It’s been…a week.

Things are not so good in Sunnyland this week. The sudden onset of October-like weather has triggered my bipolar disorder something fierce and I’ve found myself in a very scary depressive episode where Blake had to come home from work on Tuesday or I was going to hurt myself.

I’m okay now (sort of) and luckily I see my shrink on Friday, who will no doubt tweak my drugs because in theory, if they’re doing their job things like this aren’t supposed to happen.

Yesterday, all I did was read A Thousand Splendid Suns (which is very good so far) at my desk and…that’s really pretty much it. I don’t expect today will be any different, aside from making this post.

Whoever recommended I download Mother Mother a LONG time ago, thank you. They’ve been keeping me sane-ish this week. Blake didn’t want to install iTunes on his computer, which I’m using until mine gets here, so I’ve been using Media Player and it didn’t import my playlists so I’ve been listening to albums instead and saw O My Heart by Mother Mother in my list and decided to listen to it, with their first album Touch Up directly after and I fell in love. This is the video for O My Heart, which isn’t my favourite song (I like Dirty Town, Polynesia and Oh Ana from their first album the best) but that’s the only video I could find.

They’re Canadian, you should all check them out.

Today the rain and wind let up long enough for me to go out and survey the damage to my garden. The vegetable garden (or should I say tomato garden) is okay but most of my sunflowers got knocked down even though I tied them up weeks ago. The wind was strong enough that it broke the string that I’d used. :o/

All the ones that were on the ground, I cut and brought inside to put in a vase and they’re not sitting on my kitchen table, along with the craptonne of tomatoes I picked while I was out there. There are still a lot of green ones out there that I don’t think will turn orange before the frost comes so I picked the ones that were more or less ripe or that would ripen inside in a few days and brought them in.

I also have about 6 more in my fridge…Katie, how the hell do I make sauce since I don’t know what else to do with all these tomatoes?

While I was out there, I also picked what I think will be close to the last of the cherry tomatoes. There are a lot of almost ripe or green tomatoes on the plants but there appears to be an abundance of slugs right now with all the rain and they’ve gotten a lot of them. Plus, with the way the weather’s been, I think frost is going to happen soon and then that’ll be the end of them. If things stay the way they are right now, then I should be able to get another 2 containers full of them but I think that’s it.

This morning Madison gave me the finger as she was leaving for school because I was making fun of her for looking like Justin Beiber (it’s her bangs haha). So she gave me the finger right as she was going out the door and then she came back in 2 seconds later to say “I was only joking plz don’t ground me!” haha Anyway, it was a proud moment. Her biological father used to tell me, when he was a teenager, that he’d read somewhere that if a child swears at their parents, it means they’re comfortable with them and feel secure enough in their relationship with them to know that things will be okay in the end. Does that make sense? I always thought there might be some truth to that, although I think there are exceptions to the rule, like when I swore at my mother, there was no security there. I didn’t think my mother even loved me until I was in my 20′s. Our kids KNOW we do and while Wes doesn’t swear, Madison feels comfortable with us to swear occasionally just in conversation.

Anyway, yeah. She gave me the finger. I was in tears I was laughing so hard. (Maybe you had to be there…)

Speaking of laughing…last night I was eating dinner and Blake & I were talking, as we usually do while we eat and as I was taking a drink, he said something really funny – we have no idea what – and I BLEW SNOT all into my drink, like it was floating on the surface. It was so gross but so fucking funny, I was just about on the floor peeing my pants as he went to get me a new drink in a new glass. Again, maybe you had to be there…

Okay, that’s the only excitement there’s been this week, aside from the whole wanting to kill myself thing. I’m gonna go make breakfast now and continue reading my book.

Oh, btw, I did submit to Touched By Fire. I’ll be very surprised if I get in, but I figured I had nothing to lose by submitting.

I see my shrink on Friday and the weather’s supposed to get sunnier as the week goes by, so I’ll come out of it (and I’ll probably have my meds adjusted) but right now I’m living in a world of suck and self-loathing. I’ve never really kept a calendar of these things ( I  probably should) but I think the end of summer does this to me every year. The first day of school comes and I start to feel like I’m dying. And this weekend has been extra brutal because it’s like, as soon as Friday at 5pm hit, everything got cold and rainy and windy and miserable and it was like *bam*, here we are in fall. (I realize fall doesn’t officially start until Sept. 22nd, but it is very much fall up here already. The leaves are starting to change colour and it’s only about 12 degrees during the day.)

I mean, here’s how the year goes for me:

Spring: I start to thaw and come alive and suddenly the world is wonderful. I get excited looking for the first robin of spring, the first crocuses, the first ladybugs. In March I start plants inside and get excited watching them grow. My sleep schedule goes straight to shit though, as it does in fall because these transitional months wreak havoc with like, my biological clock or something, but it’s okay, it corrects itself by about June-ish.

Summer: I’m in loooooove. The hotter, the more humid, the better. Yeah, I bitch about the heat like everyone else, but the heat just means that the kids and I have all day to scrounge up change to go to the beach when Blake gets home. I nap a lot more in the summer because when we have a heat wave, it gets so hot you can’t move and you just get sleepy (especially because of the meds I’m on that make me sleepy to begin with) and so, I do a lot of my painting at night when it’s cooler, but also at night is when I go to the park across the road and swing on the swings and watch the stars and dig my toes in the cold sand. We eat fresh food, whether it’s from our own garden or stuff grown locally at the grocery store and my whole body just feels better, it feels more alive.  Admittedly, by the end of August the kids and I are all getting on each other’s nerves and they’re ready to go back to school and I’m ready for them to go back to school too, but Labour Day weekend, I think, is usually still hot and this year it’s fall weather and that has me bummin’ hardcore.

Fall: I hate fall. I hate that everything is dying. (Well I guess everything’s not dying, some things are just going dormant and if the trees didn’t go dormant we wouldn’t have maple syrup in the spring…) I hate the Fall Fair. I’m really starting to hate Halloween because I have GREAT anxiety about people potentially coming to my door wanting candy when I have none and I don’t want to buy any because no one ever comes to the door, I just think they might, and the kids bring home almost a garbage bag of the stuff so we don’t need an extra bag of it when I’m throwing out half of their haul behind their backs anyway because it’s junk and none of us needs it…yes, I’m a horrible mother.  I hate the wind and the rain and the leaves blowing all over the place. I hate the grass turning yellow and dying. I begin to worry about Xmas. I used to love the first day of school but now I hate it. The kids are going to come home that day with a million problems that I’m expected to solve by the next day and they’re going to lay 30 trees worth of paper on my desk that I don’t know what to do with for field trips and things we can’t afford but must shell out money for anyway.

