Oh procrastination, definitely my best skill. Right now I’m supposed to be writing an article on what it was like being raised by a teen mom for Buttercup but instead I’m sitting here listening to music and contemplating a full day of Dragon Age Origins.

The last few days have been phenomenal for me. First, on Sunday my country won gold for hockey and the game was unbelievable, one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I told Blake at the beginning of the Olympics that if Canada’s men took gold, he wouldn’t be able to stop me from ordering myself a Team Canada jersey, which I’ve always wanted. So, minutes after Sidney Crosby scored the final goal in overtime that gave Canada the win, I whipped out my credit card and ordered my Team Canada jersey. I wanted a medium, which is the same size as my Leafs jersey, but Blake wanted to be able to wear it too so I got a large.

Then on Monday, it was my birthday, which was pretty low-key. Blake got me Y the Last Man books 6, 7 and 8, so I spent the day reading those and eating half of a McCain’s chocolate cake. (I also did a show that afternoon, which is available in the archives, although it’s nothing spectacular.) My mom sent me a card in the mail with a $25 gift card to Michael’s (an art supply store) and on his way home, Blake asked me what I wanted for my birthday dinner, but I felt too sick to eat anything (I’m just getting over a stomach flu) so I told him I’d take a raincheque on that for another night. And that was pretty much my whole birthday.

But then YESTERDAY was like, an extension of my birthday where many good things happened. It started off not so good, as I was awoken by my dogs freaking out because someone was knocking at the door. I tried to ignore them but they kept freaking out so I got up and by the time I did, whoever was knocking was gone and there was a DHL post-it on the door saying that they’d try again tomorrow (today) to make their delivery. Since DHL is an international shipping company, I knew the package they were delivering was contraband from Cuba that our friend Drew had sent to us when he was on vacation there since he couldn’t send Cuban stuff to his home in MI. I signed the post-it saying that they could leave the package at the door and stuck it back on the door and put one of the large magnets we have on our door so it wouldn’t blow away.

After that, my neighbours called and asked me to come over, so I did and we sat & chatted for a couple of hours. They gave me a birthday card with a scratch off ticket inside for my birthday and that was cool. Then I came back home and made myself eggs and watched the movie Private Benjamin, which I’d never seen before and now that I’ve seen it, I cannot for the life of me figure out how or why Goldie Hawn won an OSCAR for that role because she was as Goldie as she’s ever been in any other movie I’ve ever seen her in. It must have been a slow year that year.

While I watched the movie, I renewed a couple of domains I own and registered a new one (my youngest sister’s name), and then I put in my order with Vesey’s for the seeds for the veggie garden we’re going to have this year. Our house came with a veggie garden already “built” in the backyard that’s about 14 feet by maybe 6 or 7 feet and bordered by railway ties. I ordered Royal Burgundy Beans, which are a bush bean that is purple, but when you cook them, they turn green and for that reason, they’re a big hit with the kids. I also ordered napoli carrots, thunder cucumbers, simpson elite leaf lettuce, parade green onions, super sugar snap peas, fat & sassy green peppers, purple star peppers (that are sweet peppers that are PURPLE and look lovely in salads), bobcat tomatoes and sugary cherry tomatoes. Truth be told, I’m not sure the garden’s big enough for all of that stuff, but I’ve never had a veggie garden before so I’m kind of going by trial & error. Mostly I’m worried about the cucumbers because I think vines need a lot of room to grow, but I figure if I plant them along the top of the garden they can drape over the 3 feet of lawn between the garden and the house and we just won’t mow there or we’ll move the vines when we mow and then put them back. And as I do every year, the whole gardening experience will be documented on my site.

After I ordered the veggie seeds, the movie was over and I took a nap which I was rudely awakened from by the dogs freaking out again because my kids were talking to other kids in our driveway.

When I finally got out of bed, after the kids had come inside, there was an Amazon package sitting on my desk that Madison told me had been sitting against the front door when they came home. So I opened it and inside was all kinds of birthday presents from a friend, including Dragon Age Origins which I’ve been wanting to play since it was released.

After I opened the Amazon package, I sent a thank you to the person who sent all of it and after it was sent and my browser came back to my inbox, there was an e-mail from Vancouver 2010 telling me that my Team Canada jersey had shipped and that it should be here in a few days. Score!

