For Wes the Pokemon Freak for Xmas:

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry. I took about 50 pictures using “burst”, trying to get one that wasn’t blurry, and literally only 3 were acceptable and this was the best of the bunch. It’s pretty easy to make, as long as you have a steady hand. I used Sharpie Poster Paint marker for the mouth, nose and eyes, then I just used my finger in metallic red acrylic paint for the cheeks and white acrylic paint for the dots in his (her?) eyes. Its ears are made from yellow glittered cardstock from Michael’s and I painted the tips of them black, on a slant, like in the pictures I found on Google image search. For ear shape, I just free-handed it. I THINK I DID AN EXCELLENT JOB.

Behold! Our 3 feet tall Xmas tree!

It’s a pretty sad little Xmas tree, if I do say so myself, but it kinda fits our very small, very sad-looking house. Actually that’s not true, I think our house looks happy from the outside and EXTREMELY lived-in on the inside. Every square inch of our house is covered with STUFF. That’s why we need a new house, there’s nowhere to put our stuff and there’s zero privacy – from our neighbours, nor from each other. (I totally read that in my head as “our chudders”. Madison used to say “our chudders” instead of “each others” [say it fast, "eachudders"] and we still say it all the time.)

This is one of my prized possessions:

She was my great grama’s angel, back when my great grama actually had a big tree. (When she got older and couldn’t set the tree up herself, she bought a pink, white and silver, pre-decorated, 1 foot tall Xmas tree that I hope, with all my heart, to inherit one day. But I probably won’t. :o() She’s not antique, yet, but she’s probably really collectible being from the 50′s or so. Another decoration I remember from the same era that my great grama also had was a weird, red pointy thing that said something something “Sputnik” on the box. That’s probably worth something today too. That I would part with, probably, the angel I never will.

The tree is set up directly to my left, on the other side of the room, which is only about 2 feet away so I’ve had a little while to sit here looking at it and contemplating the state of things. As I mentioned previously, Phil & Lisa are mad at me and if I had to put money on it, we won’t be invited to their house next year for Xmas and I can hear Blake now saying “you don’t know that!” but yes I do. I’ve known Lisa for over half my life at this point and she’s very sentimental. She also holds grudges, she’s passive-aggressive and she can lay a guilt trip on you that would shame the staunchest of Jewish mothers. Whatever they end up doing for Xmas THIS year, is also what they’ll end up doing NEXT year, as it’ll become the new “tradition” because we are now unreliable for tradition despite having legitimate reasons for not going up North this year. I would be willing to put money on this. (Although it’s possible that Lisa is reading this – she’d never tell me if she were – and just because I’ve written this and I think this, she would then do the opposite and expect us next year.)

The thing is, well…one of the things, is that Lisa is now the matriarch of her family and she’s pretty young to be one. Her brother Paul and her (for all intents and purposes) sister-in-law Sandy do things with Sandy’s family for Xmas, at Sandy’s house. Sandy not only has a living mother, but also a son who is either already married or engaged and who has a toddler. As far as Xmas is concerned, they are their own little unit at Paul & Sandy’s house where Sandy is (despite having a living mother), the matriarch. She’s the one whose house it is, she’s the one who does (most) of the cooking, therefore, she is the matriarch and as we all know, Xmas is a matriarchal event. I mean, please correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s how it’s always been in my lifetime and that’s also always how it’s been in the other families I’ve observed (boyfriends’/Blake’s family). Sure, it’s “traditional” for the “man of the house” to carve the bird, but it’s the lady of the house who cooked it, who set the table, who put up the tree, who hung the mistletoe, who put the wreath on the front door and told the husband to put up the lights. She’s also the one who wrapped the gifts, with the exception of her own, which is the modern age, usually comes in a gift bag.

My point is that since the death of her own parents, Lisa has struggled to be the matriarch of her family and to create her own traditions. Since we were in the same boat (sort of…) at the disowning of  everyone in my family but my mother (and sometimes her too), we started going up North for Xmas. It just made sense. We had little kids, they had little kids and we were all in mutual agreement that it was all about the little kids.

But now our kids aren’t so little and neither of them believe in Santa anymore*. My sisters are 7 and almost 3, they have a few years left of the whole Santa thing and while I normally like my sisters for the most part, I cannot STAND them on Xmas and I’m not a huge fan of my parents either when it comes to them at this time of year. To put it mildly, they are spoiled brats, 365 days a year. That’s Lisa’s prerogative, of course, and none of my business, but I don’t think I should have to put up with it and neither should my husband or my kids. Raili antagonizes Wes. They get along on Xmas Eve, they get along on Xmas morning – that is until the presents happen. Raili is so spoiled the rest of the year that she disregards her mountain of presents and spends the rest of the morning driving Wes crazy, who only wants to play with his presents in peace. Madison gets stuck playing babysitter while Phil and Lisa make dinner, which sucks for Madison because Madison actually can’t stand kids and doesn’t want any of her own. The kid has zero maternal feelings whatsoever. (It can be said that Madison was a pain in the ass when they were up North while I was in the hospital this summer but that can easily be dismissed as Lisa expecting Madison to keep the kids occupied and make her job easier and Madison resenting it. That’s not to say Madison isn’t a pain in the ass, she is, but I think Lisa expected Madison to make things much easier instead of much harder when she agreed to take them. Also? Lisa was a total pain in OUR ass while we were in the fight of our fucking lives, wondering when we were going to pick the kids up and when we finally had a vague idea of when the kids could come home, she only met us half way between her house and ours.)

The fact of the matter is, it’s stressful for all of us to go up there, with the possible exception of Wes, who is fast outgrowing Raili and who has zero interest in Rachael. It’s been stressful for me since Day 1, it’s become stressful for Blake in the past couple of years because he can’t stand watching Raili and now Rachael becoming more and more bratty by the year due to absolute and total parenting fail, and then of course every year, Phil is a total asshole to Lisa, yelling at her in front of us for not parenting correctly meanwhile he won’t get up off his own ass and do anything and then – and then! – we agree, at Phil’s urging, to stay Boxing Day and sometimes the day after that and guess who fucks off to go snowmobiling with Paul early Boxing Day morning? Oh that’s right, my father who is SO GRATEFUL to have his family together at Xmas.

