I was going to post a picture of my boobs but it occurred to me that some of you may be reading from work so I decided not to. I’ll post them on my site some other time. If that sentence confused you, it’s because I’m x-posting this to Live Journal where the action really takes place as far as comments and discussion. I’m also x-posting this to Camwhores, where there are all kinds of boobies, including the pic I decided not to post.

Now that that’s been said…

It was a pretty ho hum weekend.

On Saturday, Blake and I planted and hung our cucumbers. The system is really weird, you don’t water the dirt directly, there’s a reservoir at the top with these moisture-sucking strips that go down and rest on the dirt and over time the moisture-sucking strips water the dirt. And then on the side of each bag, there’s a slot for a moisture stick which tells you if the dirt is wet enough. Despite the fact that the dirt is wet enough on all the bags, two of the three aren’t doing so well, as you can see:

I think it has less to do with the moisture of the dirt and more to do with the fact that when I was pulling the vines through the hole at the bottom, blindly, I snapped them. I don’t know if the plant will compensate for that or not but next year we’re planting these things a LOT earlier than we did this year so the plants are still small and easier to stick through the hole. I wanted so long this time partially because I’m lazy and kept forgetting but also because I wanted the roots to be nice and thick so they wouldn’t fall apart when I tried to put the plants through the hole. I don’t think that’s a good strategy though so next year we’ll do it differently.

Also this weekend, I did my fingernails TWICE. On Friday I actually got up like, 3 hours before my alarm so I started work 2 hours early which meant I got done at 4pm instead of 6pm.  As soon as work was finished, I put in Burlesque (shut up) and started working on my nails. I spent HOURS on them. Then I decided to get drunk and play cards with Blake and when I was trying to pick cards up, my nail polish kinda shifted. It didn’t chip because it was still a little mushy, it just kinda slid. That made me very upset because I’d spent so much time on them so Blake helped me remove all the polish and I tried again on Saturday, however by Sunday evening, the polish had chipped already so I decided “fuck this” and I’m just not messing around with fingernail polish anymore or ever again. We just don’t get along, never have, never will. I’ll still do my toes, I don’t seem to have a problem there, but never my fingers again unless there’s MAYBE some special occasion or something.

Sunday was D&D day. Ronny, Alex & Raymond came over and we played while dining on veggies & dip as our snack and pizza for our dinner. It took us like, 4 hours or something to finish one encounter because we’re all n00bs and we still have no idea what we’re doing. Blake’s doing well being our DM, it’s the rest of us who suck because we don’t know our spells and abilities or when to do what etc. We’re still having a good time with it though and believe it or not we ARE getting faster and better the more we play so continue we shall. I also healed for the first time last night, which was interesting. Sucked that I could only do it twice because I’m only level 1, but still, it was something I never had to do before. Right now we all have 435 XP so I figure within maybe 3 more sessions we should be level 2.

After D&D, Raymond went home because he hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, Ronny and Alex played video games with Wes, I removed nail polish and I don’t know what Blake and Madison did (Blake helped me get the polish off my right hand at one point), then we watched the season finale of Game of Thrones. I’ll avoid talking about that in case people haven’t seen it yet but I’d avoid the comments on Live Journal if you haven’t seen it yet because I have a feeling it’ll be discussed. I really want to read the books now, which I think about a million people are also thinking.

My Lush order should be here any day now. They ship UPS so the mail strike we currently have shouldn’t affect the delivery but it WILL affect the delivery of the nail stamps I bought and that Eryn wants me to use on her next weekend for graduation the week after. This is what I ordered from Lush. 10 of them because they’re limited edition. I think I’m doing better with money considering that’s all I bought and I also put almost my whole paycheque on my Visa a few days ago. If I do that one more time, the Visa should be almost paid off just in time for my vacation. Ha!

I’m still having a really hard time with this holiday business. I mean, the fact that it’s costing us a LOT of money, half my paycheque, for me to have this holiday time really bothers me. I don’t have ill will toward my bosses or anything, it’s just that in my family you don’t take holidays. If you can make money, you do it. You don’t do things to lose money. I don’t think my mother, my grandmother or my grandfather have ever had a vacation in their lives because it would have been unpaid time off, which is what I’m doing the first week of July. I’m trying not to think about it but yesterday Alex asked me if I was looking forward to my holidays and I just started crying because no, no I’m not. I’m afraid that while I’m on holiday all I’ll be able to think about is money. But, it’s either take this vacation time or burn out and I can’t afford to burn out so holidays it is.

I plan on doing a lot of painting on my holidays. Painting and the beach. (Send vibes of a heat wave up here, please!) And I have to see my shrink to discuss the fact that I’m basically not okay right now, not at all. Possibly adjust my meds. Ask about “weight loss agents”, which were briefly discussed at metabolic clinic. I also plan to use the treadmill a lot when I’m on holidays and read. I give up on my shoes, they just keep giving me a really painful blister on my heel, so I’m going to use it in bare feet. Some studies say that’s better for you and some studies say it’s bad for you, so I’ve decided I don’t care and that’s just how I’m going to do it. I would lose weight if I could eat eggs for breakfast every day but I just don’t have the time to cook them with this job, let alone eat them, and even when I make diet kwish (diet cheese, broccoli and or onions, ham – you need the cheese or the egg dries out) and don’t have lunch I still don’t lose weight. They have to be 3 eggs over easy with 2 pieces of toast for it to work its magic and I just don’t have time for that. And you may think that’s ridiculous that it has to be that precise, but that’s what worked and variations do not work for whatever reason so it is what it is.

Admittedly my diet has been a little stupid for the last few weeks because I’m on the “Fuck It Diet”, which was invented by Margaret Cho. I see it. I eat it. Fuck it. But even when I was doing metabolic clinic and my diet was perfect and I was keeping a food journal and everything, I only lost 2-5 lbs that I gained the next week, that I’d lose the week after etc etc etc. In other words, I didn’t lose anything. I did the treadmill daily, 30-40 minutes, for 3 weeks and didn’t lose one single pound.  Didn’t gain any either. I was rollerskating, albeit not as long, but still, nothing. I do yoga once a week. I’m not inactive. Something just isn’t right with my body so I’m going to ask my shrink for “weight loss agents”, which I don’t even know what they are but I’m assuming maybe thyroid medication or something. I think my thyroid’s fine though, so I dunno. All I know is that my metabolism is still fucked from the risperidone and I want answers.

This week Charlie suggested I buy a bikini for my holidays and I just cried. 3 years ago I was wearing bikinis. Now I’m Shamu. I’m 45 lbs heavier than I should be and that’s a problem.

Anyway, enough of that, it upsets me.

My yellow begonia is basically dead and I don’t know why. The plant itself is alive and seemingly healthy but it doesn’t have any flowers. The orange one had about half the flowers it did when I bought it and again, I don’t know why. The yellow one was in partial shade, which the little stick they came with said is fine, while the orange one was in full sun so now I’ve hung the yellow one in full sun and put the orange one in the railing beneath it rather than hanging either of them on the hook on the other side of the house. You can’t really see what’s hung there anyway so whatever, I just wish I knew what was wrong with them. I’ve been dead-heading the dead flowers like you’re supposed to so I dunno.

My ears have taken to the earrings fully and completely and the holes aren’t weeping at all anymore. So yay! I’m even contemplating getting them pierced again. And then maybe again. And again. Do you think it would be better to do that one at a time or should I get all the holes I want pierced at once. I figure one at a time is probably better because if it gets infected I can treat it and it’ll probably be fine but if I do them all at once, if one gets infected, the rest probably will too and that would be a hard infection to get rid of. So one at a time is probably best, right? I don’t even know where you get ears pierced anymore. When I had mine done originally when I was like, 6, it was done at a jewelry store. In fact, the first one hurt so bad that I wouldn’t let them do the second one until some time later when the kids at school made fun of me for only having one earring. And then they both got infected too often so I took them out and left them out. That’s why I was so surprised the holes hadn’t grown over and I could get these new earrings in smooth as silk, I didn’t have to push through grown over skin or anything, they just slid right in .

