push-up. You might as well ask me to grow a penis. I just need to find more things I actually LIKE to do because getting healthy should not feel like punishment. It shouldn't feel like torture. I actually really like walking. I like looking at all the houses and gardens. I like walking in the park and seeing the nature and walking by the water and seeing the boats and rocks and waves. I never can't find something to engage my eye or imagination when I am walking, even when I am just walking around the building at work... which I should start doing again. The problem with walking is that it really is weather dependent. I don't mind walking in mildly inclement weather but certainly not in full out rain. And I have yet to master winter walking. I guess I will get that more with the dogs this winter. I am not adverse to mall walking but I don't like to do it alone and I don't really think that is something Gil would do with me. I used to LOVE walking with Aimee but she seems really not into it at the moment. Lulu is a good walking partner but at least Aimee talks back to me and she doesn't stop to sniff every third step. :)
I did like bowling, that was fun and good exercise. And I think I would like some other light sports. Hopefully in the fall dodge ball will be back up and going so both Gil and I will have that. I know that there is stuff to do out there, it is just a matter of finding it and finding the TIME for it. Having the dogs is certainly not as time consuming as children but I do have to come home in the evening and make sure they are fed and pooped and walked at least once and a while. If I am going to have dogs I at least want to being putting my best effort into it. The dogs can't be like one of those hobbies I pick up then forget about after a few weeks/months/minutes.
I think this is a good time to say good night! Sweet dreams and wish me luck with mine.

Sunday thoguhts.

2010-07-04T22:13:00.000-03:00

Well I am brutally exhausted after a long day of doing... I have no idea. I know stuff got done but I can't think of anything really tasking that I did. Certainly nothing that should have left me feeling this drained. I even had a great sleep last night. I am going to go ahead and blame this one on my hormones.
We had another busy and fun day in the yard. Gil is really getting into this whole yard thing this year. It is pretty awesome. We have been pruning and removing and digging and loads of stuff. I mean it still looks like the yard no one loves or takes care of, but we are working on it and getting there one step at a time. It would certainly help if the people we hired to take care of the sewer line problem would come the hell back and finish their job. Which includes laying new sod on the section of lawn they dug up. Gil says I should look at the bright side, we don't have to pay the idiots until they COMPLETE the job but I just want to have it over with.
I didn't go for a walk even once this weekend, I will have to make up big time during the week if I want to see any results on the scales next Saturday. We did take the dogs for a little walk this eve which would have been fine if I had on appropriate footwear and long pants... sadly I had neither. I have the bug bites to prove it. It was funny when we got back to the ball field and the guy left with his dog we let ours off their leashes so they could run, because they hyper all day and clearly needed to blow off some steam, they didn't run at all. They just spent 20 mins. meandering around the ball field peeing on stuff. Silly dogs. But I can't complain that much about them, they let me sleep until 8:20 today and no one had an accident in the house. Yay us. Lulu did make a break for it today but thankfully she just ran into the back yard where she was easily corralled because she just wanted to play. I can't wait until the backyard if fully fenced and I can just let them out to play whenever they want. That will be so sweet. Rackin' Frackin' basement ruining my plans.
It hardly seems possible that I have to get up and go back to work tomorrow. Where on earth does the weekend go and why can't it be longer? I am so glad that I decided to take two days off this month. I am really looking forward to it now. I know that they will fly by but it will still be some extra time off. It will certainly make is easier waiting the next 222 days until Mexico.
I guess we better start looking at where we are going to board the dogs while we are away. Is it weird that I am worried they will forget me after two weeks or that they won't want to come home with us? Don't worry about hurting my feelings, I know I am weird. It is part of my charm.
I am still stuck mentally on trying to figure out what I did that made me so tired. Some planting. Cleaned the bathroom. Cleaned the litter box. Took some pictures of my husband working hard. We geeked for a little while, that took some brain juice. I hung several loads of laundry on the line which is nice because it means line dried sheets on the bed tonight. I think that is my favorite thing about owning a house. The clothes line and the line dried sheet. I used to get my sister to wash my sheets so I could have line dried sheets but this is much better. And on sunny days I usually put out the bedspread too. I love that smell so much. That is the smell of safety and comfort and home. I also really like the smell of our upstairs in the summer. I think it has to do with the age of the house but on warm days our bedroom smells just exactly like the top floor of my Nanny's house. I loved everything about that house and the smell just takes me right back there. It was such a safe place for me growing up. I knew no matter what my Nanny would never let anything bad happen to me. It is a smell of security and bed time prayers and falling asleep quickly because you were so exhausted from playing outside all day. Those were the very best summers of my life, at least up until I met Gil. My Nanny may have made me eat my crust and she may have brought the wrong kind of Raisin Bran cereal but summer with her was the high light of my year, especially after my mom died. There I learned about poison ivy, BB guns, gullies, REAL thunderstorms, "beaver lice", liver and onions, time zones and how to spit watermelon seeds.
I miss my Nanny and those summers but I know that when I go upstairs tonight and take a big deep breath she will be right there with me.