Long story short, I’m not seeing why we keep up this tradition except to secure Lisa’s place of matriarchy and I’m sorry but I grew up in a 5 generation deep matriarchy and it’s fucking stupid! I’m not saying that tradition is stupid, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I think maybe, after a few years of false starts, it’s time we start creating our own instead of blindly following Lisa’s for the sake of…nothing?

And before I get into tradition further, a lot of this has to do with the fact that Lisa and Phil did not go through this thing with us this summer. They were not present. My mother? She was present. Blake and I were talking about it last night and he said that Phil and Lisa can very easily put things into the categories of “their shit” and “our shit” and my REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS ILLNESS was most definitely put into the category of “their shit”. My mother was incapable of making that distinction. Therein lies the difference. Doing my mother’s house for Boxing Day has been a tradition since I was about 11. We don’t do it on Boxing Day anymore because it’s just too much at one time to do 2 Xmases back to back with the kids, but it’s still a tradition, it still feels the same (to me anyway) to do Xmas with my mom 3 days after Xmas as it did when I was 12 to do it Boxing Day. It may feel different to my mom, who still has Xmas dinner at her mom’s on Xmas Day despite the fact that my mother loves Xmas more than any other day of the year and (I think) would really love to host her own Xmas dinner one day, as she has her entire life because of that goddamn “M” word again: matriarchy. But I don’t know.

All I know, as I look at my great grama’s angel on my itty bitty tree, is that maybe, just maybe, I would like to decorate my own tree with my own decorations next year. Because really, what am I supposed to do with the ornaments my kids bring home from school every year that I’ve been collecting them since they were small, give them to Lisa to put on her tree? Because what’s the point, I’ve always wondered, of putting up our own tree when we don’t have Xmas here and we don’t really have room for one? I could give them to my mom and my mom would probably appreciate them, but my mom’s got very specific tastes when it comes to Xmas and decorating a tree (we, the kids, would decorate the Xmas tree in the afternoon and my mom would re-decorate it after we went to bed, I’m sure she would deny this, but one year I saw her do it and I know she wasn’t the only mom in the world who did the same thing) and I think my kids’ homemade ornaments would be best served on my own tree. And I think the best-tasting turkeys are free ones from our grocery store, lovingly prepared by Blake with mashed potatoes made by Madison and green beans microwaved by Wes. And fuck it, we can clean up the mess tomorrow.

This year plans haven’t been finalized, but this is how I think things are going to go (and it’s no big deal if they don’t): Deanna is coming up tomorrow around 1pm. She’s bringing the kids presents because she’s a nice person. She’s also bringing up presents from my cousin Haylie because she’s a nice person too. After work, Alex and Ronny are coming over. We will sit in my office or living room and shoot the shit until Deanna has to drive home to Uxbridge. Then Alex & Ronny will go home and we’ll have dinner like we do every night. We’ve invited Alex & Ronny to sleep over on Xmas Eve but I’m not sure yet if they’re going to. The idea is that they’ll be here Xmas morning (which can happen whether or not they sleep over, but I’m sure the kids would appreciate it if they were here as early as possible) and we’ll all have a big breakfast together. The kids will open presents (as I’ve mentioned, Blake and I aren’t getting each other anything and we don’t exchange gifts with Ronny & Alex – although I am making something for Alex and giving it to her on Xmas, but that’s only because she’s my friend and I like her and she’s going to be here on Xmas and I can’t get it done by tomorrow, it’s not an Xmas gift), I don’t know if Ronny & Alex will exchange gifts with each other. No big deal to us either way. After breakfast, Wes and Madison will do the dishes and Blake will get started on the turkey while Alex and Ronny and me do whatever in my office. Then later we’ll all eat Xmas dinner, Alex & Ronny will go home and the best part? We won’t have to stress out our dogs or ourselves and, if they choose, when Ronny and Alex have their own house or apartment, they can choose if they want to host Xmas for their family OR they can come to our house OR any number of things because it doesn’t matter! We’ll be doing what we do, the more the merrier, but no big deal if it’s just us. THE END.

See how easy that is? No guilt trips. No “well they got us X last year so we’d better spend Y on them this year”. No annoying brats (for many many years at least). Happy dogs that won’t barf on the way anywhere and who won’t have to sleep on a dirty blanket on a cold, concrete floor (and people who understand that there are 7 members of our family, not 4). OUR *OWN* LEFTOVERS (turkey and stuffing is probably my favourite food, followed closely by turkey sandwiches with mayo and pepper). A reason to put up our own tree and decorate it with our own ornaments. A reason to make our own ornaments (and not just to give them away). And that’s just the stuff I can think of!

And if Lisa wants to be the matriarch of her family, she can be one! And Phil can put all the pine nuts he wants in his own stuffing and feed his own family as many casseroles as he can come up with.  And they can trim their own tree with all the ornaments that Raili and Rachael come home from school with. And they can believe in Santa Claus. And Phil can go snowmobiling Xmas Day and Boxing Day and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that…! And they can all put up with each other and I don’t have to feel like shit on the one holiday where I’m supposed to feel anything but! THAT’S WHAT I WANT FOR XMAS! NOT A FUCKING TOASTER OVEN!

So once the dust settles from this year’s festivities and we survey how things went, this is probably what’s going to happen and I won’t lie to you guys. The majority of the reason for this is because A) where were they when I was pretty fucking close to death? and I’m sorry but if you weren’t there for me then, you never will be and if you never will be, then fuck off and B) you don’t pull this passive-aggressive bullshit on me when I have no other fucking choice. Lisa didn’t reply to Blake’s e-mail for 3 or 4 days and then replied with “oh by the way, your shit’s on a bus, Merry Christmas”. Compromising, like maybe them coming here for Xmas this year, didn’t even enter the equation. Or even saying “that’s okay, we understand, hopefully next year will be better!” Nope, just thinly veiled animosity.

So fuck it. I’ll spend my pre-Xmas afternoons making hand-painted ornaments for my son for my tree. Fine by me.

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(*Wes only this year and only because we told him. We didn’t have the money for “Santa presents” this year, or stocking stuffers and we knew there would only be maybe one more year of him still believing anyway so Blake told him. Also – and I’ve always thought this – why should Santa get all the credit for what *I* do? That’s retarded! We work hard to give our kids a good Xmas and to get them the things they want, some mythical being shouldn’t get all the cred. and cut into our Xmas budget. And don’t gimme that Jesus crap being the “reason for the season” either, grace has never been uttered in this house on any occasion.)

