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.)

There’s a TV, a Blu-Ray player, a cable box with HBO and The Movie Network OnDemand. There’s my beloved Canada flag that I gaze at with pride every. single. day. There’s the banner Blake made me for my 28th or 29th birthday that says “It Is Your Birthday” that I loved so much because it was so funny that I never took it down (until Sunday). There are 3 paintings: one of sad flowers that was just an experiment in using acrylic on canvas long before I knew I could paint happy girls and two paintings that are a set, one called “Damaged” and one called “Dirty”. “Damaged” is done in reds and “Dirty” is done in browns. Here they are (super old pics, sorry for the crapola quality):

“Damaged” is about my body and I supposed “Dirty” is too because they were both made during a depressive episode where I didn’t shower for a few weeks. This was in 2005, according to the dates on the paintings. My friend Sini bought these two but said that I had to promise to always hang them on my studio wall, so that’s what I’ve done. They’re probably my 2nd and 3rd favourite paintings that I’ve done.

Anyway, let’s take a tour of my office with the “before” pics…

Look at that mess! Look at all that VERY IMPORTANT STUFF!
I am BADLY in need of a new desk chair, I have been for years, it’s just never happened.

This is the most common sight in all of Sunnyland: laundry baskets and receipts.
The dryer is in my office, hence the laundry baskets.
I never throw away a receipt if it has anything to do with Sunnyland Studio.
I don’t even file taxes as a business but I’m scared one day I’ll get audited and I’ll need these receipts so I keep them.
The playing cards on the left-hand corner are pink for breast cancer, underneath them is Skip-Bo and Uno’s in that mess somewhere too.
The bottom corner of the coffee table was chewed off my our old puppy, Zulu.
The black binder is from metabolic clinic and the green one is Cammity Jane.
The round thing above the binders is this awesome blue and silver star garland that I’m going to put around my office door after Xmas when I steal the lights off the Xmas tree to put around my door with it.

I think this one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Blake took the banner down on Sunday so I would be able to put up the lights and garland when it will be time to do so.

Blake got me the TV for Xmas last year and beside it is the furnace.
And of course, my flag.

I love my bookshelf. It’s getting a little full, but I think that’s a very good thing.
Right now I’m reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen who is amazing to me.
Blake once described Joyce Carol Oates’ prose as being “chewy” and if that’s the case then Jonathan Franzen’s is “smooth” like vanilla pudding.
More laundry baskets of course.
And a dog who wants to go out.
And a treadmill with Blake’s gross sweaty towel hanging off of it.
And that turquoise-y thing on it is a heat pack that you put in the nukrowave.
Lots of boxes in the corner because you never know when you might need one.
There’s an easel back there too, that I never use. I save it because Blake got it for me and maybe one day I’ll need to display my art on it or use it to take pictures of my art.

Despite having a large room all to myself, I share it with a furnace and a dryer and one wall is aluminum siding and therefore mostly unusable so my paint sits in this box beside my desk while the colours I use the most sit ON my desk.
These clear boxes are full of scrapbook paper, one is just glitter paper alone and these boxes aren’t even the whole paper stash…I just compulsively buy the stuff because NOTHING inspires me more than paper.
On top of the paper is a Michael’s bag full of Hello Kitty puzzles for my sisters for Xmas.
On top of the box are my treadmill shoes and a 3-hole punch.
Behind the box is a big frame that my step-mom gave me a million years ago for Xmas that is pre-matted and says something stupid on it about family. I save it because one day I’m going to use the frame for something, I just don’t know what yet.

LOOK AT THIS MESS!
To be fair to myself, this was AFTER going to Michael’s for supplies to make my office more “me” and to make some Xmas presents, it’s not normally this messy, but pretty close. I usually have a workspace in the middle on this side of the desk.
My phone’s not normally on the desk (the rectangle thing beside the remote, the other phone is usually on the desk).
All that paint is always on the desk.
All that tissue paper (on the left by the Barbies) is for making paper peonies that I’m going to be hanging from the ceiling.
Currently hanging from the ceiling are these gross rubber spider moneys Kevin gave me a long time ago and birdhouses I never got around to painting. The spider monkeys are going in a box and are being put away and the bird houses are gonna probably be thrown out. Oh and there are crystals hanging from the ceiling too, but I’m probably going to leave those there.
The wicks (center) are because I’m going to be consolidating all my candles. I have a million candles where they burnt down to the bottom but there’s like, 2 or 3 inches of scented wax left over. I’m going to melt that wax and make new candles with these wicks I got for $4 a pack. It’s cheaper than buying new candles and it isn’t such a waste.