A little bit of everything.. including money so beware.

2010-07-03T21:50:00.000-03:00

Well first let me admit that yes I skipped out on blogging last night we were out rather late and when we got home all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and stuff my nose in my book. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, better then I thought it was going to be. Despite the enormous size of the book I did manage to finish it in 2.5 days. I am not sure if I will read the next one in the series or not, I have several others on the list that need finishing first. However I am pleased to say that i read the whole thing so when I get to book club I won't be that person who only ready the first and last chapter. Although in fairness I think everyone else in book club has kids so I cut them some slack. Not everyone gets to sit in the sun all day reading. Fortunately for me Gil was not at all lazy today. He got loads done in the yard PLUS he ran the dish washer. My god he is a good man. I will tell you however that the reason I allowed myself to be so beautifully lazy today is because I was celebrating. I weighed in this morning to discover that I have officially lost 25 lbs. I am really very excited and I am celebrating by giving myself a day off. A real day off. I did next to nothing. AND I am having chips. I waited two days, I let my craving really settle in and then I said to myself "Yes, you may have this!" Tomorrow morning Lulu and I will go for a big walk to try and mitigate it a little but I refuse to feel guilty for this indulgence. There I said it!
I do wish I wasn't so "live and die by the scale" but I am. 1lb gain last week through me off for days and today I am euphoric. At the end of the day all that should really matter is that I am healthy. That is why I am doing this. I want to be healthy and I want to prolong my life. Because life is good.
I was talking with a very close girlfriend of mine this morning and her life just SUCKS at the moment. It seems to me her life sucks a lit of the time. She just can't seem to get ahead. At the moment her phone is cut off, as is her TV and cable. The power company says they are going to cut off her power on Friday if she doesn't cough up $1,200.00 which of course she has no way to do because she is on welfare. She is a single mom of two kids and every choice she makes seems to be the wrong one. I don't know how she keeps getting in and out of these scrapes but I do sit back and thank god or the universe or plain ol' good fortune for all the blessings in my life. I mean |Gil and I are broke, don't get me wrong, but we are broke in a whole other kind of way. We are.... house poor... as a friend of mine once described it. I mean we don't have a couple thousand spare dollars just floating around other wise we would have a finished floor in the basement but we did eat out today for both breakfast and dinner. We hit Starbucks because I can't contemplate Saturday without Starbucks. We dropped $80 at the garden center, roughly $100 more at the grocery store and rented a tiller for the day from the Home Depot, that was somewhere around $60. And that is a totally average weekend day for us. Our cell phone bill, power bill, phone/internet bill and mortgage are all paid up. I owe the Water Commission $60 but it isn't due until next week so I am going to let it squeak through until my next pay day. We have a brand new car, two well fed and well groomed dogs, two well fed and healthy cats. Every thing we own is nice. I literally have nothing to complain or worry about. I mean I do complain and I do worry because I am me but I have to remember from time to time how good I really so have it. I know no matter what when I wake up tomorrow and come down to make my tea the power will be on. We have grand plans for a big breakfast at home which is very strange as we usually have breakfast out on both Saturday and Sunday. How crazy is that? And it's not like we are planning a bowl of cereal and some toast. We went and bought ourselves the fixings for a lovely is somewhat large meal. I never have to worry about being hungry, hell I have a fully stocked pantry in the basement that I never have to worry about running low.
I am blessed. I really am and I just want to tell the universe that I know I am blessed and I am incredibly thankful and even though I only have $10 in the bank I know I am incredibly rich.

Happy Canada Day

2010-07-01T22:53:00.000-03:00

Some times in the course of a day I will take hundreds of pictures trying to get one good one. I have no idea what I am doing. I am teaching myself as I go. But tonight I got one that I am really fond of so I thought I would share it with you.