I’m babbling, this is probably a really boring post. To be perfectly honest, I just have a lot in my head right now and it needs to come OUT.

We didn’t go up North for Father’s Day this year because we weren’t invited, which I found…interesting. I was glad because I didn’t want to go up there but at the same time, I can’t help but wonder why we weren’t invited in the first place. I don’t think I’ve done anything to offend anyone or anything like that so I dunno. Last year my mom got pissed at me for going up there so I’m kinda glad I didn’t have to deal with her in regards to this this year. Why did she get  pissed off? I dunno, she gets pissed off at me for no reason all the time, especially when it comes to Mother’s and Father’s Days. No matter what I do, she’s gonna get pissed off at me both of those days so I’ve stopped wondering why. My absentee prick of a brother can get away with sending an e-mail and be the next coming of Christ but I’m expected (I think) to jump through hoops for love and approval. I don’t get it and I no longer care. Both of my parents from now on are just gonna have to be happy with me writing on their Facebook walls because Mother’s and Father’s Days are now about Blake and I and no one else. I’m not going to sit there feeling like shit on a day that’s supposed to be about ME because I’m the mother. Phil doesn’t even call his father on Father’s Day so it’s unfair and hypocritical to expect me to call him, especially when I’m mentally ill and only use the phone to talk to Blake or for emergencies. And I’m still annoyed with his little lecture about me not calling him “dad” but calling him Phil instead because that’s his name. He’s never been my dad so let’s not go down that road. Let’s not forget that half of his friends and acquaintances don’t even know I exist. And my mother…well if she wants to spend her Mother’s Day being pissed off and catering to her own mother’s whims and dealing with sister aggro, so be it, but leave me out of it. Nothing I do is good enough so I’m just not going to do anything anymore.

And that’s all I have to say about that except that they’re both probably reading this so it should be considered “notice”. If they’re not then I guess we’ll deal with it next year.

Strangely, my mother-in-law was the most gracious of our parents this year and for that I am thankful.

Madison is such a weird kid. Do you know what she’s reading right now? BELOVED by Toni Morrison. Or maybe she’s done now. Either way, I thought it was an odd choice for a 13-year-old and she totally chose it for herself and put it on her birthday wishlist, it’s not like it was suggested reading or anything.  She’s also been reading Stephen King, but I don’t find that weird at all. I started reading Stephen King (It) in grade 1 so I actually think she’s a little late on that one.

She’s kind of flush with books at the moment, but as soon as she’s not, I want her to read The Handmaid’s Tale (which I’m re-reading right now), Middlesex, Water For Elephants, The Virgin Suicides and so many other books that I have sitting on my shelf just waiting to be read. I want to blow her mind with literature. Maybe then she’ll realize that what I’m working on, Cammity Jane, is absolute crap. It bothers me how good she thinks that is because I know it’s not and that’s not me putting myself down, that’s just a fact. It’s fluff, it’s not literature by any stretch of the imagination. I think the primary audience for it is young adults, so it’s good that she likes it as much as she does because she’s my target I think, but I feel like it should be beneath her. She should be smarter than that.

Bleh.

Okay I think I’ve ranted and raved and wasted enough of your time. I think I’m out of things to discuss. Please go to my site and take a look at the two images I posted. Here’s the first one, here’s the second one. Thanks.

PS. I am 15 days smoke-free.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

Phil and Madison, 1998

Me & Phil, 1998
(Don’t hurt yourselves doing the math, I was 19, he was 37.)

This is the Buddha incense holder Madison got me for my birthday.
I love it and can’t stop watching the smoke come out the top.
I am easily entertained.

I’d been wanting a cone incense holder for a long time and was really surprised when I actually got one because it’s not something I’ve mentioned a whole lot, so it was kind of an obscure item. He came with vanilla and rose incense. I’ve been burning mostly the vanilla because traditionally I don’t like rose, but this stuff’s okay. I’m not burning it during the day though because it makes me sleepy. Wal*Mart doesn’t have cone incense so I’m not sure where I’ll replenish yet but at least I have it to enjoy now! I’m actually thinking of starting an incense burner collection because I’m told there’s a lot of really cool ones out there and that if I was impressed with this one then I ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Someone described to me Chinese dragon incense holders where the smoke comes out their nostrils and I’m very interested in seeing one of those.

So that’s what Madison got me for my birthday and as I said, I love it. And I guess he’s not exactly a “laughing” Buddha, he’s more like a smiling Buddha, but that’s okay. I’m not picky about my Buddhas.

This morning I got an automated call from Visa saying that they needed to go over some charges with me because they thought they might be fraud. I pulled up our Visa statement online and double checked everything, I even called Blake because one I didn’t recognize but it was for his parking so it was okay. We both assumed they were checking up on all of the charges we made when we were in the US since we put pretty much everything on Visa since our bank cards wouldn’t work down there. So I call Visa up and it’s this automated thing that starts telling me someone tried to put a $1500 charge on my card for Google Adwords. Wtf? So I made it give me a real person and he explained that it was a charge from the UK and that this is a pretty common scam where they set up a website that will say something like “you have a virus on your computer and if you don’t give us money right now to fix it, your computer is going to blow up” so people pay them money because of this when in fact, the site does nothing and they use Adwords so the fraudulent site will come up when people search certain keywords pertaining to whatever the site’s about.

They canceled the transaction and are sending me new cards in the mail, which will take about 10 days, but good on them for catching it and alerting me. I have no idea how they would have gotten my credit card number because I don’t even use that card, Blake does, and he doesn’t generally buy things online. He DID buy something from a seller on Amazon last month though, which is a possible suspect but I think Amazon’s pretty good about vetting those people, right? I mean, they’re legit businesses, right?

*I* buy a lot of stuff online, obviously a lot on Etsy and Lush but I use a different Visa from a different bank than the one Blake uses so it’s weird that the one Blake uses had this happen to it.

Speaking of Etsy, I bought THIS last week and I cannot wait until it arrives because I’m absolutely in love with it:

She uses the same paper I use for my girls’ dresses except I use the flat version and she uses the textured versions. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this or not but I’ve been buying a lot of art from Etsy in preparation for my new office if and when we ever move. There’s nowhere to put art in the office I have now because the biggest wall is covered in vinyl siding, but one day I’ll have an office with nice, flat walls and I’ll be able to hang all kinds of stuff. I’ll have a whole house with walls I can hang stuff on! I fully intend to have pictures of my family all over the place, as I told my step-mom on Facebook yesterday. The best part of their birthday gift to me was the card with a photo of my step-mom, Phil and my little sisters which I fully intend to frame, but in this house, there’s nowhere to put framed photos. Our house is so dark that putting things on walls is pointless and we have a distinct lack of non-functional surfaces. But when we have our new house, I plan on having tables and stuff like, in my living room or wherever, that are just for pictures. Pictures of my Muskoka family, my mom and John and Chris, my cousin Haylie, Brooke and Charlie, the Albanians, my kids of course, Ronny and Alex and maybe even my brother if he stops being such a shithead.

Ever since Michigan, family has become a lot more important to me than it was before and I’ve found myself getting kinda bummed out that my brother is such a turd. I downloaded the song “Pretty Fly For a White Guy” by the Offspring, which reminds me of my brother because that’s him to a “T”, the kid in the video even looks like him and I put it on the playlist I’ve been listening to since Monday and I’ve been thinking about him a lot. Here’s the video for my mom, who’s probably never seen it:

You would think that as he got older (he’ll be 26 in July) he’d smarten up and quit being a shit, but he’s still living with his father (who got fired from the job he’d had for like, 15 years) and is more or less unemployed most of the time for no real reason other than, I can only assume, he has a problem dealing with authority (runs in the family) and he doesn’t like waking up with an alarm (runs in the family?). Also, last I checked, he was smoking a fucking ounce of weed every few days. Honestly, I don’t even know, I haven’t talked to the guy since 2005, I only hear snippets from my mom once in a blue moon. When he left my house that day in December, he promised he’d be back and he went on and on about how much Wes and Madison meant to him, but that must have been all horse shit because where is he then? Not even an e-mail? Not even an add on Facebook? I never did a damn thing to him so I don’t know what his deal is.

