The Obligatory Year-In-Review and New Years Resolution Post

2014.  This was not my favourite year.

I dealt with a lot of stress, mental health issues, physical health issues, house stuff, money stuff, relationship stuff.

The high point of my year?  NOT having Cancer.  Which is a really, really awesome thing, but a pretty low bar to measure a whole year by.  Also, this last month the last remaining portion of my colon decided to get its shit together, figuratively speaking, and push my colitis back into a state somewhat resembling remission.  At any rate, the daily ass-bleeding has stopped for the most part.

Not having Cancer was Ay-Oh-Kay in my books, as was the reprieve from daily ass-bleeding, but quite frankly, the rest of the year just felt like a god-damn struggle.

I know it's not been all bad.  The change in mood between this post and this post from a few weeks ago can probably tell you how all-over-the-place I have been. I've been making efforts to maintain some level of positivity.  Some days are 'be thankful and count your blessings' days.  Some days are not.

On a side note: I had a pretty decent Christmas. Got to actually see my family and eat turkey.  And then every single member of my household got sick as shit for the next four days (not from the turkey, from the flu).  So while Christmas was much better than last year, the universe did it's damndest to make sure Boxing Day blew chunks (metaphorically).

So basically, 2014 can fuck right off for not being the vast improvement over 2013 it was supposed to be.  You're fucking fired, 2014.

So, now that we've got all that bother out of the way, some plans and resolutions for 2015:

1. Be more active, whilst remaining actively body-positive.  This will include: 
• Continuing to swim at the Y three mornings a week
• Returning to kick-boxing once a week
• Using my lunch-breaks to walk each day, or taking evening walks after dinner
• Refraining from negative self-talk and avoiding the "D-word".  Riots, not diets, folks.
• Eat more system-friendly foods that will keep my fucked-up digestive happy
• Drink water. Lots of water. Because dehydration is a bitch, yo.
2. Finish working on The Table Formerly Known as the Penis Table
3. Blog more, both here and on The Art Blog. I also have a plan for a third blog that has been in the works for a while.
4. Paint. Draw. Craft.
• Submit work to art shows. Try not to get frustrated if not accepted. Keep trying.
5. Write.
•  Look for opportunities to write outside of blogging.
6. Make music
• Find a conveniently-scheduled and receptive open mic to attend.  Attend with some regularity
7. Audition for plays
8. Continue to practice good self-care, for the benefit of both my physical and mental health:
• Take my blood-thinners and butt-meds regularly
• Get my blood work done regularly, as required
• Continue seeing my counsellor for as long as work will cover it/I can afford it
• Bitch-slap the jerkbrain when she starts getting too loud.
9. Make friends, and make time for friends.
10. Make time to keep being a good mom, girlfriend and person, overall.
11. Make time for me.
12. Breathe.

So that's all from this end for this year.  Here's to new beginnings.

I look slightly deranged. I kind of like it. Cheers, y'all.

First outing(s) of the year.

Goddamn this late winter.

That being said, this has been a pretty darn decent Easter weekend.  I had the day off on Friday, so I got to chill out around the house with the children and the Well-Travelled One.  Since he and my youngest were busy tearing down and rebuilding a computer (He guided her through the rebuild after which she was apparently able to install Linux on her own. I'm not particularly techie, but that sounds pretty impressive to me), I spent some extra quality time with the eldest.  

I engaged her in a vaguely uncomfortable talk about various "grown-up" topics (read: sex, birth control, consent), which although she was hesitant to open up, I hope she thanks me for later.  This basically came about because I finished reading Jessica Valenti's "The Purity Myth" and some of the chapters on abstinence-only sex Ed made me curious about what the schools are teaching the kids.

Not much, apparently.  It could also be my daughter's selective memory combined with a strong desire not to have this conversation with her mother, but it sounds like they pretty much touch on the basic logistics and cover a little bit about birth control, but not much else.  I guess it's not as bad as the "Just Don't Ever Unless You Are Ensconced In A Fully Procreative Heteronormative Marriage" approach that the abstinence-only programs in the U.S. seem to use, but it leaves a lot of gaps to fill for us parents who wish their kids to be fully informed on such subjects, including but not limited to sexual identity, pregnancy and STIs and consent.