2010-07-01T14:50:00.000-03:00

I thought with the day to myself I would take the time to blog when I wasn't crazy with fatigue. I forgot of course that I am tired all the time but still I am better mental form at 2:30pm then I am at 10 so maybe some of what I write will actually make sense.
We have had a nice day so far. Gilly took the dog out for a very late night pee so I was able to sleep until almost 8am. Even then it was my full bladder that woke me not the dogs. I have been having a string of bad dreams lately and this morning was no different. I dreamed that I was pregnant and I was having a little girl who we were going to call Penny. I dreamed I could feel her bouncing on my bladder, yeah I really needed to pee. Anyway I am determined not to let the dream too far under my skin. It was a dream.
I spent most of the morning on my own sipping tea, reading, writing an email to my Auntie and catching up with on of my BFF's through facebook IM. What did people do in the old days? Remember writing letters. God it would take forever to have a proper conversation. If you needed help with a problem and had to seek advice but letter it was likely moot by the time you go a reply. Even more then I love IM clients I love Skype. With this Wonder of the World I can sit at my kitchen tea and drink tea with my best friend in Australia. No shit! I means sure sometimes the picture goes funny or freezes, heck sometimes you might even have to hang up and reconnect but really you are sitting there having a face to face conversation. Love it!
When Gil got up at 11:15, poor guy didn't even come to bed until 5am, we went to one of our favorite spots and had some lunch then we piled the dogs in the car and handily avoiding all the places that were over crowed with Canada Day celebrations found a lovely quiet stretch of ocean and went for a good long walk. Lulu and I loving the waves, Oliver and Gil avoiding them like the black plague. Now we are home and the dogs are napping, Gil is working from home and I am here with you. I think I am going to spend the rest of the afternoon with my book (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) I am having a hard time getting into it but it is the book club book and I am trying to get back into regular attendance. As I said yesterday the beauty of this day is having nothing at all to do.
Holy crap I just looked over and saw Tikka who is on the bed with me being SOOO cute! Since we started treating her arthritis she has become much more animated, I forgot how adorable she could be. She has also started cleaning herself again because it doesn't hurt her so much to twist around. That is a very good thing. My poor fat, arthritic baby. Once upon a time I remember her being a happy cat. Then we got her a sister. I don't think she has ever really recovered from the shock. I think back to those heady days when we were a one cat family and I think... ARE WE CRAZY?? Two cats, two dogs. Half the time I spend breaking up fights the rest of the time I spend cleaning up after them. And unlike children they will never learn to help clean up. But they are all pretty cute so I guess I will keep them.
I have been thinking the past few days about the amount of time I spend on Facebook. What did I do online before this social networking phenomenon? I mean I know I used the internet but HOW? Anyway I have begun to think that I may be spending too much time online, specifically on Facebook so I thinking, at least for the summer, about setting a cap on the amount of time I am wasting in cyberspace. There are so many other good things I could be doing to waste my time. I am thinking an hour a night. Plus I have have already been on a TV/Torrent diet. The ONLY thing I am watching this summer is True Blood. So that is 1 hour a week. So far so good. I want to keep devoting a half hour a night to this blog and maybe another half hour to random internet usage, catching up on other blogs I read, comics, stumble. What do you think? Do you spend too much time online? If you weren't on facebook what might you be doing? Reading? Watching your dogs sleep? Having coffee with friends? Scrapbooking? I think I will make a list of alternatives because I don't want to spend all my new free time cleaning the kitchen. I want to do some fun stuff too... Like napping which is what I think I might do right now. A nap seems like a perfect way for me to show my Canadian Pride. Happy Canada Day everyone!!

Day 4! Sleepy talk

2010-06-30T21:58:00.000-03:00

I should stop writing these when I am so tired. I would probably sound a lot more sane if I weren't already in bed and half asleep. Lulu is in the bed with me, she is the worst bed hog ever, even worse then Gil but she is sleeping on my feel and that is cute so I let her stay... for now. The sun came out today, that was a good thing. I got off of work half an hour early which was for the best as I am pretty sure I was getting very close to understanding what goes through the mind of a spree killer. We were late getting home because we were detained at Gil's work (he got Larried) but when we got home no one had any accidents so I am calling that a victory. We went out and had a nice dinner at our local. We ran some errands, hit Chapters and got a few books and some more snooty coffee (HELLS YEAH!) and when we got home again there were no accidents! I am calling this a good day. Although we didn't get out for a big walk tonight. The dogs still seem tired from last nights run in the fog. I am hoping we can head down to Fisherman's Cove tomorrow, there is a big Greyhound event going on there for Canada Day. Gil will be working most of the day but I think I can convince him to take an hour off on the statutory holiday... maybe.
People keep asking me if I have big plans for Canada Day and I am almost embarrassed to say no, but it is true, we never make plans for Canada Day. We just enjoy having the time off to do nothing. Every weekend is packed with a million things we have to do, Canada Day is like a bonus day that I don't have to feel guilty about if I do nothing at all. If I don't go to a BBQ, if I don't do a parade, if I don't head down to watch the fireworks that does not make me any less patriotic. I am just a low key kind of girl. I am going to thank this great nation for the liberties that I enjoy by... enjoying them. I don't like feeling pressured to have a great time. That is why I started hating New Years Eve. The pressure to have the greatest night of the year. I love Canada EVERY DAY, like Valentines I don't need a holiday to put my love on display. But if you want to give me a day so that I can sit around drinking iced tea and reading.... bring it on!
I actually feel a little bad for all the people who are going to party hardy tomorrow and then are going to have to drag their sorry butts into work on Friday with a hangover. Well okay I don't feel SORRY so much as I feel like pointing and laughing but that is just mean.
It is a nice night out and their is a cool breeze coming in the bedroom window and I am so glad for that. I am tired of the muggy night when the humidity and heat turn my husband into a one man dreaming, killing machine. His sleep walking always seems worse when it is hot and sticky out. I am not sure when but something about those conditions just mess with his brain waves. As he gets older, not that he is old or anything because 38 is totally young!, he is actually getting more active in his sleep. Some nights he is up two or three times. And those are just the times I notice. I am a fairly light sleeper so it is likely that I am getting up each time he is but my worst fear is that I will stay asleep and he will hurt himself.
I do my best to keep him in the bedroom on those occasions because I am worried about him on the stairs but I am told that sleep walkers can actually maneuver around their environment very well and that I don't have to worry so much.
Of course some nights I don't get a say in sleeping or not. Those are the nights that he pokes, prods, shakes or punches me until I wake up. I KNOW he is not in control at those times and I don't hold him responsible at all but let me tell you it is hard to keep a cool head when you are being shaken awake at 3:00 am being told "WE HAVE TO GO NOW!! NOW NOW NOW!!!" In the retelling of these tales it is always much funnier but nothing is that funny at that hour. I feel bad for poor Gil who gets the run down of his nightly adventures over breakfast and he always seems so painfully embarrassed. The other night I managed to get him back into bed and what ever he was dreaming about had him particularly grumpy so I told him he was very good for getting back into bed and he snapped back at me "I haven't even DONE anything yet!!" I told him that I thought he was good nonetheless and he countered with a totally contrite "WHATEVER!" It was so funny because he was SOOO mad, I was literally laughing about it the whole next day.
And people wonder why I am tired all the time! LOL between the sleep walking/taking husband, the kitty who starts crying at the bedroom door at 5 am and the dogs I don't think I have had a full nights sleep in years!
Lulu is still at my feet, now SHE is dreaming. Her legs are going crazy like she is running. It is too funny to watch. I might be tired but this family is worth it. :)