Shortly after that, Blake called me on his way home and I asked him if I could have my belated birthday dinner and he said yes, so I asked him to bring me home an assorted sub from Mr. Sub, because I had full intentions of installing Dragon Age as soon as I got off the phone with him and a sub is an easy meal to eat at the computer. See? Always thinkin’ ahead.

Well, I got distracted by Madison, who had sprained her toe and required drugs because she was in pain. Her toe looked horrific, it was so purple it was almost black, but she could move it, so at least it wasn’t broken. She said she sprained it when she fell at recess. Soooooo I drugged her and she went to bed.

Then Blake came home and I began installing Dragon Age, which I played for about 5 hours and then I went to bed.

Annnnnnnnnd now you’re up to date with the past couple of days of my life. :o)

So as I mentioned, it’s Love Your Vulva month over at Buttercup (NSFW this month!) and in honour of this month’s theme, my friends Alex and Ronny baked the most obscene cookies ever made. Would anyone care for a tasty vulva snack?

So Judy’s surprise party was a roaring success despite a few glitches.

As I mentioned, Judy has an infected tooth (more like an abscess) so she came home from work at around 10:30am and went to the doctor who prescribed her antibiotics because she couldn’t get in to see the dentist today. She was supposed to work until 3pm and then go to Wal*Mart shopping, where she’d meet Wayne and they’d do some more shopping until about 5/5:30pm.

So she was home all day and we couldn’t get started on decorating until 3:15pm when she left to go to Wal*Mart! But, that ended up being plenty of time to get everything done and by the time they got home from Wal*Mart, we had all the lights off and we did the “SUPRISE!” thing and she was definitely surprised.

This is the cake that Madison and Courtney (Judy’s 9 year old daughter) made for her this afternoon:

Ashley, Judy’s 23-ish year old daughter who’s currently pregnant with her first child and her baby daddy came up from Toronto too, then there were the three kids from up the street, Madison, Wes, me, Blake and of course Wayne & Judy, so it was a full house. Wayne had bought chicken wings to go with the lasagna Mikayla’s mom made and he also brought home this “3rd degree” hot sauce for them, which is like, industrial strength hot sauce that the deli at his work (he works at a grocery store) uses on their take-out wings.

I didn’t have any because I don’t like chicken wings or spicy stuff, but the stuff was so hot that Ashley couldn’t even finish three wings and Blake & Wayne were practically crying as they ate theirs, which was followed up by a great deal of beer.

Blake had mentioned earlier that he rarely walks away from a dare and somehow Ashley dared him to drink two shot glasses full of this hot sauce…which he did because he’s an idiot. Here’s the proof:

After the hot sauce was down the hatch, Blake pretty much downed an entire can of Coke Zero and about an hour later, he went outside and barfed three times between Judy’s house and ours…because he’s an idiot. After that he felt much better though and when we went back to Wayne & Judy’s, he consumed more wings with hot sauce. During that time, I actually came home and had a nap for about an hour & a half because I’m currently taking an assload of pain medication and it was making me sleepy.

Between Blake barfing and me having a nap, the cake was served:

After that, we just sat around and shot the shit and long story short, a good time was had by all, especially Judy who sampled some of my pain meds because of her tooth and washed them down with a hell of a lot of beer. And that was pretty much our day.

THE END.

So for some ungodly reason I’m up at the crack of dawn and really wishing I could get back to sleep. It all started with having to pee, then Lucky whining to go out, then Lucky whining some more after he came in, then the children being awake…so I guess now I’m just UP.

According to The Weather Network, we’re supposed to get our first taste of snow on Thursday and I cannot even begin to express how thrilled I am about this. [/sarcasm] All week, with the exception of Thursday, it’s been nothing but cold drizzle and grey skies and while I’m doing light therapy with my super fancy light box, it’s hard for this weather not to affect your mood. (Although I’ve been oddly upbeat in general, which is strange for me for this time of year.) Anyway, last year we didn’t get our first snow until mid-to-late November and I know this because it was Steph the Geek’s wedding and we had a hell of a time driving back home.

On Thursday, in a fluke of nature, the sun actually shone and it went up to a whopping 17 degrees C and I decided that it might be one of the last nice days of the year so Wayne & I should get out and do something. What I really wanted to do was going on the trails by my house and take pictures of the leaves and stuff, but Wayne’s not much of a nature guy so I opted for going to the pharmacy to refill my prescriptions instead, which is something I’ve only done once since living here and I thought it would be something good because that would mean Blake wouldn’t have to do it on the weekend.