I mean, it’s not as if we’ve ever been close to begin with, there’s a pretty big age gap between us and we were raised in completely different ways by two completely different people in two different houses. I’m an only child with 3 siblings. But it’s just the fact that he PROMISED that he’d be back and he went on and on and on about how much my kids meant to him that eats at me. Why would he say that shit if he didn’t mean it? And how can he mean it if he’s not here?

I dunno. Most of the time I barely even think about him, it’s just that song that has him on my mind lately. I’m sure it’ll pass and like I said, we’re not close so it doesn’t even really matter. It’s sad that it doesn’t, I suppose, but that’s the hard truth of it. Honestly, we barely even know each other. Not as kids, not as adults.

So that’s where my head’s been the last little while. I need to get back to work.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any great length of time, you’ll know that I’m not very good with birthdays. My own especially, but also other people’s. This year was no different, despite everyone’s best efforts.

First of all, last night Blake and I were screwing around with this pink aluminum baseball bat that I bought in the states last night and he had one end and I had the other and we were fighting over it in the dark (don’t ask why, it doesn’t matter). Long story short, I ended up getting nailed really hard with it, right above my right temple and today my head is literally mushy. My hair hurts. It hurts when I chew. We’re fairly certain I was/am concussed. I cannot deal with my emotions right now, like I have to control over them whatsoever. I woke up in much more pain today than when it first happened even and I basically spent all day crying.

I’ve been chowing down Tylenol 1 and Naproxen like it’s candy and that’s helped a little but but I think I’d be screaming if I wasn’t drugged up to the tits.

So that set up my birthday and made me a very unhappy person all day.

Then I had to go to metabolic clinic, which I really didn’t want to do because I really didn’t want to get out of my pajamas and make the time up on the weekend when I already have to work an extra 8 hours this weekend because of the time I missed for the funeral. But I went anyway. It was a module on stress and was mostly unhelpful, but at one point we had a 20 minute discussion on smoking and…

…after the class was over, I told Blake to stop at a store because it was my birthday and I’d smoke if I goddamned well pleased and I goddamned well pleased. So we had one in the car and I said I was just going to smoke today but when we got home I felt guilty and flushed the rest of the pack. Smokes are $10.25 a pack now, by the way.

After metabolic clinic I had to work for another 2 hours, so I did that and when I was finished, I told Blake I needed to sleep because all day, and this can apparently be a concussion thing, I was extremely drowsy. Like, I could barely stay awake during the metabolic clinic because the lights were off and they were doing a Powerpoint presentation. I actually closed my eyes during it a few times and kinda jolted awake.

So I slept from 6pm-7pm and then Blake went to get dinner (Chinese food), we ate, I felt sick, I took Gravol and then we did presents with the kids. Wes got me the next 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer books for “season 8″, Madison got me a laughing Buddha cone incense holder with some incense and my step-mom sent down a small gift with Madison which included a $25 gift certificate for Starbucks, a leather journal, some neat sparkly nail polish and some lip balm. (This may or may not be common knowledge but I’m a lip balm/chapstick hoarder due to chronically chapped lips. It’s been an issue my whole life.)

Oh and before I go any further, I gained 2 lbs this week but lost an inch. This is what happens every week, I either gain or lose 2 lbs and gain or lose 1 or 2 inches on my waist but never at the same time. Also on the way home from metabolic clinic we checked the mail and the CD Blake ordered for me a while back finally came (Bossanova by the Pixies so now I have them all). The birthday card my mom sent me last Wednesday had not arrived yet, but it’ll probably be here Saturday when Blake checks the mail next.

After presents, we finished watching Big Love and then I started to watch last week’s Jersey Shore when suddenly I panicked that I couldn’t smoke again after today for a whole other year because the rule Blake and I made in the car was that I would only smoke on my birthday. So I popped 3 Ativan, grabbed my wallet and keys, put my shoes on with no socks and drove to the store where I paid another $10.25 for a pack of smokes. That’s now $20.50 for smoking today, for those doing the math.

Now Blake’s gone to bed and I’m staying up a little later than usual (I usually go to bed around 10/10:30pm) because I want to make the most of this smoking thing and also because if I’m tired tomorrow I can start work at 11am and finish at 7 because my work is flexible like that. My lungs feel like they’re on fire though and before I go to bed I’ll be flushing the rest of this pack and if I want smokes tomorrow I’m shit outta luck because I have to work and there’s no way I’m walking to the store. Plus, I’m a non-smoker again as of midnight so I’m just not going to go there again until next year.

In other birthday news, my treadmill from Charlie is going to be here this Saturday and my step-mom is taking the elliptical. To go with the treadmill, Blake bought me a new pair of shoes for my birthday, which I’m in love with. These ones:

Yeah I know, Shape Ups are supposed to be bullshit and they don’t do what they claim to do (tone your legs, give you better posture and some other stuff – I haven’t watched the DVD they came with yet) but I don’t care about that, I didn’t want them because they were Shape Ups. I wanted them because I love them and because there are no laces to do up and I don’t have to put on socks to wear them. I can throw them on with bare feet in 30 seconds, go on the treadmill for 10 minutes between answering e-mails, throw them off, continue working and repeat throughout the day. The metabolic clinic people want us walking 3k steps a day but I can only do a little less than half that just walking around the house, so my first goal for the treadmill is going to be that per day in small increments, working my way up to more and more.

Oh and Blake’s also getting my Team Canada jersey lettered with Sidney Crosby. :o) It’s at the pro-shop right now being done. I’m very excited.

Chali also got me a gift certificate for Lush, so any day now another Lush box is going to be at my front door waiting for me and I started planning both front and back yard gardens with Ruggedo yesterday.

So “stuff”wise, I made out like a bandit for my birthday and I’m very grateful for everything I got, it was just a bummer of a day and I’m glad it’s almost over.

The next thing I wanted to write about is sleep. My shrink gave up on giving me benzodiazapines for sleeping (although I’m still taking clonazepam) and she gave me an anti-psychotic instead, called loxapine, which seems to be working. She said there was a small chance that it would increase my appetite and if that happened to stop taking it but it seems to be having the opposite effect and I’m just not hungry these days.

Also helpful is this thing Kevin got me, it’s called a Wake Up Light (watch the video in that link, it’s sorta cool). I was really really skeptical when he suggested this thing but I’ve gotta admit that after a week or so of using it, it really is working. How it works is that you set it for when you want to wake up, in my case that’s 9am. So at 8:30am, the light comes on dimly and starts getting brighter and brighter until 9am when these little birdies (or radio) start chirping. I have my phone set for 9:15am and 9:30am as a back up but this week I’ve been getting up about 10 minutes before the birdies come on and it’s a totally different morning because the way you wake up feels like you naturally woke up (which I suppose in a way, you did) and you don’t hate the world because of your fucking alarm. At first I resented the birdies as much as the roosters (my phone’s alarm, which is the most obnoxious thing in the world) but now I don’t even hear them. This morning I woke up 3 minutes before the birdies because I think a part of me fears the birdies. But still, it felt like I woke up naturally so I didn’t wake up hating the world (well I did, but it had nothing to do with the birdies). I definitely recommend this Wake Up Light to anyone who has sleep issues or a hard time getting up in the morning, especially if you sleep in a pitch black room which I mostly do.