Day 3

2010-06-29T22:34:00.000-03:00

Well okay, things are slightly less bleak today. Thank you for indulging my pity party last night. I decided today that despite my pledge not to take any vacation time until we go to Mexico in February that I have to take a day or two because I am facing total burn out and that is not cool. And if we can get someone to watch the dogs for 24 hours this weekend we are going to run away for a night. I just need some time to rest. If two dogs have me this burnt out I have no idea how people handle children. Maybe infertility happened to us for a reason, maybe I am not cut out for parenthood. Maybe.
So I booked two days off in July to give myself an uber long weekend. Gil is not going to take the time off so I am just going to be a total bum which I am fine with. My only plans are to walk, sleep and read. This sounds good to me. I hope the weather is good in the time i picked. If only I had picked up that Crystal Ball I saw on Kijiji!
We took the dogs for a nice run in the fog tonight. It had been too long since they had a really good run and you could tell by their behavior that need to burn off some extra energy. When we came home from work tonight we found that one of them (Lulu I am SURE) had eaten one of Gil's new leather work gloves. Not to mention several to do lists and some recipts. That Lulu is a chewer. Anyway they ran their asses off at the good ball field so hopefully they will sleep well tonight. We all need a good nights sleep. Maybe the fog horn can wait until 6am to start blowing rather then 5 or 5:30.
The Queen has been in town visiting the last two days. Yes THE Queen, the one from England. I wonder if her bedroom is sound proof? I can't think that she would enjoy being woken up at 5am by the fog horn. Or maybe she is already up at that time. Not me. If I were the Queen I would sleep until 8:15am EVERY DAY! I would make it the law. And on Saturdays I would leave the option to sleep until 9:30!! Yeah I am that hardcore! Maybe you should all thank your lucky stars I am not the Queen of Canada. If I were the queen would I have to pick a religion? I mean on of her titles is defender of the faith right? I guess I couldn't just say "I defend them all!" or "Grow up and fight your own battles!" or "truly I don't care today I just want tea and crumpets dammit!"
Yeah I might be a little loopy with fatigue. It was a long day today. It has been a very long month at work but I think it might have paid off. I will keep you posted. It was our first full month with the summer student I/we hired and I am telling you it has been rough. Yesterday I caught her on the phone... CHEWING GUM! I am not even kidding. We talk on the phone for a living. WE DO NOT CHEW GUM! My doctor wonders why my blood pressure is so high. Also in the last month she has missed more time at work then I did LAST YEAR. I am not even kidding. I told my boss flat out today that if she asks me to be a reference I have to say no. I know it is not a glamorous job but it is a job, you show up, you do your best, you suck it up. I am NOT a hard person to work for or with you just have to put some EFFORT into your job, that is all I ask. This girl clearly does not care. But as my boss keeps telling me it is only until September 1st and then I try someone new. And this time I will know better what I am looking for. This was my first time doing this so... I guess it could be worse... I am not sure at the moment how it might be worse but I am sure it could. All things considered I am glad I came back to Dunder Mifflin. There are still things that drive me crazy of course but I am much happier then I was. I am glad I left. I am glad I had the chance to grow up a little bit but I am happy I came back. I feel so valued there, I feel like my thoughts and opinion matter. I never felt like that at the hospital. The people there we perfectly nice but I never felt like I belonged, I always felt on the outside. Dunder Mifflin is like a terribly dysfunctional family but family nonetheless. People really care about each other and go out of their way to help you. Plus they pay me better then the hospital so... YAY! 'Cause let's face it, at the end of the day the all mighty dollar is very persuasive. I will never earn in the same category as Gil but at least now I feel like I am making some kind of contribution. At the hospital I was hemorrhaging money. Not to mention gaining a TONNE of weight working next to a convenience store. Pops! Chips! Coronary! Yes Please!
So I do need a little break from the place but all in all what I am saying is that I am happy I went back. Thank you god for letting work not be one of my stress points.