So that’s what we did. Really, the trip was uneventful. I got my prescriptions, my Tylenol 1, my mega-ibuprofen, lotion, eyeliner and some Chapstick. Exciting, I know, but the point is, I did it all pretty much by myself. Wayne stood in front of the magazine rack reading a National Enquirer about Patrick Swayze’s last days the whole time.

Anyway, minor milestone for me, I suppose. I wish the pharmacy here was bigger. I actually really like pharmacies, always have. I like looking at the makeup and the hair products and the greeting cards, but our pharmacy is microscopic so while they have all of the above, it’s only in very tiny sections with very little selection and it never changes. The only greeting cards they have are birthdays, anniversaries, get well soon and sympathies, along with a small section of Marjolein Bastin cards, which happen to be mine and my mother’s favourites, but even there the selection is fairly thin. (I did get one for my mom though, which I will mail by myself…eventually.)

Other than that, my weeks have been consumed by Buttercup, my return to Camwhores and this wretched painting that refuses to complete itself.

So first, at Buttercup the conversations are happening so fast and we have so many people posting now that even I’m having a hard time following sometimes! This thing is really starting to take off, which is something we didn’t really anticipate happening until the new year. Perhaps this month’s cover has something to do with it:

Recognize those boobs? Well you might! They belong to the one and only Sybil Hawthorne, who was gracious enough to take a crapload of pictures for us to choose from for issue #2. We thought this one embodied what we think Buttercup stands for and also gives a nod to breast cancer awareness month and thus, that’s why we chose it. I was a bit iffy about sticking boobs on our cover because we have such a wide variety of women reading the zine, but so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Speaking of boobs, here are mine:

Same old bra (I’ve had that thing for 7 years! it’s the miraculous “click bra” that Victoria’s Secret no longer makes!), much bigger boobs.

As I was explaining to some folks on Camwhores‘ tagboard this week, my return to the site, while nostalgic, isn’t going to be the same as when I was on the site before, getting naked all the time and being free with my body. The reason for that is simply because A) I’m kinda fat these days and B) I’m 30 years old now. My boobs aren’t going to get any nicer. I mean let’s face facts here, it really is only downhill from here in the boob department and I don’t especially want an archive of my girls’ decline. I reserve the right to absolutely change my mind, but that’s my thoughts on it as of now. For now, these guns are gonna remain holstered. Now, hopefully I make a few tips or something from the site so I can afford some new holsters (bras) because it occurred to me the other night that in the two years I’ve been gone from Camwhores, I’ve only acquired two new bras, one of which is actually a pretty hideous shade of army green and if I’m going to be showing off my boobs in a bra, it might be a good excuse to invest in some more. For example, I don’t even own a white bra, meaning I can’t wear anything white, which is especially unfortunate since I bought some white shirts this summer without remembering that little fact. Oops. :o/

Also with my return to Camwhores, I guess it’s now time to update the Webcam page on this site.

Someone asked me recently if my return to camming meant that I’d be adding a cam feed to my site and the answer is no. For one, I use WordPress and I wouldn’t even begin to know how to make a WordPress page refresh every 30 seconds, two, I always hated updating two feeds – one for Camwhores and one for my site – and three, only like, 10 people even looked at the cam feed on my site over the years because most of my audience were Camwhores members so it just doesn’t make any sense to add a cam feed to my site. Not to mention the fact that I’m not a members-only cam on Camwhores, so when I’m updating there, the whole world can see me whether they’re a paying customer or not, so there would be no point in having a separate feed for my site.

Over the last little while a lot of former Camwhores members have asked me what it’s like over there now and all I really have to say about that is to watch the tagboard for a few minutes during peak times (9pm is a good time, so are the afternoons) and see for yourself. People are chatting up a storm, the community vibe IS back, the forum has been improved (it now has an arcade!) and people are coming out of the woodwork left, right and center! Last night I actually talked to SINISTER HER on tag for crying out loud! Yeah, that bitch is still around! :oD

While it’s true that the scenery has changed quite a bit in the last few years and there are a LOT of girls I don’t know as well as the old school ones I do, we’re all pretty much the same animal and as per usual on the site, everyone’s really nice and out to have a good time. When I first started camming, part of the drive for me was the party atmosphere of it, putting on some good, loud music and hanging out with 50 of my closest friends and I’m finding that that vibe is absolutely, 100% still there and I’ve been having a lot of fun.