I feel like absolute garbage, my stomach is just really really upset. I also haven’t washed my hair in a few days and that’s not helping my mood. I fully intend to have a shower after I make this post later though, so that should make things a little better.

This is the crappiest December ever. I was digging through old Live Journal entries this morning (at 4:30am, which is when I tend to get up these days) and 6 years ago, on December 7th, we had a snow day and a good 3-4 feet of snow. I remember this because my brother was here. My brother who resurfaced yesterday in the form of a wall comment on my Facebook fan page.

When I got the e-mail notification, I was like “wtf?” so I went to look and read it like 5 times without understanding what he was saying because he doesn’t believe in punctuation, but I got the gist of it and just started crying.

If you recall, I haven’t spoken to my brother in 6 years, almost to the day of that Facebook comment. Here’s a journal entry to refresh your memory of that little bit of drama. In fact, and I’m only pointing this out because some people may not know, you can use the tags on my Live Journal to read the whole saga as it happened in real time, if you wanted to.

My brother doesn’t know I was/am sick. My mom wanted to tell him face to face, but that never happened. As far as I’ve been told, my mom hasn’t seen my brother in the flesh for over a year, maybe longer, and hasn’t received an e-mail from him in quite some time either.

I e-mailed him and literally just said “Hey what’s up? How are you?” and left it at that. If he replies, which he may not since all he has is his phone, I’m not sure I’m even going to tell him about being sick. I think he won’t understand the gravity of what the situation was, how fucked up I am now physically, and I think that’ll just upset me. Honestly, I kinda feel it’s just none of his business. I realize that’s weird to say when I’ve been chronicling the whole thing on a website read by strangers (so to speak) but the way I see it is that he’s free to read this website too, nothin’ stopping him. I’m not going to type out the whole story again just for him.

But I think mostly I’m just afraid that he won’t care and that he’ll hurt me. :o(

Oh also, I deleted his message from my fan page because I didn’t want trolls and yahoos calling his cell phone or e-mailing him. I wrote down his e-mail address and phone number in case I ever need it, but I don’t think I ever will.

So that’s what’s happening with that. Fun fun drama drama.

Tomorrow night is Blake’s work Xmas party and I really really don’t want to go but Blake really really wants me to. He said that if I don’t go to work functions for like, 5 years and then all of a sudden I go to one, it’ll be weirder and more awkward than if I just go this time and get it over with so I guess that’s what I’m going to do. Blake says if I go this year then I don’t have to go to any other work functions ever again so I guess I’ll just suck it up and go.  He also said that if I want to leave after 5 minutes, that’s okay, so we’ll see how things go. I’ll be bringing the iPad and I fully intend to find myself a corner to hide in so I can screw around on Facebook or something until it’s over. I don’t want Blake to like, drag me around meeting people or anything like that but I’m guessing he will because that’s what you do at parties and Blake’s like, this extroverted social butterfly who really wants me to meet his work people.

So whatever, I guess I have to go.

I guess the good news is that he doesn’t work in Barrie anymore so it won’t be a party full of soccer moms talking about potty training and snack time. Most of Blake’s co-workers don’t even have kids. Why do I care whether or not they have kids? Because nothing is as boring to me as hearing about people’s kids unless they are exceptional in some way and let’s face it, most of them aren’t, yet parents brag like they are. I write about my kids here but you’re welcome to not read it, walk away, you can’t do that so much face to face. Plus I write this for me, not you. The only thing more boring than hearing about people’s kids is their dreams, followed by their jobs unless they do something exceptional, which is hardly ever the case. And all of these people do computer crap for a telecom, I don’t understand, don’t want to understand and couldn’t care less. (Although I get the sense that these guys aren’t the type to bore you with details about their jobs. Plus they have to take a shot if they do.)

Anyway, I’d rather go to the dentist than go to this thing but…such is love.

I’m having a shitty day. I’m in a shitty mood. I think I’m going to step away from the keyboard and go have a nap.

FOLLOW ME!

What IS Pinterest?

Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board but not like a message board or a forum, it’s for visually “pinning” bookmarks to any URL for use at another time. You create “boards”, for example I made one for “Sunnyland Studio”, and you “pin” things that strike your fancy so you can find them later. I “pinned” all of my paintings on my site and Etsy (well, not ALL of them) on my “Sunnyland Studio” board because people can “repin” things that strike their fancy to show up on their own boards, so it’s kind of like free advertising if your own stuff goes viral, which a couple of my paintings have.

You can also go to Pinterest’s main page to see what other people are pinning, which I find really really addictive, especially in the food category because there are so many recipes that look good. Blake’s on Pinterest too and that’s how we’re sharing recipes since he does 95% of the cooking. My other big board is called “Creative Inspiration” and it’s just stuff I’ve come across on Pinterest and on the internet that helps my brain to tick along. One thing I pinned so far has resulted in artwork for the Build a Rainbow project but I have no idea when it’ll be done so it probably won’t be finished in time. Oh well.

Speaking of Build a Rainbow, Madison did a lot of the colours for the challenge but I’ll make a new post about that.

The reason I decided to take the plunge into Pinterest after rejecting it a few months ago is because my friend Jax tweeted that she was going to a Pinterest party, which sounds very very interesting to me. Apparently you go to someone’s house and you make crafts and food based on the things everyone’s pinned. I don’t have the details of the party yet, I think it was last night, but I’m very interested in it because it seems like something my mom might want to do and if she did, I’d definitely want to come and so would Madison probably.

Anyway, Pinterest is cool and totally addictive. I’m loving it.

IF YOU NEED AN INVITE, SEND ME YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS!
Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com

I am soooooo wiped out. Last night after the art show I almost fell asleep while I was eating so Blake put me to bed where I slept ALL NIGHT (a rare occurrence) and then this morning I had a 2 & a half our nap. Granted, it was because of the hydromorph, but I’m still just kinda “blah” from being social and out last night. I just leave the house so rarely that when I do, it really takes a lot out of me, especially if I have to talk to people and like, climb stairs. (Stairs are still really difficult for me.)

I’m an artist.
My name tag says so.