2010-06-28T22:11:00.000-03:00

okay night #2 and I waited way too late to start, it is 9:40pm which in the Meggy-verse is actually rather later. I am an early to bed, early to rise kind of girl but a promise is a promise even if it is only to ones self. Or maybe especially to ones self. It was a miserable kind of day here. It pour rain ALL day which I can enjoy if I am in the right mood but I woke up this morning feeling bleak and the day only got worse so the miserable rain just felt... well miserable. My morning started at 5:30am with the god forsaken fog horn blaring its awful noise over and over and over and over... you get it right. When I did all asleep again I kept dreaming of ex boyfriends and lovers. As well as being lost in LasVegas and only being able to find the exit that leads to England. Weird right?! I know dreams are just stuff and nonsense but sometimes they really get under my skin. This was one of those mornings.I felt like I had been unfaithful in my brain, which again I know is foolish but....I guess I can't help what I dream.
Then I had a doctors appointment where the doc told me something I didn't want to hear and so I was just miserable for the rest of the day. I hated work, I hated at least one of my co-workers. I hated all my customers.
I feel in a miserable rut. I haven't been doing very well with weight watchers but I seem to be unable to muster any real enthusiasm for the program at the moment. Worse still I seem to be having a difficult time getting moving. I did get out for a walk with Lulu tonight but it wasn't a great one. It was still so wet and dreary and my soul was wearing the matching shirt. I hate feeling funky like this because I know that I am the only one who can change it and I just have to DO IT. Like Nike says... Just Do It! but sometimes it doesn't feel that easy. Some days it feels like the whole universe and my brain are conspiring against me. But I know I have to take control. It sort of feels a bit like PMS now that I am writing about it. Like every once and a while I feel like the most miserable, rotten, fat ugly human being in the world and then my period starts and I think "OH! That makes sense!" I feel like that at the moment but with out the sense making menstrual cycle. I feel like there is a switch inside me that I should just be able to flip and feel better but I have forgotten how. And then I feel guilty because I am throwing myself a pity party where there is really nothing wrong with my life that a nap and some exercise couldn't fix. I don't want to be that girl who is always whining about what an awful day she is having. I hate that girl. I hate that negative person. I want to be to feel good girl. I want to be the girl everyone is so proud of because she is working so hard to not be such a fat loser. Instead I am the girl who is back sliding once ounce at a time and I hate myself for that. What is the matter with me??! Why can't I just do it right? I don't know how I got here but I hate living my life thinking about every morsel of food that passes my lips. My whole life has become about this weight battle. I just want to eat and live. I enjoy food. I love food, good food. Why does my whole life have to be about this one thing. How did I get here? I don't want to weight and measure and calculate points and worry about every thing. I don't want my whole weekend, hell my whole week to be good or bad based on what the scale said. I gained 1 pound and I HATE myself. That is not normal. I am tired. I am so tired. Maybe I don't care if I am fat forever. Maybe that is just who I am. Maybe I was to drown my feelings in a bag of chips and dip. Maybe I don't want to eat one more god forsaken piece of disgusting celery. Maybe I don't want my husband to ask me at the dinner table how many Points I had today! Maybe I just want to be free and normal. I don't even know right now why I am doing this. I know it will come back to me but right now I am just lost. Lost, lost, lost. I can't see the forest for the trees and I really just want to find my way back to civilization where I can enjoy a glass of red wine with out the 10 ounces of guilt. I want to want this and at the moment I don't. At the moment I am derailed and I don't know how to get back on track. At the moment I am just an angry fat girl. I AM AN ANGRY FAT GIRL. Where the hell did all this come from? See there is something wrong with this brain. I am wired wrong. I need to go to sleep. maybe tomorrow it will all look right again. Please dear god do not let that fog horn start blowing at the crack of dawn. I am begging you.