On Tuesday there will probably be a fight on the way home from school, which I’m worried about. This 9 year old little shit up the street is jealous of Madison having a friend her own age and jealous of her boobs and just jealous of Madison growing up in general, as evidenced by the fact that this 9 year old tries to dress grown up in boob shirts (where there are no boobs) and high heels and wobbles down the street in front of our house, swinging non-existent hips with her nose stuck up in the air, lipstick on her teeth and a purse around her arm. When Madison uploaded pics to her Facebook last week (two of which I posted here on my site), this 9 year old’s jealousy really bubbled over and she told Madison she was “ugly and horrable”. Then when Madison blocked her on Facebook and MSN, the girl started telling all the neighbourhood kids that Madison was a lesbian because I guess when you’re 9 and live in a very small town, that’s the worst insult you can come up with. Madison laughed it off and set the record straight with the few girls who messaged her to find out if it was true or not, but the 9 year old’s been talking trash about her ever since. Because they walk home the same route, I know there are going to be problems on the first day of school possibly even violence because this 9 year old acts pretty big for her breeches.  But the thing is, this 9 year old, in the past, has known that she can’t do anything to Madison, verbally OR physically because Madison would just ignore her. Madison towers over her and could push her over with one finger, but she’s wise enough just to not engage. So instead, the 9 year old goes after Wes to antagonize Madison into a fight. Blake said he has no problem, if this all plays out the way I’m afraid it might, going  to the kid’s grandparents (who look after her and her sister) and putting an end to all of this shit but I’m the one who has to deal with it “on the front lines” so to speak and the whole situation gives me anxiety like nothing else has in quite some time because I’m afraid of Wes getting his nose punched in as a casualty of war.

Plus there’s also the fact that fall is another transitional season and my sleep schedule gets completely fucked up. Like, here I am at 5 in the morning on a holiday writing a fucking blog post when I should be sleeping.

So that’s fall, or at least this one.

Winter: Well if you’ve been reading this blog for over a year, you know how I get in the winter. I’m better now that we’ve identified that I have S.A.D. and I do my light therapy, but for the most part, all winter I just do my best to cope. It’s fucked up though, as much as winter destroys me, I wouldn’t live anywhere, I don’t think, that doesn’t have it. I think snow is beautiful and many times I’ve tried (and failed) to record what snow looks like through my eyes. I think that without the cold and snow, I wouldn’t have the appreciation for spring and summer that I do. I think my body is so attuned to the 4 seasons that missing one would be worse than enduring it. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t pass up a vacation to somewhere warm in February, but I couldn’t live there. And of course winter means dealing with Xmas, which, as I pointed out, I start worrying about in the fall.

Admittedly though, last winter, with the lightbox wasn’t as bad as previous ones, but I’m still definitely not at my best in any way, shape or form (although I do feel I do my best creative work in the winter because I’m inside all the time and have to use my imagination to entertain myself).

Life is so grey area, y’know? Nothing’s every black & white, as much as I want it to be.

Lately part of my depression has involved privilege, self-esteem and awareness of the issues around me that I never saw before.

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So add to the list that I’m feeling entirely inferior as a blogger, despite the fact that Blake pointed out that I get e-mails from people who say that I’ve helped them in some way by writing about my life and saying some of the thing I do “out loud”. I guess that’s something…not something I’ve ever striven for or done on purpose, but I guess it’s a positive side effect of being so self absorbed….

Onto other things…

Yesterday Blake & I went to Toronto to pick up my paintings from The Square Foot Show. The trip was pretty uneventful, we just drove there, went to the gallery, stood in a line and picked up my paintings. Nothing too exciting. When we were walking down the street toward the gallery, there was this guy dressed in shabby, dirty clothes and a shirt that didn’t fit (I don’t think he was homeless but definitely mentally ill) and as we walked by, he said to Blake, “do you have some spare change for a Coke?” We were walking pretty fast and Blake just shook his head “no” and as we were walking, I asked Blake if he really did ask for change for a Coke and Blake said yes, and so I said if the guy was still there on our way back, I’d give him the Coke that just so happened to be in my bag. (I’m on meds that cause dry mouth, I travel with liquids.) So we went to the gallery and got my paintings (I didn’t sell any, which is a good thing*) and on our way back, the guy was still there so I got the Coke out of my bag and said, “Sir? Here you go.” and he said, “I don’t want that.” Confused I said, “Isn’t that what you asked us for when we passed by here earlier?” and he said, kind of belligerently, “NO, I asked for a COFFEE.” So I said “sorry” and we just kept walking to the car. We know for a fact that he said he wanted a Coke when we walked past him the first time, especially since we heard him, as we were approaching him WITH the Coke, ask another person for change for a Coke, so Blake figures he really wanted money for beer or something, which just made me sad.

On the way home, as we were on the outskirts of our town, the clouds were pretty spectacular so Blake pulled over and I ran into a field to take pictures of them. Behold:

My pictures, admittedly, suck, and they looked much cooler in person.

*So like I said, I didn’t sell any of my paintings at The Square Foot Show, which is a good thing and I found it funny that there was a guy in line talking to a VERY outspoken American woman who was happy that he didn’t sell anything either (which surprised her). I’m happy to have not sold anything because AWOL Gallery takes 50 goddamn percent of the $225 they charge for your paintings plus you’re out the $20 it cost to get in the show (plus gas to get the paintings there, then going to the show, then picking them up), so really you don’t make any money at all. The show, for me, as I think I’ve said before, was just to have another show on my resume for when I apply for the Ontario Arts Council emerging artist grant which I’m told by one of the program’s directors isn’t even necessary so next year I doubt I’ll take part in the show.

I would like to somehow find out about other shows that are actually happening in my area but I don’t know how you go about doing that. There IS some sort of arts council in Barrie that I know of but I’ve been on their website and they only seem to advertise events after they’re already happening, so that does me no good. There is also a local like, arts club type of thing but you have to pay quite a bit of money to be part of it, if I recall correctly, and I don’t think I’d benefit from it enough to make the financial investment because I don’t live in Barrie and I don’t think you should have to pay money just to find out about art shows before they happen. There has to be a better way, I just don’t know what it is.

Since I didn’t sell anything at Square Foot, I am going to submit all 3 of those paintings to Touched By Fire. I’m 99.9% sure they’ll be rejected because they aren’t depressing enough, but that’s okay, I’m going to submit them anyway and see what happens. No harm, right? And if I get in, that’s kind of a cool thing because the show’s at the ROM in Toronto and I happen to know the food is excellent and that there’s a free bar. Or at least that was the case when I was in the show before.

Anyway, I’m just rambling now…which I suppose I’ve been doing this entire post. I think I’m going to check e-mail, go back to bed and when I wake up, I’ll post my new paintings to Etsy.

We have peas! Lots and lots of peas! They started being ready 2 weeks ago (when these pics were taken) and we’ve been picking a large sandwich container full about every 3 days ever since. They’re mostly finished now, but the beans are almost ready!

Anyway, I thought since I took them and haven’t done a garden post in a while, I’d post these pictures. Right now the front garden isn’t doing a whole lot. Last week I paid each kid $3 to go out there with a pair of scissors and “deadhead” all of my bachelor buttons, which they did with gusto, so as things stand, the cosmos at the front that should be in bloom within the next two weeks should coincide with the 2nd round of bachelor’s buttons and I’ll take pics of the whole works then.