Anyway, I love the thing. It makes me a much nicer person and I cannot thank Kevin enough for being such a huge nerd for even knowing about stuff like this. And for getting it for me because he knew I’d never buy this for myself in a hundred million years.

I’m still struggling to get back into the swing of things after being in the US last week. My routine has been disturbed and when that happens, it takes me a long time to get re-acclimated. Before we got word that Blake’s grandma was going to go any second, I was actively working on Cammity Jane, which some of you know about and some of you don’t and I’m not going to re-explain it because you’ll just have to read it when it’s finished. I was going pretty full tilt on it though and I was actually really impressed with my own dedication to it because I never really finish anything when it comes to writing, especially anything good and in my opinion, this is good – or at least it’s going to be. Charlie’s helping me with continuity while I just get the story down and HOPEFULLY my friend Robert will edit my punctuation when I get it finish. (Robert, will you? I’ll even pay you to do so.) He’s an English teacher and knows more about grammar and punctuation than anyone I’ve ever met. I haven’t worked on it since we got back but I haven’t really had the time. I’m hoping to work on it from Charlie’s notes on what I have so far starting tomorrow though.

I’m also about halfway finished my Valentine girl who I really do believe is my best work to date. I’m really impressed with her and plan on not putting her up for sale. Right now she needs arms, her Valentine placards, varnish and corset stitching, then she’ll be finished. I meant to work on the placards tonight but got distracted by everything else.

So, I’m being productive, or at least I will be once I get back into the swing of things in Sunnyland and as soon as my head stops hurting, which will hopefully be soon.

One more thing before I finish this post: Charlie Sheen. Holy shit right? Check out this site, it’s hysterical. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Goodnight internets, and thanks everyone for everything. <3

Blake’s grandma died today.
She was like, 98 or so.
Long life. Totally out of it for the past 6 or 7 years.
Unable to communicate for the last few.
Unable to take care of herself a long time before that.

So it’s what I call a “good death” where the death itself
is more like a relief than anything else because she’s
been “gone” a long time and watching her deteriorate,
watching anyone deteriorate like that, is just sad.
Sadder than their death, I think.

But that’s just my opinion.

Obviously those who loved her are sad.
Like her daughter, Blake’s Aunt Pat.
But I also think there’s a bit of relief.

Anyway…
We’re going to have to go to Militiagan for the funeral.
Alex & Ronny are watching the pets/house.
I’m waiting on my step-mom to let us know if she’ll watch the kids.
Blake’s researched hotels because I won’t be able to work at his
Aunt Pat’s with everyone around (I work for a porn site, I mean, come on)
and we’re not in the best place with his mom still.

Not that we’re all still fighting, at present we’re not, but we’re in a
pretty awkward stage where we wouldn’t want to impose on her for 3 days.

So a hotel it is.
Plus I like hotels and luckily with my job, a hotel is an option for us.

Today is a stupid Family Day holiday so the kids were home.
They only drove me a little bit nuts.
Madison dyed Wes’ hair pink for “Pink Shirt Day” tomorrow at school.

We’re having McDonald’s for dinner though because Blake worked all
weekend and didn’t do groceries and being a holiday, only McDick’s is open.

I’m going to seriously hate myself in about an hour.

Couldn’t sleep last night.
Finally fell asleep around 5am.

Do you think waking up at 9 to start work at 10 happened?
Neeeeeeeewp.

Kevin bought me a “wake up light”.
It woke me up but then I turned it off and snoozed my alarm until 11:45
and started work at noon.

Got fed up with morons at 7.
I’ll make up that hour when I make up the rest of the time I’m going to have to
take off for the funeral and driving and family type stuff.

Sometimes being a contractor really fucking sucks.
But what are ya gonna do?

Metabolic clinic tomorrow.
I won’t tell them about the McDonald’s if you don’t.

————————— Original Message —————————-

Subject: 50?!

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

Date: Sat, February 12, 2011 8:40 pm

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

————————————————————————–

So…Tonight I see Blake has posted a picture on Facebook…Phils 50th

birthday party.

I don’t get it right away. Phil? 50? Then I laugh, and laugh and laugh,

cause he’s *50*!

Then I go to your LJ…

I’m not surprised that he ‘argued’ about age, but AM that neither of you

caught on to that YOU were born two weeks after his birthday.

18. I turned 16……six months later.

I went to Phil’s FB and sent him Keith’s email address. (keithsemailaddress@something.net)

Thats all. HUG. Love YOU.

mom

That’s really all I can think of off the top of my head.

But Phil turning 50 has really made me paranoid about my own life. When I turn 50, who would I invite to a party? Ronnie & Alex? My cousin Haylie? Deanna? I don’t really have any “buddies” besides those guys.  I mean, I have people I know, but not really people I’m good friends with. Is that a problem? I’m not sure. Phil had at least 30 people at his party.

Whatever. I wouldn’t want a party now, so what the hell makes me think I’m going to want to have p party when I’m 50?

Last night I went to my dad’s 50th birthday party. I didn’t want to go. I was on my heaviest day of my period, it hurt when I walked, I was on an insane amount of Tylenol 3 and Naproxen, couldn’t drink, didn’t want to drink, just wanted to have a Lush bath (which I will be having today, dammit!), read a book and go to bed.

But it was Phil’s 50th birthday and when I changed my RSVP on the Facebook announcement to “not attending”, I guess it sent my stepmom, Lisa, a message and she quickly got very very upset and eventually resorted to an intense (for her) guilt trip, which I actually got more than a little defensive about. Yeah, it was his 50th birthday, and that’s a big one, but where was he for my 5th? My 10th? How about my 15th? 20th? How about my 30th? Oh that’s right, Phil’s never been anywhere near me and I owe the man precisely squat when it comes to attending HIS birthday parties.

Except Lisa’s never been anything but good to me my whole entire life and she started planning this party in December and we were the first ones who said we’d go. And, according to her, we were the next important aside from the guest of honour.

So we went. Me under a great deal of protest.

At first I was resolved to wearing my track pants and grey Army t-shirt, that if you’ve seen my cam, you’ve likely also seen, and the blue hoodie Charlie got me for Christmas but at the last minute I had an idea.

See, the party was 60′s themed and people were encouraged to dress up. Well, I don’t have anything hippie-ish, or so I thought. Blake had an old shirt of his grampa’s that is orange and black and white and ugly as sin that he was wearing (that was my idea) but it wasn’t until the last minute that I remember that my Leafs jersey is their third jersey, which has their classic leaf emblem on it .

On the left is their classic logo, which I assume was used during the 60′s and on the right is their current one.

So that was my costumed and when we got there Lisa had peace sign necklaces and John Lennon glasses, so I grabbed a blue pair of John Lennon glasses and my outfit was complete! See? I was festive! In a lot of pain, but festive!

The plan was that we were only going to stay for an hour & a half so I could get home in time for bed since I had to work today but I asked one of my bosses for today off in favour of working all my weekend hours on Sunday instead since I haven’t had a day off in 28 days. Because of that, we stayed until midnight and had a hell of a time getting home, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is part of Phil’s cake. That’s Phil Judo wrestling a moose because he’s a Judo sensei with his own dojo and he also hunts moose and deer and things. I think one of his neighbours made the cake.

This is my stepmom Lisa, who never friggin’ ages, and her friend Lucy all dressed up.

Lisa got her costume on the internet and even made a whole slideshow of pictures from Phil’s life and she’s getting so good at navigating the internet and using technology in such a short period of time that I’m actually really really proud of her.

Lucy was a blast, I’d never met her before.

Here’s Phil when he was in grade 4 or 5.
In some pictures he looks so much like Wes, it’s unbelievable, like when he was really little.
Same blonde hair, same round face.