2010-06-27T19:38:00.000-03:00

Okay, here we go again. I am once again going to do the impossible; blog every day for a week. The rules are easy I have to sit and write for half an hour in the evening with no distractions. Today I am not even going to put on any music. I want to be mindful of what is going on around me. I do have the windows open so I can hear the sounds of urban/suburban Sunday night... a weed whacker,squealing children, my neighbour putting garbage out. In the house I have a dog snoring to my right and as I type this I am watching Oliver try and work up the courage to walk past the broom which is clearly terrifying him. Poor dog. In the next room I can hear Gil industriously blowing the crap out of stuff in the video game de jour. Good on him, he worked damn hard this weekend! Our yard is actually starting to really come together. I just need to dedicate some more time to the pulling of weeds. But I can't right now, I am dedicating my time to you.
I am actually sitting comfortably in the living room and I can see the floor for the first time in months as things have started to make their way back down to the basement. THANK GOODNESS! We don't have a proper floor down there at the moment, just a sub floor but for now it is what we can live with and afford. (For anyone keeping track Oliver just gave up his battle with the broom and went back to his bed under the living room window. That is Broom 1 - Oliver 0.... okay maybe I have been watching too much World Cup Football)
Anyway, the living room looks good. Tonight I was able to sweep and dust. I am still find bits of the dang god bed that Lulu destroyed but I have a feeling that I will be finding those bits for a long time to come. I am so happy to be back in my chair, in my favorite room. I have missed my spot! I love sitting next to the window with that light breeze blowing in on me. I can heard birds singing and the train whistled just blew. Actually it is very quiet compared to the last few nights. Halifax has been in full on party mode over the weekend with 5000 NATO sailors in town and the sounds of music and mayhem have been drifting across the water and in through our windows all weekend. Last night it was SO loud in our back yard Oliver was too afraid to poop. I mean I know my boy is a scardy pup but he can always muster a pooh. I felt like I was torturing him by keeping him out there rocking out to the tunes but it was better then the alternative, me up cleaning dog crap of the kitchen floor at 2am.
Speaking of dogs and accidents.... we are doing very well on that front. One this weekend, Miss Lulu seemed to think that my sleeping until 7:45am was too decedent and she could wait no longer. However all in all things have been great with her. The big turn around came when we stopped crating her. Basically she never gets crated any more. I leave her out all night and all day while we are at work and it has really worked out for everyone. She is not at all as crazy any more. I get to sleep past 4:30am because as it turned out she didn't have to go to the bathroom so much as she was bored and lonely. I am not sure what the "proper" length of time is for a Greyhound to be in their crate, Oliver's crate hasn't really been closed since the first week we had him, but I would say if it works for us that is good enough. In fact I am planing on taking her crate down to the basement this week. I will leave it set up in case we really need to put er in for some reason but as of now I think we can officially call her a house dog. Oliver on the other hand will never give up his crate. He loves it there. That is his place. He spends A LOT more time out of it these days, he loves the beds in the living room but push come to shove he is a crate boy. He takes all his meals in there, will only drink water in there. For the most part he won't even take a treat from me unless I give it to him in his crate. I think we will have that one up for a long long time. It is his security blanket and I am okay with that.
I feel a bit bad, it has been all dogs all the time the last few months but we do still have our two awesome cats. Tikka continues to be mad about the presence of the doggy invaders and spends most of her time seeking out higher ground and hissing. She was recently diagnosed with sever arthritis in her hips which also might account for some of her sour disposition. We started her on new food which is supposed to help with the pain and I have noticed that she is moving a lot better. Did you know cat xrays are REALLY expensive? It's true. But at least we know what is wrong with her now.
Mango on the other hands seems to not mind/almost enjoy the dogs. If only because the dogs going in and out of the house on a regular basis has made it possible for her to sneak out more often. She was born to be an outdoor cat but we continue to foil her at every turn. Poor girl. She is loving the summer weather too because it means that the windows are open and she has a place to sit and dream about catching all those birds and bugs.
Well I didn't think I would be able to type for half an hour straight with now break and no distractions but the clock tells me I am done. Now if only I can keep it up for the whole week. Wish me luck!

2010-06-22T20:16:00.002-03:00

Are you familiar with those ubiquitous online quizzes? What colour are you? What is your spirit animal? Are you a sex goddess? Well I need a new one. What spiritual path with bring you fulfillment? Because I have to tell you I am feeling spiritually empty at the moment. At a time in history well religion is literally a free all you can eat smorgasbord I am starving. I have long considered myself a liberal Catholic; if only because that is the tradition I was raised in and I was most comfortable with. However I have also said that I think that lots of other religions both mono, poly and atheistic have a lot to offer the world and I don’t believe that any other them are the ONLY true religion. Truly it baffles my mind that any one could think there is only one path to God.

Though I haven’t been a practicing Catholic in a number of years I am fairly certain that this year I stopped being Catholic in my heart, which is were it really counts. I have wanted to stay Catholic because of its beauty, its mystery and its connection to my Mother. However I can no longer give faithfulness to a religion that stands in direct contradiction with so many of my core beliefs. I feel as though I went to bed with a passionate young lover and woke up 10 years later next to a man I barley know and have nothing in common with. We have been walking through our lives next to each other but we have no connection. It is time for a divorce and I am sighting “Irreconcilable Differences”. That is pretty funny actually since neither the Church nor I believe in divorce.

So if the Catholic Church and I are not speaking but there in still a god shaped hole in my… soul… heart…universe...where do I turn?