On with the pictures!

The kids picking peas.

Madison picking peas.

Peas & beans.

Baby peppers that are now significantly bigger.

Bobcat tomato which is also now significantly bigger.

Cherry tomatoes which we have LOTS & LOTS of.

So that’s the state of the garden right now. The peas taste like nothing I’ve ever had from a store, but then again, I’ve never seen these kind of peas in stores before anyway. I haven’t tried the beans yet because I jumped the gun in picking the few I did two weeks ago thinking there were more that were ready than there actually were so those ones are still in my fridge because there’s not enough of them to really have with a meal. All of the beans should be ready to pick in about another week I’d say and then I *think* they’ll actually make another batch of beans in September but don’t quote me on that because I’m just going by memory of when I grew this type before and honestly, things are a bit foggy,

Alright as I said in my previous post, it’s the long weekend here so it’s time to turn my brain off and get my Warcraft shit in order! Have a great weekend!

And it’s always been my goal to reflect that in my paintings. Now I’m a little bit closer with thanks to Tam for the inspiration to quit humming and hawing and standing there with my mouth open and just try. Like really really try, not just a half-assed attempt.

So what I did this week was I got up early on Monday morning, watched Tam’s videos for this week for her World of Whimsy 2 class which included a video on how to shade girls with darker complexions that was a result of me asking Tam how to do so and directly after watching I took 3 sheets of watercolour paper, drew lines on them cutting them into quarters and started drawing girls in each box. Then I painted my ass off all week until my hand ached from holding a paintbrush.

Admittedly, the first two pages were a bust with a lot of shading mistakes and poor colour choices, but the last 3 girls did I were pretty good so I figured I’d share those ones with you guys now, plus a 4th girl who was intended for a full painting but I’m not sure I’m going to because I’m not sure I like her shading.

This one was done using a dark brown watercolour pencil to do the shading, then painting over it with a mixture of acrylic paint and acrylic glazing medium. The tricky part in doing all of these girls was in trying to get their complexions even and as you can see, this one’s complexion, especially above her nose and between her eyes, is pretty uneven so that particular paint mixture wasn’t optimal. A final wash of the same mix, but thinned with water was put over this girl before I called her “done” and that helped even out her skin tone a lot. She has a beauty mark because some kind of black schmutz got on the page and it wouldn’t come off.

For all of the girls’ hair I had two options for black:

1. Premixed “metallic” black acrylic paint called “Black Pearl“
2. Mixing my own metallic black using black acrylic paint and DecoArt’s pearlizing medium (available at Michael’s)

I went with the latter because I thought it looked more authentic in that it appears a little texturized because the pearlizing medium does make it a little bit texturized. The Black Pearl paint would have been too smooth and is also a real bitch to draw on after the fact if you need to do touch-ups on the lines in their hair, which is the main reason I don’t like to use it.

Anyway, the girl above was definitely better than the first 2 pages of girls I did, but she still wasn’t there. The first 2 pages of girls were basically experimenting with colour and getting frustrated that I couldn’t get their complexions even. By the 3rd page I figured it out.

This is the one I personally like the best because her skin tone is even, her shading is a lot more apparent than in the other examples I’m going to post, I like her expression and I like her hair style/colours (the reddish brown colour is called “Royal Ruby” and is a dark metallic red that isn’t showing up well in the picture – trust me though, it looks cool). How I got her skin tone even was that I used the watercolour pencil to do my shading, then I went over it about 50 million times with a mixture of acrylic paint and glazing medium that was really thinned down with water. Like, too thinned down. The next time I use this shade (which is the same shade as the last girl, but she had her problems which I’ll explain when we get to her) I’m going to thin it a little less so I don’t have to do as many coats.

Obviously with this 3rd girl, I was going for a darker complexion and an even one at that. I think I was mostly successful, but I think if I were to do this colour again (I have a lot of practice left to do!) I might try using either a dark purple or possibly even a black watercolour pencil to do the shading because with how dark the skin tone is, a lot of it was lost. In person the shading sows up a lot better, but when I took pictures in natural light you get what you see here. Again with this one, I used the thinned down mixture of acrylic paint and glazing medium, but because this particular colour is a highly pigmented one, she only needed 2 coats to be considered finished. If I did any more, all of her shading would have been lost.

So those were my practice girls, which I’m pretty proud of. Of course I’m not showing you my other 2 pages of mistakes because they were REALLY awful, just know that I made them and we’ll move right along…

This girl was supposed to be “the real deal”, the one I made an actual painting out of, but now I’m not so sure because I don’t really like her hair and her shading got washed out by having to do so many layers of watered down paint. (Granted, her shading doesn’t look as ashed out in person as it does in this picture, but still…)

Originally I painted her to be a white girl that looks identical to everything you see here, but for her skin tone obviously. In the finished piece, she was going to have a black petticoat with red underskirts and a large red bindi jewel on her forehead. The background of the canvas was going to be red, black and gold splatters on a crackled white background with red and gold “chunky” glitter sprinkled over top. But now I’m thinking…should I go through all that effort  and use all those supplies on a girl I’m not even sure I like? I have two weeks until The Square Foot Show so realistically whatever I paint right now should be my 3rd painting for the show and I’m not sure I’d want to put this one in because I’m not sure I like her. At the same time, I’ve not liked girls at this stage before and the finished product has ended up being some of my favourite pieces so I should probably just keep going with it.

Being the August long weekend here in Canada, my plan is to forget painting for the next 4 days and play WoW with Blake so in that time I’ll give it a lot more thought and by the end of the weekend I should have my answer. I didn’t mention it but the paper I’d be using for her petticoat (I don’t even know if that’s what it’s called – the outside part of her dress) is black and embossed with vine-y flowers. I think at the very least I should give her a dress, even if she’s only going to be put in my sketchbook as a failed experiment.

Anyway, as far as art goes, I think I have the women of colour thing pretty much worked out and out of all the paint I have, I have 3 main complexions I can do: sort of a honey brown like the 1st and last examples shown, the darker one shown and one I haven’t actually used yet because I just found the bottle of paint this morning, but it’s actually called “Chocolate Brown” and that’s exactly what it looks like. All 3 of these colours can be darkened or lightened. (I have like, 10 different shades of browns, not counting metallics, but these 3 were the only ones that look like realistic skin tones.)

My next art objective is to figure out how to draw and paint Asians without them looking like bad caricatures, but I think that’s going to be something that’s kind of on the back burner while I perfect my women of colour. I cannot even tell you how excited I am to be able to, after the stupid Square Foot Show is out of the way, go back and recreate some of my favourite pieces with girls of darker complexions. And I keep saying “darker complexions” or “skin tone” or “women of colour” specifically because my girls don’t have a race necessarily.  They just have colours. Like, the one that may become a painting? She could be Indian or Black or Hispanic or even a multicultural mix of races. I’m not gonna specify. Does it matter? No it does not. I’m just happy to be able to paint them and have them be beautiful, that’s all.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this week and what I intend to be up to for quite some time.