Touched By Fire was a great event, just as it is every year. I didn’t have any of the appetizers because all of them had either ground meat (swedish meatballs, sliders) which I try to stay away from or weird cheeses, which I also stay away from. Oh and one had spinach. Gross. So that part kinda sucked considering that was what I was looking forward to since I knew I wouldn’t win one of the awards or sell my painting so I was really just going to see the art and eat good food.

But the thing is, I DID SELL MY PAINTING! I was in absolute shock when my mom told me. The buyer didn’t come speak to me at all, so I have no idea who bought it, but this is the first time I’ve sold a painting to someone I didn’t already know. So thank you to whoever bought it!

I’d brought business cards with me to put on the tables that are usually strewn about the event, so Blake distributed those and I’m going to assume that some new people are now reading this as a result. Hi new people! :o) And it’s not as tacky as it sounds, my business cards are Moo cards with full bleed photos of one of my girls’ faces on the front with my website url and Etsy url on the back. They’re more like ATCs than business cards, totally collectible. Also, the last time I did this event people did that with their business cards and I felt totally unprofessional for not having any to do the same. This time I was prepared.

When we got there we were given a show catalogue each and they gave me my name tag, which I immediately hid by putting the catalogue over it because that name tag is the worst part of the whole thing. I hate it. But I know that’s just me and I realize that it’s necessary, but I still hate it. I guess there’s no law saying I have to wear it, but you’re supposed to, so I did, but kept it well hidden, especially when we got around to my painting. But let me back up…we got there and went upstairs to the gallery which is above a furniture store and is HUGE and we went around looking at all of the art, a lot of which is really cool.

My favourite piece was called “The Elephant In The Room” by Kimberly Denny. It was actually two pieces in one and it’s kind of hard to explain…she took two pictures of a brain, one on each sheet of paper, and then she hand wrote the story of this lady in the very early 1900s who was the first person to be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and the reason she was diagnosed was because one of her personalities killed someone and her punishment was to be hanged. She got off though, because she claimed insanity. So Kimberly hand wrote that story on two sheets of paper and then she….I’m not even sure what she did exactly, to be honest, she used some sort of medium that dried clear and looked like glass when it was finished, and poured it onto the sheets of paper and allowed it to dry. Then she drilled two holes in the top of each sheet and they were hung from the ceiling at the show. The piece was meant to “get in your way” and be interactive and it was really really nice, I really enjoyed it.

Another one I REALLY liked was by Richard A. Jacobson called “I Saw My Father’s Eyes” because it was massive and so so detailed and realistic. He’s on the site twice, it seems, once as Richard and once as Rick. The paintings he has on there as Rick are similar to the one I liked (the faces) but the big one he has on there as Richard was there last night and it was really quite impressive. The wrench and the spade were there as well. I just can’t even imagine how you would paint something so big yet so detailed. I don’t have that kind of realism talent AT ALL so when I see it, I’m just kind of awed.

There were a LOT of really interesting pieces, you should check out the website gallery. (Although none of the pieces from last night will be on it.) You can buy pieces through the website but there are no “buy it now” type of buttons so I’m not sure how you actually buy anything. I guess you would have to e-mail them if you saw a piece you liked. Kind of an ass backward way of doing things, if you ask me, but at the same time, if you buy through the site, I would get 100% of the money, as opposed to Etsy where I have to part with 3.5% of the sale price.

The lady who was sort of in charge of putting the show together (there was actually a jury of 3 people, two guys and this lady) is named Colette. She’s the Director of Cooper’s Fine Art Gallery. Blake found her at one point last night, to ask if we could take my painting home after the show since it would be a pain in the ass to have to come back down to Toronto just to get it. (That was before we knew it had sold.) She actually wanted to talk to me, so she came over to where my mom and I were standing and we started talking and she said how much she liked my work. I confessed that I wasn’t sure how I got into the show and before I could explain that my confusion was because my girls are usually pretty happy and this show is usually pretty dour or manic, she cut me off and said, “it’s because you’re really really fucking talented”. So I thanked her and then someone asked her something and she went off to talk to them, but at the end of the night when we were about to go home, I sent Blake with some business cards to find her and she gave him her phone number and told him that she wanted him to bring down some of my pieces so she could show this gallery that would be “perfect” for showing my work. I’m nit sure how all of this works, but I’m pretty excited about it because this is what I’ve been wanting for for a long time and now it’s looking like things are going to start happening! *squee*

The best moment of the show though, which was kind of awkward at the time but in retrospect I think it was my favourite part, was when we were looking at my painting (and reading to see that there were no typos in my blurb haha), Blake suddenly said to someone behind me, “do you like this painting?” and when I turned around there was a little girl who was maybe 6 and she was just kinda looking at my painting, and then back at Blake, with huge eyes and awe. Blake kinda put her on the spot  though (and me! because he followed up with “because she painted it” and pointed right at me) but it was the best moment of the show because she is exactly who I would want to see my work. She is my exact audience. That moment was so precious to me, I’ll never forget it. Aside from my own kids, she’s the first child to ever see one of my paintings. I’ve sold one to a guy (heinousjay) who gave the piece to his 2 year old niece but I didn’t see her reaction and she was probably too young to really have one.

Anyway…so that was cool.

After the show we just went home. Stopped at a gas station to buy a drink and my mom bought me a bag of ketchup chips since I didn’t really have any dinner (the appetizers were supposed to be my dinner) and I almost fell asleep on the way home. When we got to the McDonald’s on the highway we stopped for grungeburgers and as I said at the beginning, I almost fell asleep eating mine.

It was a great evening, I think my mom had a good time, and I hope I get into the show next year. I think I may paint another version of The Two Sunnies for entry, the original of which I gave to my shrink last year for Xmas, because that’s the kind of work I think they want. Also I was never happy with the original, I think I can do better, so I think I’m going to try.

Today has been pretty mellow. It’s snowing at the moment, a sight I’m going to have to get used to. I’ve gotten over my issue with eating salad during cold months, for the most part, and that’s what I had for lunch today. I call it “hospital salad” because this is how they made it when I was in the hospital last month:

Lettuce, spinach, English cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and grated carrots.

I also, for some reason, thought you should all see my desktop. I’m not sure why, it was just something I decided while I was editing pics:

Happy Weekend!!!