Did you know Martha Stewart makes acrylic craft paint now?
She does and it’s GREAT.
It’s $2 more expensive than the paint I use now so I’m not going to use it for everything but her metallics (she calls them pearls) are fantastic. The pink metallic paint that DecoArt discontinued on me? Martha makes the exact same shade. She also makes a lighter pink metallic that is the same colour as the stuff I was hand mixing for “Pink & Green I” and “II” AND she makes a light turquoise metallic called “Aquarium” that is just gorgeous. I wish I had money to burn because they’re 60% off right now and if I had the cash, I’d buy one or two of every metallic colour she makes.

I do my makeup at my desk because it has the best light, hence the mirror and lipstick.
Behind that is all my pens and markers in old mugs.
This is the back corner of my desk, it faces a window but I always keep the blinds down.

More of the back of my desk.
Sketchbooks straight ahead in a pile.
Embroidery floss in the box.
Vitamins.
Odourless mineral spirits in the tall skinny bottle.
Watercolour paper leaning against the window.
Sparkly gel pens to the right and also this fantastic circle-draw-er I got at Michael’s for a shocking amount of money, considering what it is. It’s for drawing BIG girls, which I’m going to start doing in the new year.

This is the OTHER back of my desk. If I were to sit here, I’d face a wall. Usually my computer is hooked up here (hence the monitor), but right now it’s in the living room and there it’s going to stay until after I have my big surgery.
To the left is paper and a box of glitter. Also my Sketchbook Project sketchbook which I haven’t worked on in weeks. :o/
Behind that is a bunch of drawers that I never use. All I knew before going through them when we cleaned up was that one of the drawers contained a mummified mouse carcass that we found behind the stove and that I wanted to do something with, but I decided I never would so we threw it out.
Beside that is my clipboard.
Beside the pile of paper and glitter is a turquoise bra and my pencil case, which is High School Musical. (Blake has a strange sense of humour…)
Beside that are turquoise glitter letters that I’m going to use on Argent’s painting.
Beside that are tickets that I got at the dollar store for $2.50 a roll! NO idea what I’m going to do with them yet but they’re cool as hell so I bought 4 rolls in various colours. I would really like to do a Mardi Gras girl so maybe I can hang the “beer” and “liquor” ones from strings as a background or something. They say “beer”, “liquor”, “admission” and I think “refreshments”.  I love them.
Beside those are the Touched By Fire catalogue and my printer that is perpetually out of ink.

This is my ribbon shelf. It also houses tape.
In the bag is a LOT of pink and neon green tissue paper from Xmas last year.

AND NOW THE “AFTER” PICTURES!
It only took about 4 or 5 hours, but we got it organized (more or less)!

Look at that! You can actually see the DESK!

All my paper neat and tidy!

The little bag to the left is my Powerpuff Girls makeup bag. I love it.
The little white jar that says “Golden” on it is their crackle medium, which I’ve had for years but I’ve never used. I hope it’s still good because it was expensive. I’ve never used it though because it’s weird, you put it on a had surface and the stuff, which is white and like a paste, crackles and then you paint over it. Not really useful for what I do.

So there ya have it. My office. Now clean.

What’s funny is that now that it’s clean, I’m afraid to spend any time in there in case  I mess it all up again. Stupid, I know. I was in there yesterday with Blake where we watched Ren & Stimpy while he walked on the treadmill and I tried my hand at making paper peonies. I got really frustrated with it though, because the paper kept ripping, so I got pissed off and crumpled it up and threw it in the garbage. Then I put away all the materials for them and announced that I would not be making any more of them. Blake said, “okay”, because sometimes he sucks and doesn’t say the right thing.  The right thing would have been to be encouraging.