So the itty bitty town I live in (population 1700) is in this contest by TSN and Kraft where they could win $25,000 to upgrade our rec centre’s facilities which we are in DESPERATE need of.

How it works is that for the next 24-hours (voting started at noon, my time and ends at noon tomorrow) you can vote for either us (Elmvale) or another town called Brighton (population a lot more than 1700) which I’M TOLD ALREADY HAS A TOWN POOL SO TO HELL WITH THEM and whoever gets the most votes win.

And that’s where you come in. We need your votes! And the beauty of it, my lovely internet-addicted friends? Is that you can vote AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT between now and noon tomorrow. As long as you’re not voting by mechanical means (prevented by a captcha), you can vote as many times as you possibly can and WE NEED YOUR VOTES!

So please, vote once, vote twice, vote a million times! Our community deserves it.

Thanks in advance! I’ll update everyone on if we won or not after the contest is over. :o) GO VOTE! VOTE VOTE VOTE!

Oooooh my god I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head right now that I can’t even begin to process them all unless I start writing shit down, so that’s what I’m going to do. It’s been a busy, happy (mostly) few days so I guess I’ll sort everything by day, starting with Thursday night.

Thursday night I was playing WoW with my friends Stephy & Keenan and eating Crispers when I lost a filling. I have nightmares regularly about this very thing and while I anted to freak out, I stayed mostly calm, especially because our dentist is awesome and I was pretty sure I could get it fixed, if only temporarily, the next day. Plus, it didn’t hurt. Still, when I got into bed I woke Blake up and freaked out a little bit, but not as badly as I would have in the past and then I went to sleep.

Friday morning Blake told me that our dentist could see me in the afternoon, after my shrink appointment, so yay.

My shrink appointment didn’t go as planned. See, the thing is, I only see my shrink once a month or sometimes once every 3 months, so she doesn’t always remember things about me or what we talked about last session. Plus, she’s sometimes quite a bitch, but despite that I mostly like her. It’s not her fault she has like, 500+ patients and at the mental health clinic I go to, where she works 2 days a week, she gets paid peanuts compared to her private practice and probably has more clients, all of whom she usually sees once a month. I’ve been in the waiting room with a lot of her patients and believe me, I’m definitely low priority and to me, that’s a good thing.

Anyway, I was excited to tell her about doing yoga because yoga is a huge deal for me in terms of social awkwardness and agoraphobia in general. A year ago I couldn’t do this. Two years ago, this would have been an impossibility. I expected my shrink to be like, “yay you!” but when I told her she wasn’t really that enthused about it and that wasn’t the reaction I was going for. She was more amused, I think, that Blake was doing it – omg a MAN doing yoga, imagine! – than me and that kinda bummed me out.

Then I thought she might be happy that I still haven’t smoked since April 23rd, but she didn’t seem to care about that either.

So the next thing I wanted to talk to her about, or at least make her aware of, is that article about picky eating adults I linked in Live Journal the other day and how researchers are thinking it might actually be a disorder and that they were doing a study on it, which I signed up for. So she read the article, which I’d printed out for her, and the whole time she had a kind of smirk on her face like she was trying not to laugh and when she was finished, she said that she didn’t believe it was a disorder. (She spent about a minute 30 seconds skimming the article, I might add.) Then Blake and I started telling her about all of my issues with food, which are actually pretty immense when you lay them all out and I think I’m going to write a page about it on my site sometime soon because maybe it would be interesting to other people, but anyway we told her about ho sometimes it takes literally 2 hours to decide what to have for dinner and then in the end I usually end up eating something separate from the family anyway and after laying it all out on the table, she looks me dead in the eye and says, “is it possible that you’re just a spoiled brat?”

I had no idea how to respond to that. This is my shrink. This is the person who’s supposed to help me with my issues and help me figure out how to live with them or fix them and here she is completely invalidating what Blake and I spent the last 10 minutes trying to explain? I mean basically what we were saying is that we think I have OCD and that it manifests itself with food. Y’know how some people with OCD are germaphobes? Well I’m pretty much a foodaphobe in a very similar way and she asked me that? What kind of bedside manner is that? That’s bullshit. Your shrink isn’t supposed to CALL YOU NAMES.

And what really kills me about this shrink in particular is that when I first started seeing her, almost  years ago now, I told her “hey I sleep ’til 1pm and work at night and smoke and live a really weird life”, she said “that’s okay. It’s your life and you have the right to live it how you want to.” And she stuck with that for like, the first year, but after that she started trying to change me or openly disagreeing with how I live my life. She thinks I should go to bed at 11 or 12 and get up early in the morning all of a sudden. Most of the time I actually DO do that but it’s the principle of it, she told me before that I could sleep however I wanted to as long as I was getting enough of it.

And then there was the one time where I walked into her office and like, almost the first thing she said to me is, “why don’t you get a job?” Like lady, have you not been listening for the past few years? Do you not remember my issues? That was the most asinine suggestion I’ve ever heard in my whole entire life. I’m not offended by people thinking I’m whatever because I don’t have a 9-5, I don’t expect people to understand my life and I don’t care, but SHE SHOULD because I’ve (we’ve) spent hours upon hours explaining to her how we are, how we live, how life is, and she just doesn’t pay attention or listen or write the right things down.

And by the way, I have a job, thank you. I have several. I’m an artist. I’m a camgirl. (A bad one at the moment, but whatever.) Those two things are what I do to bring in money so my kids can have the things they want, which brings me to my other job, being their mom. They LIKE that I’m always home and that I’m always there for them. Our family is extremely close and that’s the way we like it and a lot of that has to do with the fact that 85% of the time, I am completely available for whatever they need. So fuck you and your “get a job” crap. I’m all full up. It pissed me off when people negate being a stay at home mom as a job. That’s fucking bullshit, especially considering the fact that I also work from home at the same time.

Anyway, she pissed me of with the accusation that I as a “spoiled brat” and after she said that, I sort of shut down and stopped participating in the conversation, but I guess Blake explained things to her and she conceded that I probably have OCD tendencies but that I wouldn’t like the main treatment (exposure, which wouldn’t work in this case anyway, if you read the stories on PickyEatingAdults.com) and I couldn’t have the other treatment which is high doses of anti-depressants because they would make me manic. So we all concluded that the best thing to do is to just continue trying to work around it since I’m not exactly starving and Blake can deal with it with me. And really, I’m getting better. Not with food, I’m still a wreck over food, but I’ve been actively trying to make things easier on Blake when it comes to my stupid idiosyncrasies.

So after my shrink appointment we came home for a while and then it was time to go to the dentist where I got a temporary filling and I have to go back this Thursday for the real thing. I hate when the assistant dentist girl tells the secretary that they’ll need 40 minutes for me. :o/

But that’s a milestone in and of itself. I have had a lifelong fear of dentists but I’ve been really lucky to have two really good ones the last several years, especially the one I see now, and now it’s really no big deal because I know after the needle part, I’m good. The dentist I see now is really gentle and understanding and I’m really going to miss him when/if we move or when/if he retires. (He’s kinda old, but I don’t know how old. He’s spoken of retiring while I’ve been in the chair so I know it’s on his mind. Oh yeah, and he’s the only dentist in town.)