—————————- Original Message —————————-

Subject: Hair! NIOXIN

From: “Lori-Anne” <sunnysmom@gmail.com>

Date: Thu, December 8, 2011 9:57 am

To: “Sarah” <Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com>

————————————————————————–

I’m on my way to get this NOW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nioxin

Friend Anne told me about it…got the name this morning, and called

Terri…She knows & recommends it.

3 part system. Shampoo/conditioner AND most important, Folical Booster.

Meeting Dean (her partner) in the parking lot of the salon suppliers….in

20 minutes. Gotta GO!

Love YOU!

mom

–

A Simpler Time ~ Join me on Facebook!

www.facebook.com/pages/A-Simpler-Time/107844892584854

www.Lori-AnneCrittenden.com

—————————————————————————

Terri is my cousin who’s a hairdresser and I’m guessing this means that she’s the one who bought the stuff and that my mom’s going to pick it up right now so she can give it to me when we pick her up for Touched By Fire.

I’m skeptical of course, but willing to try anything. *shrug*

Thanks, Mom (and Terri)!

WATCH GODAMMIT.

Don’t make me post it again! Okay that’s not true, I’m not posting it for you guys. I’m posting it for me because this is how my tabs are laid out every day (I don’t close my browser or turn off my computer like, ever): Live Journal, my e-mail, my site, Etsy, Facebook, Anybeat and then whatever I’m working on, like a post or whatever in other tabs. SO, if I post my boyfriend’s video at the top of a post, I have easy access to it in TWO TABS and can replay it at my leisure. Which I do. A whole lot.

It IS Friday though, kids, and that means MAYBE, JUST MAYBE there will be a new Erock video tonight! I’m creaming my panties in antici…pation. (Not really, just curious as to what he’s gonna shoot out next. Hey wait that sounded dirty too, I can’t win….*facepalm*)

So I went to the doctor on Wednesday and now I need a new doctor. My newfie surgeon is a fucking OTTAWA FAN with the JERSEY AND EVERYTHING! THE NERVE! I wore my Leafs jersey on Wednesday because we won TWO games 7-1 recently and like, you wear your jersey while they’re doing well because who knows when they’re gonna shit the bed, so I wore my jersey and first of all, when we were at Chapters, we were getting into the car and some lady yelled “Is that a Leafs jersey I see? Good job!” or something like that but I didn’t hear it so my mom had to tell me second hand. Bummer, but still, compliment, so…WIN! But then when I was at Dr. Hanrahan’s office, she walked in and was like “oh no you are NOT wearing that jersey in my office!” and then we had words, bonded over the loveliness of Sydney Crosby (oh be quiet, he’s lovely) and got down to brass tacks.

She thinks she’ll be closing me up as a Christmas present. Her words. That means late December. I still have to hear from the guy at St. Mike’s to have the pseudocyst drained but Dr. Hanrahan said that since we haven’t heard from him, she’s going to chase him down herself. Whether that’s true or not, I’m not sure, but let’s hope because I would really like to have my surgery before Xmas. I don’t care if I have to spend Xmas in the hospital, I want this over with. Plus I hate Xmas anyway, for the most part. Xmas Xmas Xmas.

So that was pretty much all she said. She had a medical student named Magda with her and she went over my whole history with her so she could follow what was going on and Dr. Hanrahan said something like, “There’s 4 rules in surgery: sleep when you can, eat when you can, spend as much time with your partner as you can and don’t mess with the pancreas!” The pancreas, in case you all weren’t aware yet, is a VERY BIG DEAL.

Anyway, Renee, as my mom likes to call her went down my history and basically said, “This lady should not be sitting here right now, she had every single possible complication, you name it, she had it and she’s here to live to tell about it and that’s a miracle.”

Hearing that is very hard for me. I don’t like to hear about how I almost died. I mean I do like to hear about what happened to me at St. Mike’s because I don’t remember any of it but I don’t like to hear about how I should NOT be here because I am here and that’s kinda like talking about me in past tense or something and I just don’t like it. It makes me cry.

My new friend Jessie, who has chronic pancreatitis and who, unlike me, can’t just have surgery to make it all better, left me this amazing comment that I want to share with everyone because it was just so damn beautiful and exactly what I needed to hear after I got home on Wednesday:

“Wow. You heal super fast! Yeah, I saw your wound. That’s all scar tissue now? Damn, girl! Go you!

 Yeah, it’s hard to deal with it. I was suicidal for a very long time. It’s been almost 6 years, 5.5 years, I remind myself that all the time. For a long time it was hard for me to cope with my loss… because, really, it IS a loss. You lose your life as you know it. Forever and ever. I am still accepting that, every.single.day. You have to mourn your experience. It takes a loong time. It’s difficult.

I tried to force my self to move forward with life and it was impossible. You know the seven stages of grief, right? Well, be prepared to go through every one of them. And give yourself a lot of time. It’s been 6 years and I’m still not done.

 I don’t know. It’s hard. It takes time.

 It helped me to track my progress. Tiny things… like healed wounds and days without puking. Those things matter. Because there will be times when you feel like you have been sick FOREVER and that you’ll NEVER get any better. But, you will. Slowly but surely. Whether it be getting physically healthier or just getting better at coping with the sickness.

 Human beings were meant to survive. We were built to forget pain; a survival skill. We were built to move forward and live. Just care for yourself and appreciate your life and take it as slow as you need to.

 Oh, jeezus… look at me getting all emotional.

 I have no idea how I get all my nutrients. I drink a lot of those protein drinks, too, take prenatal gummy vitamins (omg im addicted), and vit B, and load up on great-for-me-foods when I’m actually able to keep things down. Soup helps. I love soup. It’s easy on the stomach and you can cram a lot of veggies and protein into soup.

 I’m tired all the time, too, but autoimmune disorders will do that to ya. You will heal. Sleeeeep and try to eat and just take care of yourself. Take vitamins. They’re my best friend.

 While I’m having an emotional moment let me say:

 Don’t ever feel guilty for being sick, okay?

It’s plagued me for years. It caused me to push myself and hurt myself and not help myself at all. You deserve to get better. You deserve LIFE! I know you have a family and obviously it has/will be hard on everybody… But, LOVE yourself. Just as much as they do. More. Take care of yourself. Don’t get down on yourself. You’re a survivor and you are alive for a reason.