There was a picture in the slideshow of Phil and my mom’s ex-boyfriend, Keith, all dressed up for the prom. I asked Phil if he’d like to be in contact with Keith again and he said he would be so my new mission is to make that happen. The hard part is that I don’t even know Keith’s e-mail address and I don’t think he’s on Facebook. And neither Phil nor Keith are particularly big on talking so I don’t know how it would all go. But I’ll try.

The slideshow, as I said, was pretty bittersweet. I saw him catch a lot of fish with a lot of other people’s kids. I wonder if he even knows that I liked fishing too.

Phil did the rounds at the party and talked to everyone and it made me tired watching Phil and Lisa like, “maintaining” their guests. It seems like throwing a party would be an awful lot of work and I don’t think I’d ever want to do it.

Phil sat beside me at one point and gave me the third degree over the fact that I call him “Phil” as opposed to “dad”. I use both, to be fair, but most often, I use Phil because I had a dad, it was a crappy experience and that dad I had? Wasn’t Phil. Phil is just Phil. Lisa and Paul call their dad “Freddie” so I fail to see why me calling mine “Phil” is such a big deal. In my mind it’s not, and therefore I have no intentions of changing. He’s been Phil for the 20 years I’ve known him, he will always be Phil.

He also argued with me about how old my mom is right now and how old she was when she had me. He was 18 when I was born. My mom was 15. He argued that she was 16. He’s not right, as far as I’ve ever been told.

The slideshow they kept playing was bittersweet. It was interesting to see all these pictures of him through his various stages of life but I was only in one of the pictures. When I was 19 and Madison was just born. And there were 3 pictures of him and Madison. None of Wes. One of Blake. There were a bunch of him wearing a t-shirt I painted him when I was about 17 but really, I wasn’t in the picture much. That was probably partially because Lisa knows I don’t like people seeing pictures of me but also because there simply weren’t any taken and he was completely vacant from my childhood. Pictures of he and my mom were not in the slideshow, partially because Lisa doesn’t have those pictures, but I also partially think because it raises too many questions about me and them and this event wasn’t about me and them. This slideshow was about Phil’s life from birth until he met my mom, then let’s pretend he never met my mom, then he met Lisa and lived happily ever with his billions of friends. A large part of me felt really uncomfortable about that, you shouldn’t just be allowed to erase people and events out of your life like that, especially when it was so important for me to be there and as Lisa told me, I apparently “made the fucking party”.

It’s just always really uncomfortable when I’m in a room with all of these people who actually know my dad and I really don’t. And worse, people who are only meeting me for the first time despite the fact that I’ve been in the picture for the last 20 years. People look at me like, “why haven’t I met you before? why didn’t I know about you?”

So I went. It was important to Lisa that I be there so I went. I still maintain that Phil didn’t even care that I was there, but I’m sure that’s something Blake and I will debate about for weeks to come.

Here’s Phil, at 50, showing us his Russian hat for some reason:

And he didn’t have a cigarette the whole time I was there, which I might add, made me very proud.
I really respect people who manage to quit when they’ve been smoking most of their lives.
That’s a strength I simply don’t have.
I didn’t smoke either, but then again, I’d only been smoking 15 years.
He’d been smoking significantly longer.

I dunno. Mine & Phil’s relationship will always be strained I think. He doesn’t get me and I most certainly do not understand him. I think really the only reason he has much to do with me is because he likes Blake. Always wanted a son, and in Blake he kinda has one, even though Blake’s not exactly the manliest man in the world. He doesn’t do judo anymore, he doesn’t hunt, he doesn’t do outdoorsy type stuff etc etc etc but the two of them just click. Phil and I? We do not click.  But that’s okay, we don’t have to. Somehow we do love each other and I think that’s all that matters.

I’m glad he enjoyed his party and I hope his hangover today is small.

Edited to add some stuff…..Blake says I’m being overly negative with this post. He may be right. The fact is, Phil and I don’t know how Phil and I fit together. I maintain that we just don’t. Last night though, I was feeling like I should be a bigger part of his life, but I don’t know how to make that happen when he’s not really a big part of mine either. Will he be reading this? This which is so much my world? Probably not. Is he proud of me? I don’t think so. Does he think about me every single day? I highly doubt it. Did I make his party by showing up last night? I sincerely doubt that too. I know I made Lisa happy, but I think Phil would have gotten along just fine if I wasn’t there.

Phil wasn’t at my 30th birthday party because he wasn’t invited. I don’t think we did anything for my 30th birthday part but if we did, it would have been me and Alex and Ronny and Blake getting shitfaced in my house. Phil & Lisa (and the girls) wouldn’t physically fit in my house and wouldn’t fit in with my friends, just as I don’t fit in with Phil’s.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. I just don’t think we fit in each other’s worlds and part of me is fine with that while another part of me thinks it sucks.

And I guess that’s really all I have left to say.

Oh man, the last 4 days have been absolute chaos and I am relishing the little bit of sanity I’ve gained from sleeping in my own bed and getting back to work this morning, back to my house and my routine. With my dogs. With my TV, with my movies, with my family, without lipstick, wearing sweats and a t-shirt and a ponytail. Without being “on”, y’know? Thanks god this whole Xmas deal only happens once a year…

Might as well start at the beginning.

Xmas Eve day I got up at 7am so I could work from 8am-4pm and that way we’d be able to leave early enough to get up North to my dad and Lisa’s for dinner with my Uncle Paul (Lisa’s brother) and his awesome girlfriend Sandi. Also invited was their friend Timber and his girlfriend Terri and of course my little sisters, Raili (pronounced “Riley”, it’s Finnish) and Rachael would be running around like crazy people.

Sandi made the most delicious lasagna I’ve ever had. It had MUSHROOMS in it! I love mushrooms! Lisa also made us a fantastic caesar salad with real bacon in it from the pigs they raised over the summer. Blake’s salsa was a huge hit, Lisa and Sandi devoured it. There was also shrimp on the table but shrimp is gross so I didn’t have any.

Pictures of Xmas Eve exist, most notably ones of me, Lisa and Sandi, and if I don’t look like shit in them, I’ll edit this post and post one [here].

This is what I wore Xmas Eve.
It’s a sheer black, meshy dress/tank top trimmed with dark blue, worn over jeans.
It’s not a very good picture of it, but I tried.

Paul and Sandi got me a fluffy housecoat and got Madison a jewelry box full of jewelry, which she’s obsessed with so way to go Paul & Sandi! I forget what they got Blake. I think they got Wes a remote control car. We got them each a pair of wool socks, which probably sounds lame, but they’re really outdoorsy people (all of my Muskoka family is) and wool socks are a coveted item. We also got them a bottle of Bailey’s.

Before dinner, Lisa gave each of us one present and she got me this really badass notebook/journal that was handmade in India. It’s leather with a design and a tiger’s eye on the front of it and then hand-pressed cotton paper on the inside (and LOTS of it) and then the whole thing closes up with a leather tie. I should take pictures of it, but I’m half writing this post and half working so I can’t. It’s really fucking cool though.

Phil (my father who’s just “Phil”, even my kids just call him “Phil”) got The Beverly Hillbillies on DVD so after the guests left and it was just us, we sat and watched that and then the kids sprinkled “reindeer food” outside on the snow and went to bed. Once that was accomplished, Blake, Lisa and I went to work filling the stockings and setting out Santa presents for my sisters and Wes who all still believe.

At about 2am, we all finally went to bed and the second Raili saw my eyes crack open Xmas morning, this is what I woke up to:

Lisa made some weird egg thing for breakfast that had broccoli in it so I didn’t have any. It’s not like I dislike broccoli or anything, I just don’t think it should be anywhere near eggs. And it should also always have cheese sauce on it. I mean really, all broccoli is to me, is a vehicle for cheese sauce. Having said that, I had toast instead.

After breakfast and me opening my stocking, which everyone else had already done while I was sleeping, it was time to open presents and really, there’s no details to be had there other than the fact that it was complete and total mayhem. And Wes screamed like a crazy person with every Zhu Zhu item he opened, which ended up being MANY MANY Zhu Zhus and accessories.