After the dentist I had a much needed nap and when I woke up, we went to Wal*Mart to get Madison a new bathing suit and flip-flops because hers were fuX0red and last year’s bathing suit wasn’t fitting so well. So we did that and while we were there, Wes said that he wished he could have a Zhu Zhu pet, which is a mechanical hamster that makes sounds and runs around on the floor and is about $10.

We went to the toy aisle after getting Madison situated and I looked at these mechanical hamsters and when I saw one that was pink, I was sold. I told Wes I would buy him one but that he couldn’t have it until he earned it by doing basic chores around the house. He was good with this, so we put two of them in the cart, one for him and one for me, so we could play with them together just as I played with Tamagotchis with Madison at around the same age.

I also picked up the new “Hole” album, Nobody’s Daughter, which is really a Courtney Love album that she decided to brand as being Hole for reasons I can’t even comprehend. I wasn’t going to buy the album out of principle but then my completest nature too over and suddenly I had to have it. Also I watched Courtney’s “Behind the Music” the night before and that made me want the album. (Have I ever mentioned how goddamn susceptible I am to advertising?)

I also bought two spiral notebooks because my current one is almost full and they were on sale for $3 a piece for the big fat ones, so score! And I also bought new underwear because my bum is no longer a large (it hasn’t been for quite some time, but I haven’t had any money) and is now a medium to small – w00t! I just grabbed a 3-pack of Hanes Her Way bikini underbums because ideally I’m going to be needing to buy smalls eventually.

I know, you totally care. We also bought shampoo, how exciting!

When we got home, I opened my Zhu Zhu pet to see what it did and then I started listening to Nobody’s Daughter, which I expected to hate but I’ve gotta say it’s actually growing on me, or at least some tracks. I think it’s better than the abysmal America’s Sweetheart, but only by a fraction. This may sound kind of weird, but America’ Sweetheart was kinda contrived while Nobody’s Daughter feels more honest. What I mean is that Live Through This was about Courtney’s Life, more or less, as was Celebrity Skin because that’s when she was going through her Hollywood phase. During America’ Sweetheart she was completely fucked up on drugs from crack to coke and getting hauled off to Bellevue because she was out of her mind and hardly any of that is present on America’s Sweetheart. Nobody’s Daughter is very much a comeback album and what she went through to get here, I think, what she learned along the way. (I think certain songs might be about people she met in rehab and some of it is definitely what she discovered about herself through therapy.)

Anyway, I won’t lie, I kinda like it – so shoot me. (But I still refuse to call it a Hole album because it’s not. Certain songs are VERY Hole-esque, but it’s just not Hole.)

So as I’m listening to the album for about the 3rd time, I’m reading my Facebook feed and one of my friends posted that he was going to the Courtney Love show the next day and I was like “WHAT????? HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS????” and immediately I was upset that I couldn’t go because I was sure it was either sold out or we couldn’t afford the INSANE $50 ticket price, which was a shame because on Saturday, the night of the show, we were celebrating our anniversary by going to get ribs and strawberry pie like we do every year and thus, we had a babysitter (two of them in fact!) and could conceivably go.

I sulked hardcore and tweeted about it several times, trying to figure out a way we could go. I have two paycheques coming any day now (well one is) and Blake said he could lend me the money for us to go and I could pay him back with that but the cheque is only for $200 and change and I need that money for the kids for the summer so I didn’t want to blow half of it on this show.

But just as I was considering it, Saturday morning, my friend Heatha messaged me and was like, “hey I can give you a deposit on the painting I want to buy so you can go to the show” and I was like “fuck YES” and that’s what happened. The deposit was exactly enough to pay for the tickets, parking and if we added $10, which I did, get a tour t-shirt.

Before I get into the show though, first and foremost Blake and I were celebrating our 8 year wedding anniversary by going to Haugen’s for the best ribs and fresh strawberry pie in the world, stopping in Greenbank where I grew up, to the bakery there where we bought the best garlic cheese bread in the world, as well as some pretty kickass ginger cookies.

Voila:

Normally we get a whole strawberry pie to bring home with us and share with the kids, but we didn’t this time because we were going to the Courtney Love show afterward and we didn’t think it would keep well in the trunk of the car that long. Plus, we were trying to be as frugal as possible because really, we can’t afford to celebrate our anniversary, but it’s important to us so we do it anyway.

I slept all the way from Haugen’s to the venue and since we were early, I continued to sleep in the car until the lineup to get in was considerably smaller and after fixing my makeup we got in line. Security confiscated my PENS! I had 3 BRAND NEW Pilot Precise V5s in my bag, which are kind of expensive as far as disposable pens go, and they confiscated them because of graffiti. I didn’t protest because I know there’s no point in doing that in situations like this, but man, that sucked. Plus you’d have to have a lot of time and be really dedicated to tag the bathroom with one of those.

The security chick was like, “after the show just come out and I’ll give them back to you” and I thought “yeah right”. And of course after the show, those security guards were nowhere to be found.

Anyway, the show. The show was pretty awesome and I can’t help but love Courtney Love. I’m sorry, I know some of you hate her guts and don’t get why I like her so much, but whatever, she was great. Here’s a review of the show, which I agree with. Her voice was different than usual (I’ve seen her as the REAL Hole twice before), even different than on the album, and I noticed that her annunciation was different too and actually very Jagger-esque. She belted out tunes old and new and the audience sang along to a lot of it and all in all it was just a really great show. (Well, except that she sang Doll Parts, which is the worst Hole song, imo.)

We started off in the “pit”, which was full of little girls like me when we started, and we were about 3 people back from the barriers but when it got closer to Courtney coming on, all these goddamn Amazons pushed and shoved their way in front of all of us and when Courtney came out, the “pit” went fucking mental (as to be expected). We stayed in there for the first 3 songs but when the girl to my left threw her totally full beer into the air all over the crowd and the woman to my right started literally punching people, I decided it was time to get the fuck out, so I grabbed Blake’s hand and we watched the rest of the show from the back where it was cooler and I could actually have a drink.

Luckily, being a primarily female audience and not a very tall one, I could actually see Courtney from the back from the waist up and the sound at the venue is actually really good so I was happy with our position, except when 6 foot tall dickheads decided to stand right in front of me. Repeatedly. I was a 6 foot tall dickhead magnet, I don’t know why. Luckily they never stayed in front of me very long and the back was sparse enough for me to move around so I could see better.

When we first arrived at the show I went to the bathroom and it was totally clean. When Courtney finished her encore I went to the bathroom again and it was absolutely trashed. The men reading this may or may not know this, but in most womens’ public bathrooms, to the right of the toilet, is a receptacle for used menstrual products. When I went to the bathroom at the end of the show I checked every available stall and I swear to god that every girl in the whole venue was on the rag but me. These receptacles were so full that all around them on the floor were used pads and tampons. It was beyond disgusting and made worse by the fact that the floor was all wet for some reason in the whole bathroom, which made the tampons bulk up. SO GROSS.