But anyway, that's a post for another day.  Back to my weekend, after making my daughter cringe at least 27 times in the span of an hour, I let her off the hook, and suggested we take a walk around the block and discuss lighter topics (such as the Comicon that she was going to the following day). Usually the eldest is loathe to do much that involved physical activity so I was quite surprised and pleased when she joined me with little to no heavy sighing or eye-rolling, and we had a lovely walk around our neighborhood.

Upon our return, The Well-Travelled One and my youngest were off on their own walk to get a coffee and a treat for successful completion of the computer project, so T and I went to her room to move the wardrobe that had until now been used for storage in the basement into her bedroom, as the girl is getting older and her clothes take up more space and my poor house sorely lacks closet space.

The girls were to go to their dad's house this weekend, so after dropping them off, we decided to head up north for a bit of a drive and to scout out some locations for hiking and checking out waterfalls this spring and summer.  The idea is to try and hit some of these places while they are still at their spring high-water mark, as by part-way through the summer, they often dry up somewhat losing some of their majesty. We walked down to the canoe launch at McRae lake, which was challenging as there was still a lot of snow and walking in half-melted snow can be a lot like walking in sand, only more slippery.  My calves and ankles, even with decent footwear, were not liking me much.

With the cancer and the surgery this year, I have backslid quite a bit from the fitness level I was at two years ago, or even last year (even though last year my energy levels were already deteriorating).  For a while I was able to walk or hike fair distances but now, depending on how I've been eating and drinking, a walk from work to the bank can be exhausting.

Taking baby steps, we're trying to revisit some of the less challenging trails and taking shorter walks so I can build back up to the fitness level I was at.  It's going to take some work.

At any rate, we made it over to White's Falls where even dammed, the water was in full force, and then over to Big Chute, where I got to revisit the fun that is peeing outdoors since a great need for hydration also means I have to pee a lot more, in places where bathrooms are not readily available.

White's Falls

Me, back-lit. Later in the summer I can sit on the rocks about 3 feet to my right here.

Saturday was more of the same, after the laundry was done.  We drove as far north as Huntsville, before taking some fun sketchy roads back towards home.  We made a couple of stops, once again at McRae Lake and another stop on the Sequin Trail, which lies atop an old rail bed.  Because, I am told, trains do not like going up and down hills, these rail-bed trails are handy for me because I too, do not like going up and down hills.

View of the rail-bridge from the bank of the Seguin River

Sequin Trail.  Newish foot bridge.  The giant concrete pillar signifies where the rail bridge would have existed.

Seguin River

Stand clear.

I am sore today.  Mind you, after we got home I forced myself, against social anxiety and general exhaustion, to go out to my friend Lori's 40th birthday.  My attempts at dancing after tromping around bush and rocks two days straight were probably not the greatest idea, but I had a good time and was glad I made myself go.  But I am paying for it today.  I know this is part of getting myself back to the shape I was in, so it's worth it, but ow.

Sunday. Bloody #^%+?! Sunday.

I'm a bad Canadian.  "Why?" you ask? Because I cannot bring myself to give one thousandth of a fuck about this Canada vs. Sweden game.  And it's hockey, so it's pretty much akin to treason to not care. Social media this Sunday morning has become a vast wasteland of play-by-play updates.

Oh, well.

I am grouchy.  My body has decided to play an elaborate joke on me, which culminated in a trip to the emergency room yesterday with a laundry list of symptoms dating back to last Tuesday.

I'll give you a brief timeline:

Tuesday: headache

Wednesday: headache, brief dizzy spells, coated tongue

Thursday: body aches, fever, chills, coated tongue

Friday: fever, chills, body aches, rash covering neck, shoulders, chest.

Saturday: ridiculously bad indigestion (7 on pain scale, enough to inducing sobbing) and severe, sudden onset full-body muscle pain, more rash covering most of my arms, trunk etc.

So the Well-Travelled One and I make the trip to Emerg, because why wouldn't I want to spend a Saturday afternoon at the local hospital? Most of the ER doctors are tolerable, however the one I got insisted on cutting me off and talking over me, as I listed off the symptoms above, and noted that I am a recovering cancer patient lacking a colon and that I had just (on Monday) gotten off a 21 day run of corticosteroid based anti-inflammatory enemas.