Is it worth the $30/month subscription fee? Hey, I dunno, I’m not your accountant and I’ve never had to pay for it myself, I’m just telling you what it’s like in the deep end and I guess all I really have left to say on the matter is, the water’s fine.

Now…this damn painting. It has been sitting on my coffee table for about 2 weeks now about half finished:

It is (thus far) called “The Two Sunnies” and yes, they are currently armless (doing arms is the absolute worst part of any of these paintings) and all I know is that on the left it’ll say “Je suis heureuse” and on the right it’ll say “Je suis triste”, but other than that, I simply don’t know what the hell to do with it. The girls are going to be holding hands, that’s another element, but in person the painting seems so “blah” to me, even when I envision the words on it and I’m not sure how to take it further. I hate having unfinished pieces sitting around for so long because the longer they sit around, the more likely they are to get spilled on, or have the cat sit on them or the dogs knock them over, so I really want to get this one done, but I lack the vision and the motivation to do so. Everything in my life right now (besides not having any money, which is almost always the case) is going pretty good except this one little thing… Plus! I’ve got nothing else coming down the pipe, my mind is completely blank when it comes to creative endeavors. Because of Touched By Fire, I actually have this backlog of paintings that I’d like to get sold, but I can’t put them up until I know what, if anything, has been accepted for the show. I should find out soon, though.

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving and I’m going to be cooking a turkey on Monday. I forget how to cook a turkey though, so I’ll have to Google that, but it’s in my fridge right now thawing and I’m sure it’ll turn out fine. With it we’ll probably have mashed potatoes and a vegetable of some sort, corn probably, and I’m going to attempt to make gravy from scratch, which I’ve never done before and have no idea how to do. (So if anyone would like to tell me, that’d be good. I know I need cornstarch, which I have, I’m just not really sure what I’m supposed to do with it.)

Also this weekend, hopefully today, will be the yearly destruction of my garden. All of the flowers are officially dead and that means it’s time for Blake to get out the weed whacker and cut them all down to help spread their seeds for next year. I hope it’s not too wet though.

Anyway, now I’m pretty much just rambling so I think I’m going to go make some eggs and actually start my day. Before I go though, because eggs reminded me, Blake and my shrink both swear to me that if I start eating protein for breakfast, that I’ll start to lose weight because that’ll kickstart my metabolism. I’m not totally convinced that eating MORE is going to make me lose weight and if I gain so much as a lb I’m kicking some asses, but I figure there’s no harm in trying it, I’m already fat, so every day this week I’ve been having eggs about 2 hours after I wake up, then dinner and t hen usually a snack after dinner while we’re watching TV. I haven’t weighed myself or anything but I feel better, so I must be doing something right. Or at least I guess it isn’t bad for me, exactly.

Okay, now I’m gone. *poof*

Wow, the current version of WordPress is sooooo different than what I’d been using. Slicker.

Last night two of my favourite people, Blake and my friend Kevin, moved my site onto a new server, fixing my FTP and making it possible for Blake to upgrade my WordPress install. From now on, I should be able to update it myself from within WordPress, so that’s a bonus.

While they did all that, I dyed my hairs.

Sexy, huh? Friday night, no makeup, yeah I’m awesome. Really though, I just wanted to play with my new cam a bit. I have obtained a Logitech 9000 for my re-entry into camming and my god is it ever a nice camera compared to old webcams. It’s almost too good. Part of the beauty of webcams, back in the day (I hate that term, I dunno why I just used it) was that webcams were just crappy enough that they didn’t show zits, moles, stretchmarks, cellulite or light freckles and I, as well as others, were more than fine with that. I haven’t played around with this cam a whole ton, but it’s a lot clearer in low light than older cams, meaning it’s going to show flaws better. I’m cool with showing my flaws, I don’t care, and I can hide my occasional zits with makeup, so I don’t care about that either, I’m just noticing this huge difference and find it very interesting.