After the show, we went home and hung out with Ronny & Alex for about half an hour, then they went home and we went to bed and now it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m writing this post.

The only thing I have left to say is that Ronny now lives in Canada (he’s from MI) because he and Alex are getting married on Saturday and he brought me Vanilla Coke Zero, Cherry Coke Zero, Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper and Cherry Dr. Pepper, none of which we have in Canada because….I dunno, we fucking suck. I just had a can of Vanilla Coke Zero and just about had an orgasm on the spot. When they discontinued regular Vanilla Coke up here I was so upset because I LOVED it and when Ronny told me that they had Vanilla Coke Zero in the US I was like “that’s it, we’re moving” so that’s why he brought these all up.

Right now I’m drinking a can of Cherry Coke Zero and I actually think it might be better than the vanilla.

Oh and one more thing: I got the most BEAUTIFUL wedding invitation from our friends Alicia and Tim in Georgia that blew me away on Friday and I wish so badly that we could afford for all of us to go because those two actually kinda met through me and I’d really like to see them become husband and wife. Alas, financially it would be an impossibility, but I hope they know I’m there in spirit. (And I think they should totally webcast it…*cough*)

Anyway, that is all. Have a great week everyone!

I got up this morning a little after 7am because I had a nightmare that I was in fostercare on a pig farm and my foster father was abusive to my foster mother and us kids weren’t looked after at all. The whole dream was me and child versions of Meredith Grey, Christina Yang and Liz Lemon trying to escape. When I woke up from that, I couldn’t get back to sleep.

I checked e-mail, Twitter etc. and when I got to Facebook, my friend Missy said that she was watching the Intervention marathon on A&E today and asked if anyone was going to be watching with her. Never having seen the show, I said I would and turned it on. Now I’m an episode & a half deep and I maintain that this show is absolutely terrible but I’m still watching it anyway because it sure beats morning television.

Anyway, this is the first of what I think is going to end up being many posts today so here we go…

Our vegetable garden is largely one giant fail. Allow me to show you what’s going on:

See all that vegetation? That’s about 3/4 weeds. But the problem is, I don’t know a weed from oregano. Or a weed from a carrot or parsley or anything else we planted that I’m not sure is coming up. In fact, I’m fairly sure the carrots never came up at all and the same with the oregano and basil and onions but with all those weeds, it’s hard to tell and I don’t want to pull any of them in case I’m pulling out the good stuff.

Out of TWO packets of seeds, we have like, 3 or 4 tufts of lettuce growing and our pepper plants are absolutely pitiful:

Our tomato plants are thriving though, as are our peas and beans…everything else, thus far, appears to be a write off.

Tomato plants

One of our pathetic tufts of lettuce.

Purple beans

This weekend’s big project was to finally stake our peas, which really should have been staked last week or the week before but shit happened and the peas didn’t. However, at work Blake got a gift certificate for Home Depot for being awesome, so on Sunday he went there and bought wooden stakes and “garden jute” and he made a sort of trellis for the peas to climb up. My job today, probably right after I finish this post, before it gets hot, is to rearrange the peas so they’ll actually grow up the jute. Here are our thriving peas:

Between the peas (left) and the beans (far right) are where the onions are supposed to be, but I don’t think any are growing. Why so many things didn’t grow is beyond me, my only guess being that we planted some things too deeply maybe? I planted in pots on my porch thyme and rosemary and only one of them is growing (but I forget which I planted in each pot so I’m not sure which one is growing – thyme, I think, though).

In the hopes of encouraging the pepper plants to grow bigger, which I actually think is a futile attempt considering they appear to be flowering already, I paid Madison $3 to weed between them and the tomato plants yesterday while Wes supervised. Then the money-grubbing little bugger came inside and said she’d weed my FRONT garden for $20. $20! I asked her if she was on drugs.

Oh yeah, Madison dyed her hair auburn and she also dyed Wes’ hair orange using this temporary mousse dye I got in my stocking a few years ago for Xmas. They are both very much impressed with each other’s hair at the moment.

So that’s our pathetic attempt at a veggie garden. We’re still undecided as to whether or not we’re going to attempt to do this again next year but right now all signs are pointing to “no”. It really depends on the yields we get from the things that are actually growing as to whether or not it’s even worth it. Right now hot house tomatoes, grown in Ontario, on the vine, are like $0.99/lb and they’re only going to get cheaper as the summer goes on. To me, growing my own doesn’t seem worth it, looking at those prices. Yes, mine are organic and non-GMO for SURE and I can’t say the same for the ones in the store, but Sunny Logic dictates that vegetables grown in Ontario greenhouses are probably not GMO because there are no bugs in greenhouses and no weeds, so there’s no need for herbicides or pesticides and therefore no need to grow vegetables that are unnaturally resistant to either. They also don’t need to have an unnatural shelf life  or bruise resistant skins because they’re not on a truck for a week or two before getting to the store.

I realize that I’m totally guesstimating here and that this is very much Sunny Logic, but don’t tell me otherwise or I may never eat again.

Also, a couple of weeks ago we got Ontario strawberries (which are THE BEST strawberries in THE WHOLE WORLD) and on the lid of the container, it said:

“Did you know?

- Every $1 spent on Ontario food generates more than $2 in other Ontario business.
- Choosing Ontario fruits & vegetables over imported food saves fossil fuel and reduces CO2 emissions.

Thank you for supporting Ontario agriculture!”

To which I say, “you’re welcome!”

So there’s an argument against growing my own tomatoes, again, depending on the yield. My purple beans you cannot buy in stores, they just don’t have them – or at least I’ve ever seen them. I’m not sure if I’ve explained, but the purple beans I grow are dark burgundy when raw, but they turn green when you cook them. This impresses the kids and makes them eat them and they also taste 50 billion times better than the frozen beans we usually buy. (I don’t have a lot of luck buying fresh green beans at our local grocery store. Wal*Mart sometimes has decent beans but I don’t want to go to Wal*Mart just for beans and god only knows where they’re grown.) The same goes with the peas I’m growing. I forget now, without looking at the empty packet, what they’re actually called but basically they’re a sugar snap pea variety where you can eat the shell & all. Madison and I LOVE these. My Aunt Betty used to grow similar peas when I was a kid and they were my favourite thing in her garden. Again, you cannot buy these in the stores. You can buy similar ones, but they’re not the same and they’re kind of expensive. I think the two packets of seeds I bought were about $5 total and we’re going to have peas coming out our ears pretty soon.

So, despite the fact that most of our veggie garden is fail, next year we’ll probably, at the very least, still grow beans and peas. Just probably MORE of them. The beans are a bush bean so they don’t need staking. The peas do, though, but I still think it’s worth the cost.

Anyway, that’s our veggie gardening experience thus far. Next post will be the front garden…

….and this Intervention show is still terrible, why am I watching this again? Oh yeah, morning television sucks.