Yeah, you read that right.  21 days of enemas. That's a fun tale for another day.  Or perhaps a medically-themed Christmas carol.

"Oh, yeah.  We've been seeing a lot of this," the doctor tells me.

"What? You've been seeing a lot of people with fever, chills, headaches, rashes, stomache pains, full body aches and coated tongues?"

"Yeah."

"At the same time?"

Jesus.  So, Dr. Interrupto tells me it is viral and to treat the symptoms until the virus runs its course.  Amazing. I'm not sure I'm convinced.  My love who, sometimes to his own detriment, lives to research the shit out of stuff, thinks some of it could be a withdrawal from the anti-inflammatories.  The rash, which inexplicably comes and goes, feels like an allergic reaction. It's not out of the realm of possibility that I could be suffering an allergic reaction, a withdrawal, and some sort of virus at the same time because let's face it, this is ME we're talking about.

All of the symptoms come and go.  Yesterday, the body aches showed up whenever the indigestion subsided.  Then, when the indigestion came back, the body aches would go.  Then, when both of them subsided, that's when the rash came back with a vengeance.  

And I tell you, I am the worst at not scratching.  This is what I managed to do to my tender inner-upper arm flesh yesterday:

I know, that's pretty hot, right?  Sexxaaaaay.

So, today I am sitting at mildly achy, a little itchy and crazy-lethargic.  That could be Sunday talking, however.  I'm hoping whatever this is runs its course soon, and that no one else catches it, as I would not wish this on my worst enemy.

The year we had pizza for Christmas dinner.

Ho ho ho, y'all.

Not gonna lie.  Christmas was kind of (not entirely, just kind of) a bust this year.  And I am bummed out.  Plans to spend the day with my family at my sisters place were thwarted first when my car battery, which has been on its way out, decided to die on me, leaving The Well-Travelled One and I stranded in the driveway, without a way to pick up my children from their dad's house or go and let our friend's dog out while they were away visiting their family.

After calling around, feeling horribly about interrupting people on their Christmas Day to see out a booster pack or something with which to jump my car, rescue came in the form of my friend Nic who assisted in pushing my car out of the driveway so we could hook his truck up and jump the car.

We were again thwarted when I found out that a majority percentage of my sisters family were down with a stomach flu of some sort.  After some hemming and hawing I decided not to go, as Gord only knows what kind of havoc a stomach flu would have on my incomplete, still healing digestive tract.  So I made the difficult decision to sit out Christmas dinner this year.

Which sucks.  

Despite all my Scroogey griping in the months leading up to it, I really do enjoy Christmas, at least I enjoy the part that involves getting together with my family and the fun togetherness.  It makes the stress of all the crap leading up to it (shopping, financial worries, the endless Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays debates) worth it.  So it really, really bummed me out that I ended up missing out on the part I like the most.  

It wasn't all bad.  I did get to have time with my own kids, and got to watch them open gifts that for the first time, I got to take complete credit for.  I got at least two really excited reactions to stuff that I had picked out (Angry Birds bed sheets for Reagan, and a Black Butler t-shirt that brought tears to Tierney's eyes) and got a blender for myself from the girls which is one kitchen appliance I have been missing for quite some time.  I also got to try out the camera I got from work this year (but have yet to upload any pictures from).

And we had pizza for dinner.  Which I don't know whether to call that a loss or a win.  Because pizza.  I dunno.  Pizza is usually awesome.  I guess I'm just feeling meh because this year, Christmas didn't feel different from any other day and I'm still bitter that I missed my other favourite holiday, Halloween.  So it feels kind of unfair that they both were kind of crap, and for roughly the same reason.  Any other year I would have braved the risk of illness in order to spend time with my family, but this year I had to weigh that risk because what if I got sick and threw up to the point that I ruptured something? Or got some other kind of infection.

I know I will see most of my family later in the week when everybody is feeling better, and we'll have a good time then (plus I get to meet my recently discovered cousin, which is exciting) but right now I feel like I've been ripped off.