In the end, Wes scored 9 Zhu Zhus total and about 9 feet of Zhu Zhu playsets which are hamster tubes that all connect and that now my living room is overrun with. We also got Raili and Rachael pink and purple PRINCESS Zhu Zhus so there were 11 of the things going all over the place Xmas morning.

After the little kids went mental over presents, we just all kinda hung out while Phil & Lisa started making Xmas dinner. As I do every year, I went down to the basement and had a nap because I simply cannot function on only a few hours of sleep, especially when that sleep was full of nightmares. While I did that, Phil watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about the conspiracies surrounding 9/11 because he’s paranoid like that (we recommended he watch Zeitgeist, which he did later that evening but I don’t know what he thought of it).

So then it was just random socializing until Phil and Blake took the kids and the dogs outside to go toboganning with the new snow things the kids all got from Santa. I stayed inside, big surprise, but we could see them from the kitchen window and a good time was had by all, especially the dogs, until their snow things broke and everyone had to come in. They were outside for a good hour though and Phil would pull them back up the hill with the snowmobile. Shoulda taken pictures, didn’t. Oh well.

Xmas dinner was just Phil, Lisa, my sisters and us (which is a good thing) and it was a fantastic meal. Phil definitely knows how to prepare turkey and this year LISA made the stuffing at my request so there was no oysters or fucking PINE NUTS in it like there has been other years when Phil was responsible for it. To me stuffing is the best part of Xmas dinner and when Phil was doing it (and making it gross and inedible), it actually upset me that I couldn’t have any so this year I asked Lisa if she would make me just a box of Stovetop Stuffing or let ME make it and explained that Phil’s idea of stuffing was way too gross to all of us so she said she would but ended up making stuffing from scratch, in the bird, in the end, so I was very very happy about that. She also makes these killer whipped mashed potatoes that I love and there was broccoli WITH CHEESE SAUCE, so I was very happy with dinner indeed.

After dinner, Blake and Lisa cleaned up and once that was done, Phil, Blake, Madison and I pulled out my new, pink Bicycle playing cards and we had 2 games of Euchre. There was a bit of drama surrounding that because Madison’s emotions were running high and the fact that she’s still a beginner but Phil won both times, once with Madison as his partner and once with me as his partner. That means Blake lost two times. :oD

Then there was more Beverly Hillbillies and bed. But before I end Xmas Day, I have a sort of announcement to make that no one but me probably cares about.

You know my friend Jesse? I’ve written about him before and the last you probably heard of him was that he thought he was transgendered and into men. Well, he’s been seeing this girl, Patricia, for something like a little less than a year and on Xmas Day, he changed his relationship status from “in a relationship” to “engaged to Patricia [last name]“. I’m not *totally* sure if it’s legit or if they’re fucking with people, but if it is legit then all I have to say to them is “congrats!” and that I hope I’m invited to the wedding.

Jesse and Patricia

Truthfully, I haven’t spoken to Jesse in about a year. He won’t return my calls, won’t reply to e-mails or Facebook communications. He has sworn up and down to Raymond and Blake that he’s not mad at us and we haven’t done anything but still, I wonder constantly about the reason. Blake ran into him a few months ago with his mom and she told Blake that Jesse was in college (I forget what for) and Blake said Jesse, our fairy princess friend Jesse, had grown a manly beard and I got a little worried, but when Patricia posted the above picture on Facebook yesterday or the day before, I saw that Jesse was wearing eyeliner and felt immensely better because that means the Jesse I know is still in there and he already knows how much I miss him so all I can do is still be here when he comes around, whenever that may be. He’s obviously going through some major changes and maybe he felt he had to do that alone or maybe he was afraid of what we’d say or something. Who knows? And I know it’s not just us, he’s been ignoring Raymond too. But whatever, I’m happy if he’s happy and that’s all that matters.

Back to Xmas…

Boxing Day morning we woke up and Lisa made us eggs and sausage (I freaking love breakfast sausage but it’s SO bad for you I never have them, except times like that) and we just kinda hung out while Blake and I casually started rounding up all the kids’ stuff and got ready to start the leaving process. I went to the garage to give the dogs their Gravol so they wouldn’t puke in the car (Lucky puked on the way up, despite giving him the Gravol then too) and Blake took them outside for a final tromp around the snow and to pee.

During all this, Phil was getting ready to “go to work”, which in the end meant that he was going to the hunting camp with Paul and some buddies, I think. We packed up, said our goodbyes and off we headed to home.

Getting home was such a huge relief. I don’t hate going up North as much as I used to but being away from home for 2 days really really stresses me out. When we got home and settled, I did some internetting and watched the Leafs game while working on my “Snow Princess“.  Then Blake and I watched some Buffy and went to bed because we were absolutely exhausted from all these KIDS making us insane.

Yesterday was Xmas with my mom, her boyfriend John and his son Chris. This is what I wore (PS. I suck at taking mirror pics…):

The sweater is the $80 cotton sweater I was talking about months ago.
The gauzy thing is from Free People, which is my favourite.

We were actually going to John’s cottage to have Xmas with my mom and it’s right on the lake. John and Chris built a rink on the lake so there was skating to be had by my mom, John, Blake, Madison and Wes just slid around in his boots because his skates don’t fit anymore. I stood there and filmed them while freezing my fucking ass off. So video does exist of everyone skating but I haven’t uploaded it yet and truthfully, it’s not all that exciting so I’m probably just going to upload it to Facebook where I can tag everyone so their “people” can see it.

After skating, the kids played Wii with Chris and the “adults” (term used loosely) just sat around and shot the shit until dinner was ready. Dinner was pork tenderloin, which I don’t eat but everyone else liked it, carrots, broccoli (without cheese sauce), Stovetop Stuffinf (yay!) and roasted potatoes.  It was a fine meal and everyone enjoyed it, in fact I don’t even think there were any leftovers.

When dinner was finished, my mom asked the kids if they’d rather have dessert first and presents after or presents first and dessert after and they chose the latter, so presents it was. I got my mom peridot earrings to match the necklace I got her for Mother’s Day, I got John 2 boxes of Lady Fingers and Chris a black & silver Zhu Zhu pet because damnit, all the kids in my life were getting Zhu Zhus this year. I mean, he’s 15 (or 16?) and probably has no need of one, but he got one anyway.

I didn’t really see what the kids or Blake got, to be honest. I got a big bottle of REAL maple syrup, some weird rubber flower things you put on your wall, pajama pants, a Hello Kitty Beanie Baby, Skittles (w00t!) AND MOTHERFUCKING LEAFS TICKETS!

The tix are obviously for me AND Blake and it’s for the game on Saturday, January 22nd against Washington! So if things go as planned, it should actually be a WINNING game! (They lost the only time I saw them play.) This also means that I have to buy Blake a Leafs jersey for his birthday (the 11th) because I refuse to be seen with him if he’s wearing the knock off I got him from Wal*Mart (we got each other knock offs last year for Xmas, mine’s pink). But whatever, he’s Canadian now, sort of, so he needs his own Leafs jersey anyway.

So not only are we going to the game, but my mom & John have agreed to babysit so I’m thinking MAYBE, just MAYBE, we might get a hotel room in the city to do a bit of partying after the game. But we’ll see how things go. I am SO ABSOLUTELY FUCKING STOKED though. And I almost died of shock because my mother would never get us that in a hundred million years, so THANKS JOHN! :oD He is definitely a good influence on her…

After presents we shot the shit some more, then it was time to go home, we got home and pretty much just went to bed. And that was my Xmas.

How was yours?