I was hoping to get my cam up and running by the end of the weekend, but that’s seeming more and more unlikely as I mentally tick down the things I have to get done in the next two days. For one, I have a Buttercup article due tonight that I haven’t even started (although I’ve done all the research already) and all day today, my neighbour Judy is helping me with my FOOD article for Buttercup because here’s a secret: I don’t really cook or bake and when I do, it’s usually from a box. The only thing I make from scratch are roasts and whole chickens and the subsequent stews and soups from the leftovers. I make muffins a lot for the kids’ lunches, but those come in a back and all I have to do is add water. Earlier this week I was going to do my FOOD item all by myself, but I chickened out and asked Judy to help me because she actually has cookie sheets (okay okay, they’re cookies) that aren’t rusting out. (I use my cookie sheets for like, putting TV dinners and frozen pizzas on and they were hand-me-downs 12 years ago. Mine are probably older than I am and they really are black from stuff boiling over onto them and they really are rusting out.)

I decided I’d take the FOOD column for October because my neigbour’s daughter had this really amazingly easy recipe for something very appropriate for Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving is on October 12th) and also, I kinda wanted to get my turn over with. I’ll have to do it again in like, 6 months, but whatever, at least after I have 6 months to find another recipe.

So speaking of October, have you seen Buttercup’s cover yet this month? Because it’s extra awesome thanks to my friend Sybil Hawthorne and we’re all really really proud of both the cover and what we have planned for this month. Last month we weren’t sure if this whole Buttercup thing was going to fly, but this month, after gaining 110 members in September with activity in 40 different groups, we decided to go all out and have more fun with this month. Sooooo check it out!

As far as camming…I’m not sure when I’m going to re-add myself to Camwhores. I have to find, download and crack cam software, for one. I’m told ChillCam is still around, but now you have to pay for it and some girls use Webcam32, which I also think you have to pay for. There’s a free one called Fwink (I think?), but I looked at it last night and it left much to be desired so I don’t think I’m going to be going with that. I have EvoCam for my Mac, thanks to zwilliams, but 95% of my camming will be done with my PC because my MacBook’s built-in iSight is garbage so I need something for that too. Half of my 7 years of camming was done on a PC using ChillCam and the other half was on my iBook using EvoCam, so I’ll probably go with ChillCam if I can find a crack for it or a keygen or something. Any help with that would be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday I sold a painting, although I won’t actually be getting the money for it until Sunday. My neighbour’s daughter and her friend were scouring my Facebook a few weeks ago, looking at my paintings and asking for prices on all of them so I redirected them to my site. Ashley’s (that’s the daughter) friend really liked my “Emo” painting, which has been rotting on my site for almost a year now, but neither of them were about to pay $90 US for it because they’re just not the art buying type, so yesterday I offered it to Ashley for her friend for her birthday at a very discounted price because hey, we’re friends and I’m really really really need money right now. In fact, if anyone wanted to buy a painting or donate money to my site, now would definitely be the time to do it because I’m running dangerously low on art supplies and I literally have about $1.50 to my name right now.

Anyway, this was the painting Ashley’s friend liked so much, which she will now be getting for her birthday, along with a Bitch Barometer, of which I only have 3 left of.

So graduating! On Thursday morning I went to see my shrink and because I’m progressing with my immersion therapy, I’m doing my lightbox therapy, my meds are stable and have been in a good place the last 3 visits, she’s bumped me up from seeing her once a month to seeing her once every 3 months. I can still phone her if anything goes wrong or I need more meds between now and my next appointment, but I’m okay enough now that I don’t need to see her as often.

I have to go in and get a blood test done to check my thyroid, my blood sugar, my salts, my cholesterol and various other things which are all routine when you take the kind of drugs I do. She also put me on the waiting list for their metabolic somethin’ er other clinics which is basically where you talk to a dietitian in a group and s/he tells you how to eat properly in order to lose weight as almost everyone gains weight because of their meds. Now, I’m no longer on the medication that made me gain weight and I stopped drinking Coke and I’ve been more active, theoretically I should have lost at least 10 lbs by now, if not 20, but I haven’t lost a single pound since going off the drug and these blood tests are partially to figure out why. The drug I was on, called Risperidone, can slow down your metabolism, which I’m 99% positive it did with me, and it can take like, 5 years to recover from it. It also probably didn’t help that I was on this drug just as I was turning 30, when your metabolism naturally begins to slow down a bit, so I kinda got the double whammy and I think it is SO damn unfair. Luckily I’m not gaining any more weight, I’m just not losing any which bothers me more than you could even imagine, especially because I’ve taken many many steps with zero reward.