By a thread. (Note: Here there be swears)

I start writing blog posts that get too involved and, in my opinion, boring so I end up abandoning them.  So I'm going to keep this short, like bullet points short.  In the last week or so since I last posted:

- I saw an oncologist about my pathology report.  Stage one tumour, no chemotherapy recommended.  Not sure if this qualifies me as a cancer survivor or not.  I am told that they don't actual consider you "cured" until you have something like six months or a year cancer-free.  This is good. Excellent, in fact. Hold onto that, as it's the high point of this post. It's all downhill from here, folks.

- Right around that time contracted a minor infection in my join.  The one set of antibiotics I am on smells like cat-piss.  The other one can't be taken with alcohol, coffee or dairy.  I missed the dairy part so I have spent the last half a week feeling like absolute dogshit.  I'm off dairy as of today after talking to a pharmacy-tech friend who clued me into that particular contraindication.  

-  One of the odd side effects also seems to be an incredibly heightened sense of smell.  I'm wondering when I get the adamantium claws and mutant healing factor.  In the meantime, I've been spending the the majority of the day hiding in my bedroom from the smell of industrial disinfectant.

- industrial disinfectant, you ask? Why yes. I woke up this morning and was greeted by the eldest, who informed me that she stepped out of bed and into a foot full of wet carpet, courtesy of a failed sump pump.  About 1-2 cm of water greeted us in the basement.  For reasons unknown, the pump, the secondary pump, and the pump alarm all failed during the night. Why? Because fuck my life, that's why.

-  Did I mention this is all just a couple weeks after a broken pipe caused the sewer to back up into my basement and render my second bathroom unusable.  Which is terrific in a house who just had major colon surgery and whose daily movements are still unpredictable, at best.

I was looking over old Facebook posts and I came across one post about what a great year 2012 was and how I was looking forward to seeing what 2013 had in store.  I don't mind saying that 2013 Q4 can eat a giant dick.  I can't wait for this shit-eating year to be over.

My intentions were good.

I had a plan, when I recieved my diagnosis, that I was going to blog my journey, create an account of everything I was going through.  It's kind of fallen by the wayside, clearly.

Maybe it started with stress cold I came down with a week before the surgery.  All my energy that remained was focused on getting better so that I wouldn't have to reschedule the surgery, because frankly, waiting a month was long enough.

I brought the iPad to the hospital with me, with every intent of documenting the days following, only to discover that the Wi-Fi signal up there on the 14th floor where I recovered was pretty pathetic.  Great hospital otherwise, but man... That was some frustrating.

Since being home I've been in a mind fog from the morphine I'm still having to take to manage the pain of having not only a huge ass incision cut through most of my abdominal muscles, but my internal organs shuffled around as well.  Also, I've not. Been. Doing. Anything.  There was a lot of stuff before the hospital (like, hey! My sewer main backed into my house) and in the hospital but I have the attention span of a fruit fly.

Today I have promised to make a concerted effort to get outside, for the sake of my own sanity, which puts me in the position of having to go out of my comfort zone and ask people to assist me in getting out of my house, since clearly being Morphine McBrainFog means no driving for me.

Hopefully over the couple weeks I will have more energy, motivation and mental stamina to fill in the blanks on everything else that's been happening as of late.

Arglebargle ranty rant rant rant.

My phone has converted itself somehow to T9 typing, which is both irritating and useless.  By the time the T9 function offers up the word I am already finished typing it.  And it won't let me swear.

I love swearing. Especially when I have a shit-tastic day like today.  I also like to make up words.  But technology these days is determined to thwart my every attempt to fashion myself the love child of George Carlin and Dr. Seuss, linguistically speaking.

I decided to complain to the Well Travelled One.

"Duck this T9 bulldog."

*sigh*

Took my car in for work this morning.  The aforementioned man-friend and I decided to drop the car off and make the walk to the next town for work.  About a 90 minute walk, which wasn't terrible, aside from being humid as hell.  Oh, and the bugs on the trail deciding once again that I made a tasty feast. 

After getting my quote from my mechanic, and a minor coronary, I figured some creative banking would be in order, since my GST cheque had come in yesterday.  However, as I was leaving, I realized that my bank card was still in my shorts after buying gas.  So, great, I'll have to drive home to get it.

Only I don't have my bloody car.

So that's that.  Okay.  Not that it mattered, since I didn't end up paying for the repairs today ANYWAY, but I'll get to that.  My co-worker gave my a ride back to the shop, but thanks to people who think it's totally cool to call a company at five minutes to closing and ask inane, open ended questions with no answers, I was late getting out of work and didn't make it to the shop in time.  It was locked up tight, having closed at 5 and it was, at that point, about 5:10.