I don’t want to be a Johnny Come Lately, a band wagon jumper or a wannabe. But how do you window shop for a new spiritual belief? Can you just wander in and try it on with out committing to a sale? Can I take it for a test drive, maybe over the weekend and bring it back Monday morning if we don’t jive?

If I have already some firm morals and values do I even NEED a structured belief system? Well I suppose the answer is yes since my values have not already filled the god shaped void. Not to mention that I often find myself longing to belong to a community. Maybe that sounds a little “Made for TV- Special” but I think it is actually biological, evolutionary. Community is a safety net, a warm blanket, a hot cup of tea. Community is the giving and receiving support and assistance. It is the exchange of idea around a coffee table and listening to someone’s fear at 3am. And while I certainly have a wonderful group of friends who I can call on to help me bail water out the basement or lay a new floor or go to a movie with and just laugh. Spiritually speaking I am out in the woods alone.

I married a man who is very private about his religious/spiritual beliefs if he has any. I don’t have a problem with that but I can almost understand how for so long mixed religion marriages were frowned on. It is complicated some days to be in a relationship were each person has such different beliefs, different needs, different views of the universe. While we certainly don’t have any conflict in our marriage my belief or his lack thereof we also don’t have any symbiosis. We went into our marriage with our eyes open to the others convictions and we accept our differences gladly but I can imagine that it would be comfort to be in a more spiritual union with your spouse; like having a religious gym buddy. Okay I know that sounds lame, but at the same time I think you know exactly what I am talking about.

As for my friends…I have no idea. Faith and Spirituality are not things we tend to talk about. We talk about movies and books and music. We talk about our husbands or kids and our parents. We talk about whatever game champagne we are playing (we are geeks after all), we talk about what we would do if we won the million dollars. We talk about our jobs, our stress and our dreams, heck some of us even talk about sex. But talking about religion? That would be gauche.

Because of this I know very little about how most of my friends feel about the subjects of Religion and Spirituality. A few I know are actually practicing Catholics. A few are lapsed Christians mostly Protestant or Catholic and only while they were children and their parents controlled their Sunday mornings. The most devout people I know are a small handful of Pagan/Wiccans who really seem to genuinely involved and happy with their spiritual conviction. I presume however, with no evidence to back it up, that most of my friends are Atheists. I don’t have a particular feeling about that. I don’t think it is good bad or other wise but from time to time I do wonder “I am the only one with the God shaped hole?” If so what does that say about me? About the society I live in? Were times easier, people nicer, families happier, the economy better, teenagers better behaved back when the majority of people had some religious affiliation at least for an hour a week? Or does my yearning for spiritual fulfillment point to me being genetically inferior and not getting on the evolutionary train? (Just to clarify by this I DO NOT mean to imply that I do not believe in Evolution. I mean that I am not highly evolved.)

2010-06-17T21:25:00.000-03:00

Another day, another solemn mood. I don't know why my evenings have been so cranky lately. I am suppose it is because I am so damn tired. But last night Miss Lulu slept all the way through the night so maybe my endless fatigue is on its way to an end.I just feel like there are not enough hours in the day and when I get home in the evening I am too tired or lazy or overwhelmed to get anything done. I need to make a change. Really I do. But I don't know where to start. Where do I start? I need to! I want to feel good. I want to feel productive. I want to have a nice house and pretty yard and good things. And I can. All that is totally within my grasp if I just get off my ass.
I need to make a change. What do I do?

2010-06-13T22:10:00.000-03:00

Things have been VERY busy around these parts. Gil and I have been getting off our bums and getting some real yard work done. Tonight my body hurts all over because we spent the whole day in the yard pushing, pulling, planting, mowing and sweating. I feel so guilty that I have let the beautiful yard go to pot it was so lovely when we moved here. However I found it totally over whelming. Nothing in my experience prepared me for this yard. But I have decided to end the stalemate and perhaps the effort will end my funk. I want a pretty yard. I really do. I don't know why it matters but it does.

China Town

2010-06-06T18:28:00.000-03:00

A few days ago Gil and I ended up at China Town for dinner. It was a weird weather day sunny and stormy all at the same time. We sat by the window so we could watch the rainbows pop up over Halifax Harbour. As we were sitting there I was reminded of all the times I had been to the same restaurant in my life; China Town is a Halifax Institution. I remember going there with my whole family in 82 or 83. Mom, Dad, my three brothers and me. It was so fancy. Though there were many terrible things going on with our family at that time that is a great memory.
The picture on the left is me on the dock at the marina right outside the restaurant. We didn't actually get to eat on this visit. I was visiting Halifax with my then fiance and I was taking him on a tour of all my favorite Halifax spots. I am a fan of that picture. I was young, thin and HOT. I guess that is beside the point.