 You will go on with your life again. You will. It will be changed. For the better, though, if you let it. <3

 /Emotional Rant (SHUT UP JESSIE!)

 :) <3″

I barely know this girl, but we’re basically kin at this point because we’re going/have gone through pretty much the exact same things.

So something I asked the doctor about was my thinning hair. It is simply falling out. A lot. In fact if I lose much more, I’m literally just going to shave it all off again because it’s really starting to look like crap. The short and sweet of it is that I need protein in mass quantities and I need to supplement my diet with a protein drink. The only protein drink I can stomach, which I didn’t even know about until this week, is called Isopure PLUS and it’s a clear juicy drink that’s actually not that bad. The problem though, is that it’s $17 for 6 drinks (after tax) and that’s an extra expense we really can’t afford. But I need it, so on Visa it shall go, we guess. It has 15g of protein per bottle and according to my mother I need around 45g per day based on some weight chart she found online. I’m trying really hard to eat that much protein but it’s not easy when A) you can’t keep everything down and B) you’re as picky an eater as I am. I simply cannot eat beans, they’re just too disgusting.

So that’s the gist of what’s happened this week. My mom bought me a Sharpie Liquid Pencil (which I keep forgetting to test out but they’re really neat!) and a clear t-square at Curry’s. At Curry’s I bought 3 sketchbooks for $15 (score!), a PINK mechanical pencil with PINK erasable lead and a pink pen to use in my pink journal.

As I mentioned we also went to Chapters before my appointment and there we got the new issue of Juztapoz because Mark Ryden did the cover and poor Sunnies can only afford to frame covers of magazines and put them on the wall.

Yesterday I also started playing Warcraft again…god help me…I will never get this sketchbook finished…(I also postponed getting Skyrim so Blake can get his Star Wars game when it comes out)…

So if you know me at all, you know I get crushes on various boys pretty easily, especially if they happen to be in the arts in any way. ESPECIALLY if they’re super good or super passionate about something. Then I go mental.

So right now I have this pretty massive crush on Eric Calderone who’s this metal genius on YouTube who does covers of popular songs. And he’s absolutely, drop dead motherfucking gorgeous. Not to be crude (too late) but whenever he posts a new video, I sit there watching and my clitoris literally twitches, it’s the most bizarre thing that’s never happened before.

Now of course I would never act on any of these crushes and if faced with one of them I’d probably embarrass myself by crying or something lame like that, but I would definitely like to be friends with them. Like, internet friends. The way I am with you guys except like…we e-mail dumb shit to each other and stuff. Like I do with other people. Like like like.

But anyway, I love him and here’s some of my favourite Erock videos (yes, he calls himself Erock and yes I think that’s kinda stupid – no offence Eric, I love your nerdy ways):

“Hey guys,

So I had requests for more 80s songs and had requests for classical songs which ended up as a combo. The Mozart parts I used just in case anyone is wondering were Symphony no. 25, Symphony no. 40, and part of his Requiem. There were so many to choose from but I fell upon the ones I thought could work best. Hopefully Mozart’s not rolling in his grave. Thanks so much for the comments, messages, and subs. Once again, you guys amaze me, BIG UPS.

Best to ya

E”

OH SWOON. BE STILL MY BEATING FUCKING HEART OR HOWEVER THAT GOES. *fans self*

Okay I’ll stop, I just fucking love the shit out of him. I want Blake to fly him to Canada to play our anniversary party, if we ever actually have one. (Looks like 10 years ain’t gonna be it, so maybe 15?) But watch the videos, isn’t he beautiful? Don’t you hate him for his ability to grow hair? Cuz I totally do.

Anyway, enough about Mr. Crittenden the Second.

[Insert photo of the elusive Benton here]

So Ben’s not really a boyfriend, by my usual definition because I don’t really have a crush on him, but he is a boy and he’s going to be my goddamn friend if I have to hunt him down and sit on him.

Ben is one of my nurses. He’s 29, from Vancouver and from what I can tell, all he does is work. That means he has no friends here and I swear to Christ, I will take drastic measures to ensure that he has people here because he’s great and it bothers me thinking about him just being alone all the time. But hey, what do I know? Maybe he does have friends here and he just hasn’t told me about them yet. YET.

Anyway, I get excited about the prospect of new friends (I never used to, I’m growing soft in my old age) and Ben is a potential new friend and I’m looking forward to having a little party at our house with Alex and Ronny and Ben and lots of booze.

Speaking of booze, I’m too scared to ask my doctor but with all the drugs I’m on, do you think I could get drunk and not die? I guess I’ll ask her when I see her tomorrow. Honestly, all I want to do these days is be drunk and listen to music and cry. I am so goddamned depressed it’s not even funny. I have S.A.D. pretty majorly and like, I missed the whole summer. I went from winter, to barely any spring, to fall, to winter. There was snow on the ground this morning! This is not good for my mental health!

Blake’s mom and Charlie just bought a house in Florida with an indoor hot tub and pool and all I want to do is go there. I need sunshine. Badly. I want to get this stupid pseudocyst “procedure” done (still haven’t heard from the specialist), have my big surgery, go to Florida with Blake’s parents and the kids (that I have no idea how we’ll afford but I really need it :o( Maybe a Chip In account thing?) and then get my job back. That’s how I want things to go. That’s what I want for my life for the next few months.

I got an e-mail from my boss last week, which is promising. I explained everything to her and offered to work part-time until my big surgery if there was work available, but I haven’t heard anything back. We are so ridiculously broke. :o( The thought of Xmas makes me really upset because I just don’t know how we’re going to afford anything when we’re going into debt EATING. Madison’s said that all she wants for Xmas this year is a $25 iTunes gift card which very well may be the only thing she gets. I don’t know what to get Wes. Then there’s my mom, Phil, Lisa, Raili and Rachael. I just don’t know what to do.

Blake’s getting me Skyrim for Xmas, but I’m getting it on Thursday. We can only afford to get that because he’s going to trade in some of his old games and one of mine (Final Fantasy whatever # came out for PS3 that I hated and barely played). My one year old computer isn’t good enough to play the game so I have to get it on PS3, which sucks (and I know how whiny and privileged that sounded) because I hate consoles, but I really want to play the game so I guess thems the breaks. And these days it’s not like I have anything better to do. I sit on this bed in the living room and refresh Facebook and e-mail every 2 minutes, all day, every day. I haven’t even been creating anything because I just too depressed. I should be working on my sketchbook but I just don’t have it in me right now. If I send it unfinished, I send it unfinished.