So S. offered me a ride to the house, which I accepted.  We were almost there when I remembered where my house key was.. 

That's right.  On my key chain.  With my car keys.  Which were locked up at the mechanic's with my car.  

Yup.

So I asked if I could get a ride back to town so I could get the man-friend, who had the other key.

Needless to say, any plans we had to go out of town tonight have been shot all to hell, and I've decided not to cook dinner since I have no desire to see what myriad ways I can fuck up dinner.  Last thing I need is to burn down another house, or give both the man friend and I acute food poisoning.  The kids are away at camp, so they get to escape my reign of terror.

Lucky kids.

Just some stuff.

My grandmother fell and broke her hip, or more accurately, my grandmother's hip broke and she had a fall as a result. She is having surgery for it tomorrow. I'm more than a little worried and upset. I've been lucky enough to have both my grandmothers around for a good long while.. I mean, not everyone is lucky enough to get to their 30's and still have grandparents around. Hell, I know people not much older than me who have already had to deal with losing both parents. So I'm lucky, I know that much.

Because I realize this, it's all the more upsetting to face the fact that they are both of them not as young as they used to be.

god. Isn't that the most ridiculous saying? Not as young as you used to be. Well no shit. I'm not as young as I used to be either. in fact, i'm a whole day older than i was yesterday. Seriously, what an idiotic saying. I feel like punching myself. It's as bad as saying "It's always in the last place you look!" Again, no shit.

I digress.

So I'm clearly worried, and I don't really know what to do. Damnit.

*************************************************

So, my hearing sucks. It's terrible. I'm pretty sure years of headphone abuse combined with a history of chronic ear infections (the over prescribing of antibiotics for said infections eventually, I believe, leading to my ulcerative colitis, but that's a story for another day) have done irreversible damage. I don't hear a lot of ambient noise, and I can have trouble making out what people say, especially if they talk low, fast and don't enunciate well.

I know it can be frustrating for those around me, having to repeat things to me, and me not always understanding things the first time around. It's not like it's not frustrating for me. I hate having to ask people to repeat things, or not to whisper to me. I hate having to fill in the blanks sometimes when people talk to me. I hate that I have to watch movies with the closed captioning on half the time, otherwise I have to have the TV blaring. I've had tests done, and looked into hearing aids, but for the actual amount of difference an aid would make is negligible, as apparently the loss "is only minor."

I'm told that I don't have any fluid build-up but... Well, I love to swim. Love it. A few years ago I went cliff jumping at Grundy lake and when I hit the water, it rushed into my ear and I couldn't hear properly for weeks afterward. Now I find that when I swim, if I stick my head too far under, my ears and head feel like they are going to explode with pressure.

I don't know if I should go back for another second opinion or not.

Hell. Not great mood overall. I kind of wish I had my covered porch again so I could watch the storm.

Fat Rant - (Content warning for ED discussion)

Those who have been reading for some time now (not that I've had anything much to say lately) will know that a few years back I lost about 65 lbs on the Weight Watchers program.  At the time, it felt right for me, as I was in a very low place, self-image wise.

To keep a long story short, I eventually quit.  Aside from rampant corporatism that left a bitter taste in my mouth, I also grew irritated with the constant measuring, portioning, counting points and so forth.  When I found myself in Canadian Tire contemplating the purchase of a kitchen scale so I could measure my portions to the very gram, I took pause.

"Holy Shit! This is ridiculous," I thought to myself and decided from there on, I would make a contining effort to make sure I included enough nutritious food in my day-to-day (which I do, most of the time) and I would remain active (which I have) but this counting calories-points-whathaveyou was a large steaming piling of bullshit that I would no longer have any part of.

I began reading up on Health At Every Size and fat activism and decided I was going to do what I could to love my body, regardless of what shape it decides to be.  As long as I was feeling good, feeling healthy then that would be it and I was NOT going to let a number on a scale or in my pants tell me different.