Have some Scratching Post. :o)

(Fun Fact: On The Mike Bullard Show (last clip), I showed my underwear on national television. :o))

Anyway, these clips are not in chronological order. The official videos are, but the live stuff isn’t. I was digging all of these up to show Madison when she woke up, in honour of Canada Day so I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

It’s 3am and I’m restless & rambly.

I think it’s completely unfair that breakfast sausages have anywhere from 190 calories per 2 sausages to 270. The tastier the breakfast sausage, I’m finding, the worse it is for you. This is unfortunate as I kinda really like breakfast sausages, however earlier this week, not knowing the caloric value of them, I inadvertently ate a breakfast that was roughly 1300-1500 calories. I didn’t notice that there was nutritional information on the package until I went to throw it away, then I got out my calculator and just about cried. That night, this was my dinner (not that I’m complaining, I just would have liked something more substantial…):

On Tuesday I went to see my latest healthcare professional, Dr. D, who is an Irish-Canadian nutritionist with the world’s cutest accent to basically see if I was fat enough to get into her 10 week, comprehensive metabolic workshop. The bittersweet news is that I am, indeed, fat enough for this program, but the good news is that I’m on the lower end of the spectrum, only needing to lose about 20 lbs (but I’d be happy with 15).

The program is going to start in either June (I hope) or August and the discrepancy is a result of some of the speakers who well, speak, in the sessions, want to go on summer vacations. I can understand this, I really can, I just really hope it’s in June because I have S.A.D. and if it starts in August, I’ll be in full-depression mode by the end of it and not motivated to do a damn thing. Also, we’re planting our garden this weekend so we’re going to have fresh, organic vegetables all summer which is going to aid in achieving a healthier weight. I won’t have the same advantage in September and October.

Apparently the first thing they do in the workshop is give you a pedometer which is going to be a barrel of laughs in my case. I wake up. I go to the bathroom. I pee. I brush my teeth. I walk to the kitchen and grab a Coke Zero. I come into my office and sit at my desk. For a couple of hours. Then I go back into the kitchen and make breakfast which could be a protein shake or eggs, either way, my feet are firmly planted in the kitchen. Then I come back into my office and eat  at my desk while I watch crappy daytime TV for the time it takes to finish my meal. I go back into the kitchen and deposit my dirty dishes in the sink or on the counter, depending on the state of the room. Then I come back to my chair and either do internet stuff or paint for a few more hours. I might get up to walk to the bathroom and pee. Or I might get up to go to the kitchen and get a drink (I drink a LOT). This continues literally until I go to bed at night – oh wait, sometimes I eat lunch, so those steps count – and then it repeats the next morning. This is my crazy, whacked out, OCD routine and I get very upset when it’s altered in any way. Also? My house is very very small. It’s only about 10 steps from my office to the kitchen, 15 to the bathroom, 20 to the bedroom. Yep, this pedometer is gonna be entertaining.

I wonder if it counts dancing? I actually do that a lot on my way to the kitchen or bathroom.

The other components of the metabolic workshop were kind of explained to me in a blur, but I know Blake can’t come with me (:o/) except for the two classes that are about cooking. They want the primary cook to sit in on those ones and that would be Blake. I know there is going to be a one-on-one session with a dietician at some point, but to be honest I don’t even really know what a dietician is or does. She also mentioned a session with a…fuck, I forget the title, it was like “actionarian” or something like that, but basically what she does is tells you how to move more. They don’t like to use the word “exercise” I noticed, she always said “have more movement” and things like that.

Anyway, the actionarian or whatever her title is, is going to tell me how to use my Wii Fit and I’m guessing she’ll be like, “do this game X amount of times and then switch to this game X amount of times, then do a yoga pose, blah blah blah”. I’m totally fine with doing Wii Fit, I mean, that’s why we bought it I suppose, but the obstacle I’m going to run into is that when this workshop starts, the kids are going to be home for the summer and I don’t want to do Wii Fit in front of them because the little shitheads are going to laugh at me and/or simply make me feel self-conscious. I’m going to assume this actionarian woman is going to want me to do Wii Fit every day, which I’m fine with, I mean, god knows I have nothing better to do, and I’m going to assume she’s going to want me to do at least 20 minutes up to maybe even an hour. How the hell do I get the kids to leave the house every day for an hour? And it’ll be at random times too, because I don’t really have a schedule. I go to sleep when I’m tired, I wake up when I’m not tired anymore. This is especially true in the summer for some reason.

And while I’m on the subject of movement (not exercise!), Blake and I have been talking about going to a yoga class together. Madison’s 12 now and can legally stay home and watch Wes, which gives Blake and I a little more freedom, especially in this regard because he found a yoga studio that’s just up the road, 5 minutes away, and Madison would be fine watching Wes for (I’m guessing) an hour or so while we do this. Part of me really REALLY wants to do it. In fact, it was MY idea, I was the one who brought it up, but when Blake found the studio and showed me their website and started talking like it was possible, I pretty much totally freaked out. There was crying. So what’s my deal with this? Oh my friends, I hope you’ve figured out “Sunny Logic” by now because you’re going to need it.

First and foremost, I am absolutely paralyzed with fear by the idea of FARTING. Or worse – omg I cannot even believe I’m going to type this – QUEEFING. There is not enough Ativan on the planet that would help me recover from such an event. I think I would literally have a heart attack and die if either of those scenarios happened in a room full of people. I mean, my god, how could they NOT laugh? I’d fucking laugh! (If it were anyone but me.) I’m breaking into a nervous sweat even typing this paragraph, that’s how absolutely terrified I am by the prospect of this happening. And don’t tell me it doesn’t happen because I KNOW it does. And it’s not like we’re in a hospital where “the doctors have seen it all” – I mean, it kind of is, I guess, as far as the instructor is concerned, but not the students.

Anyway, it would fucking kill me and this is problem #1 with doing yoga, like, in front of people.

Problem #2 is that I have this major issue where I’ll only do something if I’m automagically good at it. I don’t like learning. I don’t like the process of learning by sucking at something and being corrected. I want to be a prostar on the first try and I’m scared that I just won’t be any good at yoga. Do I fucking LOOK zen to you?

At the same time, I’m ridiculously flexible. When I was in the hospital, out of my mind with mania, I literally sat in a hospital bed for 3 days, cross-legged, with my head on the bed in front of me – if you can picture that. The only time I moved was when they made me take meds. I can squat on the floor with my feet flat on the ground and my bum touching my heels, which Blake finds totally bizarre and we’ve asked just about everyone who’s ever come into my house if they can do that and they can’t. My kids can’t even do it.

So what I’m saying is, there’s a very good chance that I’ll be excellent at yoga and my fear of not being good at it is completely irrational.

Problem #3 is the whole people thing. I mean, I don’t leave my house for a reason and it’s not because I’m afraid of fresh air or pigeons. I am absolutely socially retarded and just can’t deal with them. Blake says I won’t have to deal with them because everyone’s there to do their own thing, but what do I do if someone like, talks to me? Or worse, wants to be friends?