So that’s life at the moment.

PS. My hair’s falling out at an alarming rate and if I lose much more, I’m just going to shave my head again.

PPS. Water For Elephants was a HORRIBLE movie, but an excellent book. Why is that always the way?

“Tell a girl she’s beautiful and she’ll believe it for a moment. Tell a girl she’s worthless and she’ll believe it for the rest of her life.” – Unknown

Today was pretty uneventful. Last night was pretty uneventful too. While Blake, Ronny, Alex and the kids went trick or treating, I stayed home and did a topless show on Camwhores since I hadn’t done one in a really long time and had the opportunity. Lots of people showed up including Belinda, Zombie Bunny, badbob, jojo and many others. It was good to feel supported by the community and I even made some tips! That like, hardly ever happens and was MUCH appreciated! You can watch my show in the archives, for those of you who missed it!

With the proceeds from my show, we’re going to buy a printer because ours is way old and out of ink and the ink is really expensive (if you can even get that kind anymore) and it prints really sloppily anyway, so it’s time for a new one. I need to have a working colour printer to print my grant materials with, so that’s what we’re going to buy.

Today I woke up at around 9am and did some internetting until 10am, but then I got sleepy because of my drugs so I fell asleep on the bed in the living room for about 45 minutes and woke up soaking wet! For some reason, when I sleep now, I sweat like crazy and it’s really gross.

Janice, the other nurse, got here pretty much right at 11am, which was when she said she’d be here and she changed my dressing, helped me put my binder back on and sat and talked with me for a while about my health, both mental and physical. I guess they get an abridged version of your chart from the hospital, so she knows what I’ve been through and like Siske, she’s amazed I’m still standing.

I made of much sterner stuff than pancreatitis.
I will be alive at the end of time, you just watch.

Tomorrow is Dr. Hanrahan and as I’ve expressed previously, I’m worried as fuck that the surgeon at St. Mike’s can’t drain the pseudocyst since we haven’t heard from him yet. I’m also worried that she’s going to make me have another CAT scan and blood work because that sucks and we won’t be able to do it tomorrow after the appointment because we’re going to have to rush home to get there in time for Siske to change my dressing and I don’t know when we’d find the time to get it done because Blake works every day. I wonder if we could do the CAT scan on Saturday since that’s at the hospital and the hospital doesn’t close? And maybe the blood test place is also open on Saturday? I have no idea.

My mom’s coming with us tomorrow, which is a good thing because I never hear what the doctor is saying and I need it repeated back to me later in terms I can understand, which my mom (and Blake) is really good at.

And we’re not gonna get Starbucks this time because last time I barfed it up within moments of being home. It was the best tasting puke I’ve ever had though!

And with that, I’m oot.

PS. Madison is awesome. She holds my hair when I puke, then deals with the puke bowl and she even cleans up when I spill water on my night table. I love the shit out of this kid.

My surgeon, every time I see her, keeps telling me how “impressive” I am for maintaining a positive attitude throughout this whole thing and for healing as fast as I have been and for getting out of the hospital much earlier than expected (keeping in mind, the projected date of release was “maybe” by Christmas). And I keep wondering, every time she says it, if she says that to all the ladies who come into her office, considering the fact that she’s primarily a breast reconstruction surgeon, she’s got the pink ribbon on her office sign and everything.

I don’t feel impressive. I mean, I can’t control my rate of healing. I’m only positive about this shit when I’m in her office. Realistically I sleep my days away and I cry a lot because I am so goddamn sick of this bullshit that I can barely stand it. But I have no choice but to “stand it”, so I sleep away my days and just try to keep on keepin’ on. What alternative do I have?

I hate the days Siske comes because it means I have to get up early. She usually comes between 9am-9:30am, every Mon/Wed/Fri. I like Siske, don’t get me wrong, I just hate having to get up for her and I hate that I’m too chickenshit to deal with her by myself so Blake has to work from home those days. He makes sure the vac’s turned off half an hour before she gets here and makes sure there’s a garbage bag beside my bed for all the medical waste. He also makes sure the stainless steel scissors we stole from the hospital (accidentally, I swear!) are boiled and sterile. Stuff that’s hard for me to do because I suck at waking up early and it’s hard to navigate all the places I have to navigate to do all that with the vac. Also, I’m in a lot of pain and the less I have to move around, the better off I am.

Anyway…

So we went to see the surgeon today, whose name is Renee Hanrahan in case you were wondering, and she’s awesome, and there was some good news and some not so good news. And some more good news and some more not so good news.

The CAT scan showed that I have a 12cm long pseudocyst  on my pancreas that requires surgery (or maybe more to the point, a “procedure”) to be drained before she can close up my cheese pizza wound/hernia. 12cms is pretty damn big, I had no idea the pancreas was even that big, but this pseudocyst is like a blister and we’re waiting to find out from the OTHER surgeon, down in Toronto at the hospital I was in before, if it’s operable. If it’s not then we have to wait until the body naturally absorbs it which can take a really really long time. Like, we’re talking 6 months to a year. If it IS operable then what he’ll do is stick a scope down my throat and into my belly and at the end of the scope will be an instrument that’ll pierce the cyst. I’m not sure if it’ll just pop it and let my body absorb what’s in it or if they’ll suck the stuff out of it, to be honest, I forgot to ask. She said it looks like there’s more than one pseudocyst on the pancreas but they’re not so much worried about the smaller ones, it’s this big one that’s wreaking havoc on my guts and probably the culprit behind all this puking business.

The CAT scan also showed that my spleen is enlarged and unhappy and she said it was likely due to this pseudocyst pushing on it, but Blake asked about the blood clot that I had in the splenic vein (splenic vein thrombosis) and she said she didn’t know, that once the pseudocyst is out of the way they’ll do another CAT scan and will hopefully get a better look at it.

So that’s where things stand right now, we’re waiting for the Toronto surgeon to make his determination as to whether or not the pseudocyst is operable and hopefully it is because I’ll lose my goddamn mind if I have to wait 6 months to a year for this nightmare to be over.