Why, because life is too fucking short to spend every minute of the day obsessing over every tiny tidbit that goes into my mouth and going "Oh dear, have I gone over my Points?  Fail, Fail, Fail." and generally beating myself up when the scale doesn't show me what I want it to.  That's disordered thinking, folks.  Psychological health is important as well as physical health and preoccupation with food and weight is damaging.

Here's the problem:

I've since, in the last three years, gained back about 25 lbs as one is wont to do when they spend a number of years fastidiously restricting their food intake and that is fucking with my head a bit.  I'm trying really, really hard not to get all down on myself for this and keeping perspective.  I still eat pretty well.. much, much better than I used to.  I still Kick box, take walks weather permitting and this past summer The Well Travelled One and I went on a bunch of 2 and 3 hour hikes and plan to do more this summer.

But my pants don't fit.  And that sucks.  Because I'm cheap.  Instead of being reasonable and logical and maybe buying some new fucking pants that fit, little stupid jerkbrain starts telling me that I'm gross and sloppy and look packed in and if I just lost 10 lbs or 20 I'd look soooo much better.  and I feel bad about myself.

I shouldn't.  But I do.

32 years of societal programming is hard to undo, y'all.

Wherein an era comes to a close, and customer service flies out the window.

So annoyed right about now.

I went to pick up the girls only to be informed that the youngest's indoor shoes, which I bought not more than two months ago, were broken and in need of replacing.  It seemed a good idea to take them back to Zellers and ask for a refund because in no universe should a pair of children's runners fall apart after two lousy months.   She never even wore them outside.

Zellers used to offer a "Kidurable" guarantee on all of their children's wear.  If they wore it out before they outgrew it, then they'd replace it.  Since I still had the receipt, I figured piece of cake.

Yeah, except that not too long ago, Zellers got bought out by Target and now all the locations are either in the process of becoming Target or, if you live in an area that is economically depressed and already has a Walmart such as we do, being liquidated and closed down.  One of the first steps was saying "effyoo" to the Kidurable guarantee.

No, wait it gets better.

So because the shoes are no longer guaranteed I have only the option of exchanging them for a new pair.  Which would be awesome, if there were more than, oh say, two pairs in the kids size available.  And two of those pairs cost about twice as much as the original pair.  We had the foresight to re-measure her feet, thankfully her feet had grown and she was up a size so this brought us up to three or four possible pairs.  That's if you count the ones in the boys section as well.  Yeah, it's safe to say they're pretty picked over in their shoe selection.

So let's recap shall we?

1. The cheap-assed shoes that lasted a mere month beyond the 30 day return period can only be exchanged.  No money back, even though logic would dictate that if I bought a shitty pair of shoes somewhere which fell apart after two months, I'd want to take my money elsewhere, perhaps somewhere the shoe selection was less shoddy and craptacular on-the-whole.
2. Had I not been able to find a suitable replacement, I'd have been stuck with the original broken pair.
3. I not only have to go through the whole pain in the ass that is children's shoe shopping a second time, I have to pay extra for the privilege since no shoes are available in the original price range.
4. Because of the exchange-only policy and the lousy fucking 'We're liquidating and oh yeah it's winter' selection of running shoes I am limited to the same shitty line of shoes.
5. This means that in two or three months time, I'm almost inevitably going to be in the exact same boat only this time Zellers will either be in total liquidation so my exchange-only selection will be even MORE limited and shitty or the whole damn store will be gone and I'll be completely shit out of luck.

So, thanks for nothing Zellers.  If not for the bitter taste this incident has left in my mouth, I'd almost be sad to see you go.  At least your demise blessed us with this:

Oh and then in all but perhaps karmically unrelated incident I proceeded to dump the contents of the green bin on the kitchen floor.  Which was awesome.

So, how is your night?

I guess this is as good a time to get sick as any.

Waaaaaugh. *hack, koff*

I'm sick.

Can grown-ups get croup? Because this is what it feels like. Croupy. At any rate, I started feeling off Friday morning when I woke up all phlegmmy and though to myself, "Hmm. Funny, I don't remember taking up smoking again."

By Friday evening I was hacking and getting chills so I doped myself up good and tried to get as much sleep as I could in hopes of being in half decent shape to attend my Nanny's 80th birthday party the following day. I struggled through that, eschewing hugs and handshakes, feeling fairly awkward as I greeted family members from a distance and tried to avoid breathing on people as much as humanly possible.