2010-05-26T21:53:00.000-03:00

So even though my weight has been coming off my blood pressure continues to be bad so today the doctor put me on meds. which really sucks. I wish I knew if I had a family history of high blood pressure. I can ask auntie Barb if it runs on mom's side but I have no idea about Jim's. I have no one to ask. That sucks too. Sometimes I just want a normal family... I want to say "hey mom and dad does anyone in our family have high blood pressure?" See how easy that is?!
Ok maybe that came out a little more bitter than necessary. I know that lots of people don't have access to family history. Not the least adopted children. I am just feeling a little... out of sorts.

The May 2-4!

2010-05-24T20:28:00.000-03:00

We have had such a great weekend here on the hill top. Granted nothing went exactly as planned but we had a lot of fun. We saw lots of good friends. We BBQed a bunch. We geeked out big time. I got actual work done in the garden. I am doing battle with an old, sprawling, possibly evil flowering quince. It mean it is huge and cranky and I am pretty sure it is going to take all summer to dig it out. I don't have anything against quince in general, they are actually a lovely shrub most of the time. But this one, this is the un-loveliest quince of all

time. This is the before shot. I mean really, look at that thing. It is mangy.
I have never liked it but I didn't know how or when to take it out. With the driveway and retaining wall still incomplete I thought that this was the perfect time. I can't wait for this damn driveway project to be finished, it has been going on for SO long now. When we bought this house I was so in love with the garden but it became so overwhelming to maintain. It has really gotten ratty but THIS year I am reclaiming it. I am making it mine! This weekend was a good start. I know I won't get it all in one summer but I have to start. Otherwise we are going to be THOSE people with THAT yard. I don't want that. It doesn't have to be perfect, it won't look like a magazine but it will be mine.

2010-05-22T18:07:00.000-03:00

I had a bit of a rough day for a lovely, sunny Saturday of a long weekend. I have been up in my own head after a bit of a crank with an old friend. We were supposed to spend sometime together this weekend. She was coming over here and we were going to do some yard work and drink some wine, she was going to spend the night. We were going to BBQ and talk girl talk. We do this every two months or so because she complains that we never spend quality time together. She gets jealous that I spend more time with other friends. So I put aside special time just for her. Today she wanted to know if she could bring her 9 year old daughter with her for our over night.She didn't have a sitter. I told her honestly that I thought the better plan would be to do it again another day. I should have known when I answered honestly that I was just asking for trouble. She seemed incensed. I had very logically reasons for not wanting her to bring the kid along. First of all... it wasn't the plan. If she brought her daughter to my house for 24 hours she would have to spend all her time entertaining the child. This isn't a slight against the kid the fact is ours is a grown up house, we have very little in the way of entertainment for a 9 year old. We don't have a tv, there are no kids to play with. I don't have toys. I am not letting her use my laptop (yeah yeah I'm a meany but the kid has a history of breaking computers) this is not the environment to entertain a kid that long... not AND hang out with me and do all the things we wanted to do. So I thought it would be better for ALL of us if we just rescheduled. It made the most sense. But of course it pissed her off. She took it as a slight. She said her feelings were hurt. I said she could come and bring the kid, I just didn't think she or we would have a great time. She opted not to come. Yet somehow I feel like I am the bad guy.
Am I?

2010-05-22T07:46:00.000-03:00

I had a fairly large revelation yesterday and I thought I would share it with you. On Thursday night I had one of my "No I lay me down to sleep" panic attacks. Poor Gil was up with me for a long trying to get me to stop freaking out about the fact that I am going to die some day. He assured me repeatedly that it is not likely going to happen any time soon but I went to sleep (eventually) totally freaked out that there was a chance I might not wake up. I have been doing this my WHOLE life. I mean it, I can't remember a time that I didn't worry that time was just too short. But it has certainly gotten a lot worse in the last few years. I recognize that as I get closer to the age my mother was when she died my anxiety grows but recognizing and being able to control it are totally different. But anyway, my revelation.... yesterday I booked a trip away for Gil and I for October 2011. Yes 17 months away. It will be our 5th wedding anniversary and I wanted it to be special so I booked the trip. But OBVIOUSLY if I can book a trip for a year and a half away I MUST believe at some level that I will still be here to enjoy that trip. So I am just going to keep on making plans for down the road, keep goals and dreams in mind and I hope that keeps life in perspective. Because you can not enjoy life if you spend all your time worrying about dying. There you go. How smart am I??
Also Gil and I have been talking about what our next big-ish trip will be after Mexico ( 263 days!!) and we have agreed on a week in New York sometime in the not distant future. WOO!

2010-05-20T21:59:00.000-03:00

Things are pretty good on the Hilltop. I am still feeling very tired all the time but I have found a new morning ritual that is easing up the morning stress. Lulu has starting waking up at around 5:30am which is brutal but I take them out for a walk, feed them, grab a quick shower and then jump back into bed for an hour. I feel more rested. My blood pressure is a little lower. I am feeling pretty good. Also I am having a great week at work. I am training our summer student and I think I am doing a decent job. I like the training, I like the feeling valuable.
Yup life is pretty good.