Oh and since there’s not video of Madison, here’s a bonus one where she talks about peeing her pants on the way home from school. This was taken the week before Xmas, I think:

So it’s 3:15am and I woke up because this house is a million  friggin’ degrees. I turned the furnace down and now I’m in my office waiting for my room to cool down a bit before going back to bed. It doesn’t help that my husband is a walking, talking ball of fire. Sometimes he puts off so much heat that I’m afraid he’s going to spontaneously combust.

Friday was good. I woke up to a manageable amount of work e-mail and got the pile clear around noon (I start working at 10am), which gave me the opportunity to watch really bad movies (like, really bad – one was called Helen and the other one was She’s Out of His League or something – both horrible) and work on my last 2 paintings of 2010.

I won’t keep it a secret: one of the two is an alternate version of “Just Like Honey“. The original version, which lives in Winnipeg, had a black and yellow gold background (on white) and the girl had black hair with yellow gold and black stripes on her bodysuit (for lack of a better term for what she’s wearing) and brown eyes. The one I’m doing now, because I didn’t want it to be a duplicate, has more of an orangey gold, black & metallic “espresso” background, the girl has metallic “espresso” hair, an orangey gold & black bodysuit and a mix of the gold & espresso for her eyes. I wanted it to be more or less the same, but different enough that it wasn’t a duplicate.

Also, I think this one is probably going to be just for me. In fact I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I think from now on, most of the paintings I do are going to be just for me. At least until I figure out how to make decent prints, which I’m in no rush to do. I think what I might do from now on is post paintings on my site and say like, “if you want this one, it’s $XXX.XX + shipping, so let me know and I’ll put it in my Etsy shop”. Because this is the thing: I’ve never really liked selling my originals but I have because until recently, painting and the pittance I make on Camwhores has been my only form of income. Now that I have a job and I’m making pretty decent money, I don’t have to sell my originals. I still want to have an art business, so I’m still going to make ACEOs and maybe I’ll put a few paintings up on Etsy, just not all of them.

I’ve also been thinking about my grant proposal and I’ve convinced myself that it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll actually get it and I’ll tell you why: I think my last 2 grant proposals were rejected because the first year, I only asked for $1500 because I didn’t read thoroughly and didn’t see that they didn’t award partial grants. The second year, last year, my proposal was less an arts grant proposal and more like a business proposal and the grants aren’t there to further your business. Or at least that’s the gist of what I was told by the program co-ordinator when we were e-mailing back & forth all summer about it. Nevertheless, I inadvertently made this year’s proposal a little businessy with talk about children’s boutiques at the end of my artist statement and I think that may turn off the jurors.

I wish I’d have come to the realization that I don’t have to sell paintings anymore, I just have to paint them and that I could either keep them or give them away to say, the children’s corners of libraries was one idea I had, y’know how most of them have a story time area? I think ideas like that would have made a better proposal but I just wasn’t in that headspace. My goal is/was to get my art seen my children and the only way I saw to do that was to attract a new audience by way of children’s boutiques but now that money’s not a motivator, I see that there are other ways. Thinking along these lines, can you guys think of any other places that are public where children gather? Places that might like a donation of art? Another thought I had was hospitals. Really, all I want is for my art to be seen, ideally by children with imaginations or who may need the escapism.

I also won’t been this a secret: there will be another version of “Just Like Honey” in 2011, but she’ll be a brown girl. I haven’t planned out every painting for 2011, but since “Just Like Honey” was inspired by The Secret Life of Bees, that seemed like a good place to start.

The other girl I’m working on as my last painting of 2010 has metallic white hair with metallic blue eyes and I love her so much I doubt she’ll be for sale either unless someone I like really really wants her. She was inspired by the girls in Mark Ryden’s recent Yak Show. She’s not meant to be an albino, just as I don’t think his girls are meant to be either, but I’m sure people will think she is one. The bodice of her dress is going to be the white sparkly paper I posted this evening, she’s going to have a white Swarovski crystal bindi (maybe, I might use them for “snow drops” instead) and the skirt of her dress is sparkly silvery white and will have white marabou trim. Her canvas is white crackle over light metallic blue, which I mixed myself, with metallic blue and metallic white splotches with the faintest bit of silver splattered across. I haven’t decided what colour of glitter to use. I have white glitter but that’ll be similar to the bodice of her dress so I probably won’t use it and I think silver is going to be too obvious/plain. I do have chunky silver glitter though, and that might look pretty cool. Anyway, I’m excited about her because she’s different from anything I’ve done so far and I think an almost albino looking girl is sort of apt for being my last painting of the year considering next year is going to be dedicated to quite the opposite. I didn’t plan it that way or anything but I did think tonight that maybe it was a subconscious thing.

Before I get any further into my own head, I do want to mention that my friend Robert wrote a book! I think he’s a fantastic writer and his book is about 3 teenagers who are in a mental institution and then there are 2 other stories in the book but I’m not sure what they’re about. I haven’t read it yet, it just became available tonight, but I think it’ll be good so I’m recommending it to you guys.

Anyway, by the end of next week these 2 paintings should be finished and the rest of the year, right up until January 15th, is going to be dedicated to my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project since I have, oh, one page finished and it’s a crappy page. I haven’t even finished gluing all my pages together so there aren’t as many! I’m actually kinda scared that I won’t have time to do it the way I want to and that it’ll be a crappy effort, made worse by the fact that I paid for digitizing so the whole world is going to be able to see it. When I ordered the sketchbook and made myself part of the project, I didn’t know I was going to stumble into a full-time job. BUT if I can make every day like Friday and get these 2 paintings done as soon as possible, I should be able to make a decent go of it I think. Or I hope.

I think I might bring my drawing stuff up North with me over Xmas, which brings me to…Xmas.

Traditionally, this is about the time where I write my yearly post about how much I hate Xmas and how stressed out I am about it. But this year’s different: I’m actually looking forward to Xmas. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? This year, since Xmas is on a weekend, I’m going to try & finish working around 4pm and we’ll head up North to my dad & Lisa’s like, the second I’m finished so we’ll be there in time for dinner where apparently my Aunt Sandi is making lasagna, Lisa’s making potato skins and a salad and I’m going to convince Blake to make salsa that they can all have as  an appetizer. Lisa’s going to make me a small Caesar salad because I don’t like “regular” salad (and truth be told, I think you should have Caesar salad with lasagna, although I couldn’t tell you why).

Then we’ll be there for Xmas Day, where I’ve asked Lisa if she’ll make me a box of Stovetop Stuffing because Phil’s oyster/pine nut stuffing concoction is way too gross for me to even fathom and I think stuffing’s the best part of Xmas to be perfectly honest. I’m going to be bringing my computer (naturally) and my monitor so I can take over their desk and be available to do my check-ins for work, which I told boss #2 I’d do. Then we’re going to stay over AGAIN so we’re there for part of Boxing Day and aren’t racing home in the dark or in a storm like we did last year.

I’ve already sent Phil a message on Facebook to please have the garage ready for the dogs, especially since they’re going to be there for 2 & a half days, so that stressor is out of the way. (Although he hasn’t replied…but that’s typical.)

THEN I figure the weekend AFTER Xmas, we’ll do Xmas with my mom at John’s cottage. Although I just realized that’s New Year’s Day so I’m going to have to talk to her about that…I have to work during the week and so does Blake, so I’m not sure how else we’ll be able to do it, unless maybe we do an early Xmas with my mom the week before while Blake’s off. Mother, if you’re reading this, e-mail me with your thoughts.

Our shopping is mostly done, or at least done enough that I’m not worried about it. I more or less know what else we need to get and Blake has the weekend before Xmas off, so he can do the rest of the shopping then. He’s also going to be a great help because the kids are home that week and the week after (I think) and I hate when they’re home now because while Madison’s old enough to look after Wes and I can close my office door, I end up policing them and getting pissed at them all day while I’m trying to work. I mean, my job’s not exactly a difficult one, but it does require concentration which is impossible when Madison’s driving Wes crazy.