In all, I'm glad I went, as my extended family is a fun, rather nutty, bunch and it was well worth it to see the surprise on Nan's face when a few of her oldest friends made he trek. She had been expecting only my mom, my uncle and his family, and my sister and I. My kids were supposed to be with their dad camping but when I found they would be camping about 15 minutes from Nanny's house, I arranged to borrow the girls for a few hours.

I held out for a few hours but around dinner time I was fading fast, so we said our goodbyes and I dropped the girls with their dad and went home to sleep.

And Sleep.

And watch a movie, and sleep some more. I may have coughed and moaned and sweat a lot in their. With the kids gone, and The Guy For Whom I Have Not Come Up With Good Blog Alias™ away working, there thankfully hasn't been much to do but sleep and hack and cough and moan and sweat.

Well, there's one other thing; my realtor came over today with papers for me to sign. I've put an offer in on a house. I just have to wait and see if they accept it.

Talking about pants-shittingly exciting/scary.

Speaking of pants-shittingly scary, next weekend I'm running in the warrior Dash. I sincerely hope this cold/croup/creeping death I have doesn't take too much out of me before then.

Can We Maybe Teach Our Kids Not to Be Entitled Assholes?

I'm becoming more and more disillusioned with parents.

Twice in the last month, I have attended public speaking events for things involving my kids and have been frustrated beyond belief. I've just about given up on the possibility that the coming generation will ever have any ability to sit down and shut up for more than five minutes at a time, because they sure as shit don't have any parental guidance on the subject of acting respectfully in a public forum.

In both events, I had to strain myself over the sound of phones buzzing and beeping (even after attendees were asked to turn their phones off), people talking and chit-chatting and allowing their kids, little and not-so-little alike, to run around and make noise. This is winter in Ontario.. do you have any idea how much noise snow-boots on a hardwood floor make in an auditorium? A shit-ton of noise.

Here I am, trying to set a decent example for my own kids, quietly admonishing them for wiggling, kicking and whatnot but I feel like I shouldn't even bother trying to get my kids to behave when other ADULTS don't even have the manners to pay attention to what is going on.

I get that kids have a hard time sitting for a long period of time. So my hats off to those who recognize this and remove their kids when they start getting bored and fidgety. Thank you. A fidgety kid is distracting enough, but a fidgety kid whose parent is constantly going "Shhhh!!" or indulging their need for conversation, or even just ignoring the kid when someone is giving a presentation or even just is beyond infuriating. So my hat is off to the parents who understand that sometimes it's just time to leave.

But, lately it seems that the kids are only a small part of the problem. Adults seem to have a hard time grasping that there are times when it's inappropriate to be carrying on a conversation or talking on your phone or getting and walking around a half-dozen times when there is someone addressing you as part of an audience. It's rude to the speaker and it's rude to the people who are there for the performance or information session or whatever reason there is to assemble. It reeks of entitlement and tends to teach the kiddos that no matter the situation, your immediate gratification is top priority to the detriment of those around you.

As someone with a bit of hearing loss, it's especially aggravating because I have trouble dealing with excessive ambient noise.

I think kids should be allowed in public spaces. I don't want to see them shuffled away, but we as parents need to teach and more importantly MODEL appropriate behaviour in public.

No More Fucking Around

Fuck this "putting back on all the weight I lost last year" thing.

FUCK THAT.

Cruelest irony of all -- As I stood in the change room at Giant Tiger, vainly attempting to struggle into a pair of size 16 dress pants (as I couldn't find an 18), my frustration with my inability to find a simple pair of affordable pinstriped or plaid pants mounting by the second, what song should happen to be playing over the P.A. system?

BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY.

Almost poetic in it's sadistic humour, isn't it? 

*Shakes fist at heavens CURSE YOU, POETIC JUSTICE!

*sigh*.

More earth shattering (mostly rhetorical) questions

Does wanting to knock my children's heads together make me a bad mother?

How come when you wipe up oatmeal with a dishcloth, no matter how many times you rinse it out, it continues to be slimy until the next laundry day?

Why do I feel like I am being ignored by an entire gender?

Gah.

Why is there a cosmic force hell bent on screwing me financially at every turn? was I a swindler in my past life and this is Karma doing her part to kick me in the box?

WTF??