Problem #4 is money. Yoga is expensive. Blake says we can do it if we cut back on some things but right now we’re already in overdraft because of Blake’s CPAP machine and it’s not that I don’t believe him that we can financially do this if it’s important – and part of me thinks it is – it’s that I’m scared we’ll drop all this money on it and I’ll go once, freak out and never go again, wasting money we could have spent on, I dunno, FOOD. I suppose in a way, most of my fears are the fear of failure, which I know has been a problem for most of my life and I don’t know how to adapt and get over it and just do what I want to do.

So that’s the yoga issue.

The other parts of the metabolic workshop, as I said, were kind of a blur. I know that there’s going to be a lot of talk about food and its effects on metabolism and how different foods affect it differently. She said there’s going to be a lot of discussion on the importance of sleep, which I’m actually kind of already aware of because that’s a big component of bipolar disorder. They’re going to explain good fats vs. bad fats and stuff like that. I forget what else she said would be a part of the workshop, but she was so excited about it that it was infectious and I’m actually looking forward to it. See, though? I lied up there ^^^. I actually REALLY like to learn, like with my brain, I’m just not a physical person at all, I mean, I FAILED gym every year of my life. That’s another reason why I’m scared to do Wii Fit in front of the kids.

And then there’s the fact that the workshop is going to be 2 hours, every Tuesday, for most of the summer holidays, so not only is Blake going to have to use 10 vacation days (out of about 16) to take me to this thing, he’s going to have to bring the kids with him. (Although leaving Madison with Wes is an option to explore…but it makes me uneasy being 1/2 an hour away from home.)

I dunno. I’m in a weird place these days. In a lot of respects I feel like my life is sort of getting back on track but in other ways it’s completely off the rails. My creativity pool right now is very very low, which makes me depressed. I have two paintings on the go which should have been done like, 2 weeks ago and here I am barely in the first stages of shading the girls’ faces. I’m exhausted all the time and sleeping at stupid hours because in the “transitional seasons” by body goes all out of whack trying to adjust to a new sleep schedule that I can’t even begin to figure out the basis of. My dad wants us to come up for a visit, probably Father’s Day weekend and I really want to go because they just put a huge addition on their house and I want to see it, but at the same time, I hate the pain in the ass it is to go up there with the dogs and everything.

There’s more negative stuff but I don’t feel like elaborating on it because I feel like I’ve done it before. I probably do it every year.

In the positive, I am 3 weeks smoke-free. My dress from Free People that I plan on wearing to The Square Foot Show (which is an art show, for those not paying attention) came today and Blake’s going to pick it up at the post office tomorrow or Saturday. I sold a painting last week (I think? maybe the week before) and I spent most of the proceeds on awesome stuff from Etsy for Blake for Father’s Day and it should all be arriving soon. I also bought myself a ring to wear to The Square Foot Show because my wedding ring doesn’t fit due to my newfound fatness and I feel awkward being in such a public place without it. Despite the fact that I’m currently 20-ish lbs overweight, I still tend to get hit on often enough that my wedding ring (or in this case, a stand-in) to me is kind of like a shield from creepers.

I got new business cards from MOO that are pretty cool a couple of weeks ago, although I’m almost out of MOO mini cards and I’m hoping to sell a painting before the Square Foot Show so I can order some more to bring with me to hand out. Also with the proceeds of my sale, I bought 10 cans of Krylon because I want to experiment with different varnishes over the summer when I have the ability to spray outside. But just the fact that I had the ability to walk into Wal*Mart and buy 10 fucking cans of Krylon made me feel good about myself, like I was on the right track. The fact that I had the ability to spoil my husband rotten, who deserves it more than anyone I could possibly think of…shit like that just makes me feel independent and secure, somehow, which is something I don’t feel very often.

I also feel good about the fact that right now, my little Etsy business is making enough money to not only sustain itself as far as materials now, but I can buy promotional items like business cards, pay my Etsy bill at the end of every month and still have enough left over to buy myself a dress, a ring and Blake a whole bunch of crap I can’t even tell you about because he’s reading this. Not only could I buy 10 cans of Krylon, but I could buy 12 blank canvases too! The sale of a couple of paintings, for me, can be stretched and stretched and stretched and it just feels good to have my own money, to be able to buy my husband a gift with MY OWN MONEY. Maybe no one else will understand this, but in the (almost) 8 years Blake and I have been married, I haven’t given him very many gifts and the reason for this is because I think it would be stupid to buy someone a gift with their own money, especially when they can look at the credit card statement and see what it is.

So what I’m saying is that I feel good about being somewhat financially independent at the moment. Well, sort of…I have a tiny bit of padding in my PayPal account right now, enough to pay my Etsy bill for a couple of months, which actually makes me completely broke but whatever. My theory on money is that you can always make more and I *do* have two paintings on the go, one I’m fairly certain I can sell quickly and one that I’ll probably sell at The Square Foot Show. (I have to replicate “Shimmer” because it got ruined by a kid…)

I’m looking forward to the summer holidays with the kids. Madison has this friend, who I’ll call “E”, that I actually quite like and I’m hoping that she’ll be spending a significant part of her summer at our house because between her and Madison, they could do some really creative things with Madison’s sewing machine. E knows how to make her own clothes, and does, whereas Madison wishes she had those kinds of skills and the only way she’s going to learn them is from E. Also, E comes from a very…crappy background. She’s a foster kid and I think hanging out with our family and sort of being a casual part of our family may be good for her.

Another thing I’m looking forward to is the beach. I’ve lost enough weight that I fit into one of the bathing suits my friend Raya bought me a few years ago without looking gross, so it’s safe to go to the beach again and that makes me happy. When we first moved here, the first summer we were here, it was SO hot for a while there that I would have all of our beach gear packed up so that the second Blake got home from work, we could all get in the car and go to the beach for a couple of hours when it was less crowded. Often we’d get a couple of subs on the way and I’d bring a knife to cut them up and we’d have dinner on the beach. I miss that and I’m hoping for a very hot summer so we can do that again.

I’m also looking forward to reading books all night. Lots of them. I wish I had more, though. Right now I only have 1 & a 1/2 and our little library sucks. :o/

I’m hoping to sell a painting or two over the summer holidays so I can have cash on hand to do things with and for the kids. Like, I want to be able to say to them, “ya wanna make $2? go out to the garden and pull all the weeds,” which they would do because they like money and will have nothing better to do. Or, “hey do you want to have pizza for lunch? Here’s $15 and a list, ride your bike to the grocery store and pick these things up,”. Or, “here’s $5, go get an ice cream cone at McDonald’s”. Stuff like that. With my own money. I want to be able to do these extra things for my kids without being a financial burden to Blake, because they deserve it. They’re really really great kids.

Alright, it’s now almost 4:30am which means I’ve been rambling about basically nothing for the past hour & a half and I think my sleep meds are kicking in because my thoughts are getting fuzzy. SO! Goodnight!