Anyway, I ended up getting the half-finished peony out of the garbage and finishing it, which wasn’t so hard once you knew to go slow, and when Madison saw it on my desk after school, she asked if I would make some for her room too, which I will. My plan, after this post, is to wash my hair and watch movies while I make more paper peonies. Random fact of the day: my computer is named Peony.

So there’s been a bit of drama…I think…in Sunnyland recently, having to do with Xmas. I say “I think” because it’s hard to infer tone in an e-mail sometimes, but I think my step-mom, Lisa, is pissed off at us because we’re not going up there for Xmas like we have for the past few years.

The reason we’re not going up there is because it’s almost 2 hours away, in the opposite direction of the hospital, which very well could, since no one wants to be in the hospital during the holidays but me, call and say “be here in a few hours to claim your bed and have your procedure”. Being 2 hours in the wrong direction would not be a good thing if that happened. Not being at our home phone number, the only number this doctor has for us, would be a very bad thing. Having to wrangle kids and dogs and pack up presents, which is a process in and of itself that usually takes sometimes over an hour, is not something I want to deal with. Dressing changes while we’re up there and bringing supplies (and hopefully remembering everything – what happens if we don’t?) is not something I want to deal with.  Dealing with days worth of pills is not something I want to deal with when I take well over 20 of them 3 times a day.

I am high maintenance. I don’t want to add the chaos of kids and dogs and dealing with my father to the mix, thankyouverymuch.

When Blake e-mailed Lisa to tell her we wouldn’t be coming, we got an e-mail back 3 days later that was pretty frosty, saying that our presents were on a bus to Barrie already so we’d have them in time for Xmas (which we wouldn’t care about in the slightest but I guess it was important to her?). Also in this e-mail she mentioned that Phil had taken some time off work because his father had died.

Excuse me? My grandfather dies and no one fucking tells me? No, we were not close, yes, I barely knew the guy, but I was planning, if I could, to go to his funeral to learn about the guy. And no one fucking tells me? Why the fuck would no one tell me? I don’t understand! And I’m fucking HURT. Yeah, I feel like SUCH a part of this family now, we should all scramble to act like one for Xmas and hey, if I have to wait 2 more months for my procedure, that’s okay, at least we gave Lisa the happy family Xmas she wanted.

God I hate Xmas. There’s just no such thing as a bullshit-free Xmas and at this point I actually WANT us to have Xmas at home every year just to avoid all the bullshit of going up North. Ronny and Alex may be sleeping over on Xmas Eve so they’re here for Xmas morning, where we’ll do presents with the kids (Blake and I aren’t getting each other anything, except the new Jeffrey Eugenides book, which we’ll both read) and eat breakfast and everything will be mellow until we eat the Xmas dinner that Blake will have lovingly prepared because he’s totally awesome.

One note about our turkey this year: IT’S FREE! Our grocery store has this thing called “turkey bucks” where if you spend $50 on groceries, you get one “turkey buck”. We’ve spent enough on groceries that we may have enough money for one and a half free turkeys or just one large one (which is probably what we’ll do because our freezer won’t fit a turkey). Also at our grocery store, there’s a colouring contest for all ages and last time Blake looked, not only was mine the best, but it was also the only one in my age group so I’m totally gonna win. NO IDEA what the prize is (hopefully it’s not a turkey) but yay winning!

And that’s all I have to say.

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?

I’m assuming the funeral will be at the same church as his wife’s funeral. She died of cancer about 17 years ago. The church is a huge Lutheran thing with nice stained glass windows and I’m betting, like his wife’s funeral, the whole service will be in Finnish.

I refer to them as my father’s parents because I never knew them enough to really call them my grandparents. In case you’re not in the know, I didn’t actually meet my father until I was about 13 years old and contact with him was sketchy until my sister Raili was born when I was 25 and then we kinda became more like a family. However, my dad doesn’t really speak to his father or any of his siblings (there’s a whole bunch of them) so I just don’t really know any of them.

I used to want to know them, badly, and I even tried to teach myself Finnish from a book so my father’s father would be proud of me, but I failed and he’s brought it up every time I’ve seen him since I was 15. My father’s father is kind of a prick, to be perfectly honest.

Anyway, he’s dying and I’m not sure how to feel about that.

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.

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

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.

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:

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!