I do have a tool to use against her if she does that though. For Xmas she’s getting a netbook which I can very well take away if she pisses me off and she won’t want that SOOOOOOOOOOOOO…

That said, I’m not worried about gifts this year because I started early and got people some pretty good stuff this year because we could afford to and we’re not going into (more) debt to do it.

Anyway, I think I’ve babbled enough for the middle of the night and it’s time to go back to bed. Also my legs are cold. So goodnight!

I normally do my best not to write about my dad (Phil) and Lisa (his wife) because they are extremely private, somewhat technophobic and maybe a little paranoid in the case of Phil about what information is and isn’t out there about them. (It’s a long story.) They’re getting used to the idea of my site ad my online extracurricular activities and have been for quite some time, but I think Lisa starts reading my site a while back and I think she, at least, is getting more comfortable about the idea. Phil? Well, there’s a large part of me that doesn’t especially care what he thinks or how he feels because when it comes to writing and blogging and internetting, he just kinda has to learn to trust me an to trust that I know my audience better than he does.

That said, yesterday was Father’s Day and for the first time since I met him (when I was 13, so 18 years ago, – over half my life) we were in the same place at the same time during this holiday.  And that’s literally about what it boiled down to.

First of all, Phil, Lisa and my two sisters Raili (4) and Rachael (18 mos) live up north, which is about 2 hours away from where we live and it takes a lot to get me up there. I mean there’s my whole “leaving the house” deal thrown in there, but also I worry a great deal about my dogs (whether we take them or leave them at home) and they eat weird things so a lot of the time when I’m up there, I’m absolutely starving and feeling like a bad guest because I won’t eat anything they’ve prepared for us.

Like, about a month or two ago, Phil happened to be in Barrie doing something, called Blake, who works in Barrie and I think they hung out or had lunch or something. During that meeting, Phil said we should come up and that they were free 3 weekends out of the next couple of months, one of those being Father’s Day weekend.

So, when Blake ran the idea of me, I picked the most logical time to go up: Father’s Day weekend.

After that, Blake and Lisa started coordinating plans and the last I’d heard about it, weeks ago, was that we were going on the Saturday and staying over until the Sunday. But then I remembered a prior commitment that would make sleeping over impossible, so we apologized and made it a Father’s Day day trip instead, which meant getting up at the crack of dawn so we’d be there early enough to spend some quality time with them before having to come 2 hours home.

Saturday night, Blake and I were idiots and played Warcraft until about 2am-ish which was totally stupid because we had to leave the house BY 9am Sunday, which meant getting up at the asscrack of dawn.

Not being very good at coping with not enough sleep, when we got to Phil & Lisa’s, I chit-chatted for about 20 minutes while we had sandwiches and then I took about a 2 hour nap in one of the new bedrooms they not have since they put on the addition, which I was seeing for the first time.  As I napped, Blake and Phil made feed troughs for the pigs Phil & his neighbour are fattening up to eat.  Then they started making shelves for Phil’s tool truck.

When I woke up, everyone was outside. Lisa and the kids were on the back deck with Wes playing with Raili (they were catching worms) and Madison talking to Lisa while Lisa held Rachael and Blake & Phil were in the front yard/driveway, building those shelves for Phil’s truck, like, using saws and power tools and all kinds of “manly” shit.

Everyone was doing their own thing and I was smart enough to bring my laptop and book with me, so I sat on the front steps of their house, first chatting to people in Warcraft until my battery died and then reading Eat, Pray, Love for pretty much the rest of the day. Every now & then, I would talk to Blake but mostly, like everyone else, I just did my own thing.

But, the whole time I was sitting on the step, I kept joking in my head, “what’s the best Father’s Day gift I could have given Phil?” and the answer was, while watching them build shit together, “a son” because keep in mind that Blake’s more or less as fatherless and Phil is sonless and the two of them go together like peanut butter and jelly. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t at my dad’s for Father’s Day at all, Blake was.

Eventually they finished the shelves and went into the garage for Phil to drink a couple of beer and for Blake to have a Coke Zero and it took me a while to realize they were finished with the shelves so it was a while before I joined them.

They mostly talked about computers and internet crap and I didn’t really get into the conversation until grocery stores and factory farming came up, which I’ve had a lot to say about recently. For the record, Phil seems to think I’m nuts by talking about all of this stuff.

But that was when Blake told Phil that we were hoping to get back on the road by 7pm so we could get the kids in bed at 9pm which is Wes’ usual bedtime. (Madison’s is 10.) Phil said something like, “well in that case, we should probably start getting dinner ready,” since it was about 5:30pm.

We agreed that that was probably a good idea.

So on their back deck, they have one of those little metal fire pits with a wire grate on top? And Phil informed me that this was where he was going to be making dinner, which was to be steak, potatoes, salad and some other weird stuff I won’t eat. While Phil cooked, we sat there and shot the shit about his cooking methods, food and painting while inside the house, Lisa was cooking things on the stove while Blake was on kid patrol.

Time Blake spent with Phil pretty much alone: probably about 6 hours
Time I spent with Phil pretty much alone: about an hour, an hour & a half tops

This is what I mean by Blake being there for Father’s Day, not me being there for Father’s Day. I mean, if I had my way, we would have stayed home and played WoW or gotten the vacuuming done or something because I’m anti-social like that and while I say that and it’s the truth, I always feel that way about going up north and I’m always pissy when I get up north because I resent not being at home but by the middle of the day, I’m usually glad we came. And usually because Blake & Phil are buddies and Madison and Lisa are buddies and because Wes and Raili are buddies.

As I said originally, I didn’t meet Phil and Lisa until I was about 13 and it’s taken the last 14 years to really have any real relationship with them mostly thanks to the birth of my sisters but also because of Blake who, when I found out through the grapevine that I was actually going to have a sister because I wasn’t speaking to Phil or Lisa at the time, called them and said “maybe you should call her” (meaning me). And things have been awkward but fine ever since.

It was actually my mother-in-law who really brought to my attention that even though Phil & I have known each other for a long time now, we don’t really know each other.  It was at a birthday party for Madison where she said something like, “wow this is really new” (meaning the relationship) and I agreed, because it was true.

I see Phil twice a year. Once during Xmas and then usually in the spring,l not always for Father’s Day and before that, like as I was growing up and stuff like that, it was even less than that and it was so awkward I can’t even totally describe it.

Now when we go up there, I know Blake & Phil are going to go do something outside of everyone else, Lisa & the kids will stick together and I’ll have the choice to hang out with either party or do my own thing, both of which are completely acceptable.  We’ll all reconvene for food at some point, I can wander amongst the “camps”, so to speak.

Anyway, I think Blake had a good day on his Father’s Day – which was my top priority – and I think Phil had a good time on his Father’s Day, so I think Father’s Day was successful even though most of Blake’s Father’s Day gifts, which I got on Etsy over 6 weeks ago, weren’t here in time.

On Saturday Madison made Blake “gourmet” cheeseburgers from the Jamie Oliver cookbook for dinner and tried to follow it up with peanut butter fudge that was made herself, but she didn’t know the difference between regular sugar and icing sugar and didn’t think to ask, so the fudge was actually pretty inedible, but she did her best and that’s all that matters.  I got the kids a card to give to Blake that I knew he’d appreciate and I gave him the gourmet coffee I got him from Etsy which were the only two things that arrived in time.

Still to come is geek soap, geek lotion, geek balm and this crazy Alaskan mustard, and this coffee mug that I feel in love with. I got him one that says “Prozac” in the light green colour.  (I already showed him the stuff so I’m not ruining any surprises here.)

Anyway, Father’s Day was pretty successful, as I said. Two fathers were made happy by each other,  my kids had fun, I got to read without feeling guilty about it (long story) and I think that’s pretty cool.

(And we didn’t get home until around 11pm because as per usual we were late leaving and by the time we got home, we were pretty much all dead to the world.)