We asked Dr. Hanrahan to ballpark how soon I would have the surgery to close up the hernia and she was very reluctant to give a date so my mom said “January?” and Dr. Hanrahan said that seemed likely. I almost cried right there. I’m crying now just typing that. That is so far away! I was thinking like, November? I thought we’d go to this appointment, she’d say the CAT scan looked good and my blood work looked good and my pee test looked good and then she’d book me for late November to be closed up.

Well, my blood work looks good. My liver is a little unhappy about something apparently but she didn’t seem worried about it and she said that despite all this barfing, there were no signs of malnutrition. My hemoglobin is low, but it always is. My iron is high, but I take 4 iron pills a day, of course it’s high! She made no mention of my pee test so I’m assuming it was fine.

She wants me to lay off on the domperidone because the issue is this pseudocyst and the fact that my stomach’s all twisted up so the domperidone probably isn’t doing much good (although I think it *does* make a difference so I’m going to continue taking it for my bigger meals, like dinner). I asked her if she’d raise my hydromorph dosage because as nerve endings grow into my cheese pizza wound, it hurts more. Also my guts just plain hurt. Ever since my run in with the world’s worse case of diarrhea, my lower guts just ache. It’s actually a lot like period cramps times about 50. And coming from someone with stage IV endometriosis I think that’s saying a lot.

So really the visit was more bitter than sweet, but at least I’m not dying of malnutrition so it can’t all be bad. I was a little worried about that, to be honest. I see her again in two weeks.

OH YEAH!!! AND GUESS WHAT!!! She said I can take a break from the vac for a while to see how my wound does. I told her I was sick of being tethered to the damn thing and she said, “let’s leave it off for a while and see how you do”. SO FUCK YEAH THAT’S AWESOME. I’m just going to have a regular dressing from now on, which will be silver nitrate (it’s like fabric made out of silver!), then an “abdominal tampon” on top (LOL I love saying that) and then the sticky drape stuff that I’ve explained before as being like shelf paper on top to make it water-proof and hold the ABDOMINAL TAMPON in place.

ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. ABDOMINAL TAMPON. <— this will never get old.

So no more forgetting about the vac and walking away from the kitchen as it falls off the table. No more worrying about getting the vac machine wet when I shower. No more waking up 20 times a night to untangle myself from it. No more carrying the fucking things around. It really sucks to have to carry it in one hand and your dinner in another and then you don’t have a hand free to take your drink too! But whatever, I almost died. Worse things have happened…

But still, I’m very excited about being untethered for a while, even if it only does end up being “for a while”.

Oh, another crappy thing though is that she wants me to wear a “binder” which is just a fancy term for a girdle. My guts are drifting to the left and right so my stomach region actually looks kinda oval-ish/square-ish. My guts are on either side of my stomach so by wearing the girdle binder it’ll bring them more toward the middle where they should be and not only should this improve my digestion but it’ll make it easier for Dr. Hanrahan to put my guts back where they should be and close me up. When we went to Shopper’s Drug Mart after my appointment they didn’t have one but they were getting a shipment in tomorrow so when it got there, they’d call Blake to pick it up. Can’t wait. I wonder if I’m supposed to wear it while I sleep? I sure hope not. :o/

After my appointment we went to Curry’s where I picked up some odourless mineral spirits and some paper stomps which are basically pencils made with paper and no lead. Just a sharpened stick made of paper. Odourless mineral spirits are normally used to clean oil paint off of brushes, but my friend Ditsy mentioned using “Gamsol” to do this neat shading effect with pencil crayons, which is just a brand name for what I bought today (I got the store brand). What you do is colour the edges of your picture with a good pencil crayon, like Prismacolour, and then you dip the paper stomp into the mineral spirits and colour from the edge inward. Basically the mineral spirits dissolve the wax of the pencil crayon causing concentrated colour around the edges with it fading into the middle. It actually makes the pencil crayons behave a lot like Copic markers, but without the enormous expense of Copic markers.

This lady’s kind of obnoxious at the end of the tutorial, but here’s how to do the technique: episode 1/episode 2

I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty geeked to try it and I meant to try it tonight but I got distracted by this post and now it’s too late because I’m about to take my PM drugs and since Siske’s coming tomorrow, I can’t sleep in.

After Curry’s we went to Starbucks where I got a chocolate coffee and then to EB Games to get Sims 3 Pets but they were sold out so we went to Wal*Mart instead. I’ve installed the game but haven’t played it yet because after my mom left we had to have dinner and then after dinner I had e-mail to deal with, then I started writing this post and before I knew it, it was 10pm (the time it is now) and I was late for taking my drugs. Oh yeah, and I still have the shits so there was some bathroom time in there too.

I really have no doubt that I won’t be impressed by Sims 3 Pets. The only reason I really got it is because I’m completest. The pets expansions for previous incarnations of the Sims were my least favourite of all the expansions (okay, Open For Business for Sims 2 was probably the worst and Ambitions for Sims 3 was pretty bad too) so I’m really doubting I’ll actually play with the pets, I’m more interested in the extra stuff like, are there new aspirations? Lifetime rewards? Jobs? Stuff to grow in your garden (like catnip maybe? that would be cool and maybe even worth owning a cat)? New furnishings etc etc etc? Stuff like that is why I keep buying all these expansions even though the core games themselves may suck.

Truthfully, I’m more excited to play with odourless mineral spirits than Pets. Which I think I’m gonna go do right now because today was a bummer and I would like a little joy before I go to bed.

Oh yeah, and I barfed up my chocolate coffee seconds after getting home. I was feeling really sick all the way home and Blake stopped off at the pharmacy before we came home and I was praying that I wouldn’t have to barf on the sidewalk, which I didn’t, but I don’t think the car was fully stopped in the driveway before I jumped out and ran as fast as I could to get to my barf bowl. (I can’t barf in a toilet like a normal person because it’s too hard for me to get back up. My legs are still too weak to get up easily from the floor, so I barf in a bowl instead and Blake, my beloved, dutifully takes the bowl (after putting my hair up and putting my computer aside as not to get barf on either), flushes the contents, washes the bowl and hands it back to me. That is LOVE.

Okay, gonna go play with mineral spirits now. Goodnight!