But anyway, I only have to see my shrink now every 3 months and that is a good thing. Also, the light therapy, as much as I’m loathe to admit it, really does seem to be helping, so I’ve been in a good place for a while now.

Alright, I guess that’s all I really had to say, so it’s time to throw on a bra and get over to Judy’s so we can make these damn cookies.

Yesterday (Monday) I got up at around 10:30am and as per usual, I picked the crust out of my eyes and went next door to see what Wayne was up to. He was yelling at people on the phone, creditors, because that’s more or less what Wayne does on his day off besides drinking beer and doing odd jobs around the house.

I had a smoke with him and then I went back home to make a large travel mug of coffee. Wayne & Judy drink instant coffee which I think is pretty gross, especially because I don’t like coffee to begin with, but I started drinking it on the first day of school last week to give me a much-needed energy boost. We have this neat little “coffee toy” as Blake calls it, where you put the plastic thing over the top of a mug, put in a little filter and two scoops of coffee and then you pour boiling water in it until your cup is full. With the travel mug being so big, I used 3 scoops of coffee and by 11:30am, I was back over at Wayne’s bouncing off the wall.

I don’t know how it happened. For some reason I came back over to my house to do something and when I got back to Wayne’s he asked me to come to The Beer Store with him, which is down the street. He had enough empty bottles to take back for their deposits that he could get himself a 6-pack. And as I may have mentioned before, Wayne likes beer, especially on his day off.

For about half an hour he nagged me to come with him to The Beer Store and I kept saying “no” because as we all know, I’m not a fan of going anywhere, especially on foot. Finally I relented and I said “Wayne, DEAL OR NO DEAL [because he loves that show and I watch it with him all the time]. I go to The Beer Store with you and you come with me to the post office,” which is just a few blocks away and I had a small package I needed to mail. So he said “DEAL” and I went back over to my house to get the package ready while he got his empties ready.

I popped an Ativan because I was feeling pretty anxious about this excursion, put my cell phone in my bag, got my package all taped up and addressed (ruby slippers for a very special little girl in Oregon, if you must know) and I went back over to Wayne’s.

He was on the phone when I got there so I waited on the deck and popped another Ativan while he talked to someone in the middle of his backyard. When he was finished, he said “SUNNY. DEAL OR NO DEAL. We go to The Beer Store, okay? Then we go to the post office and then we go to TIM HORTONS [where Judy works] and get smokes out of the car and MY mail key, then we come back to the post office, back to The Beer Store so I can buy my 6 and then we come home.”

People. We live on one end of town and Tim Hortons is on the other end of town. Yes I live in a small town, but Tim Hortons is about 2 & a half miles away and I’m not used to walking anywhere, but what was I going to say? I was all ready to go and I needed to mail this package, so I said “what the hell” and off we went.

First we went to The Beer Store and he got money for his bottles. Then we went to the post office and I mailed my package. Then we walked all the friggin’ way to Tim Hortons where he got his mail key from the car and half a pack of smokes from Judy and then, as planned, we went back to the post office so he could check his mail and then back to The Beer Store to get his 6 before we went home.

By the time we got home I wanted to kill Wayne for making me do what we did and could barely walk and when I took off my shoes, I realized that I had a giant blister on the bottom of my left foot, another one on my little toe, one on my big toe and one on the little toe of my right foot – all because I’m an idiot and was too lazy to put on socks.

When we got home, I was starving so I came back to my house to let the dogs out and heat up some pizza while Wayne did Wayne things and when I was finished, I went over there to help him set up his computer and that was pretty much the end of our adventure.

It probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to anyone else to go to these places and walk a total of almost 5 miles, but I seriously do not leave my house except at like, 3am to check the mail, and I’m seriously out of shape thanks to all these goddamn meds and I’m actually really proud of myself for being able to do what we did. Not only did I walk that far and back, I interacted with the lady at the post office and paid with my debit card, which is something that gives me crazy anxiety, but I did it and it was totally fine, which means theoretically, I could do it again. Like, say I had to mail a painting to someone. I could probably package it up and take it to the post office either with Wayne or maybe even by myself and mail it. That’s something I couldn’t do a year ago, so I must be making progress. Right?

Speaking of paintings, you should all go check out what I’ve got for sale in The Shop in case you missed my post about it last week. ;o)

Now here’s where I ramble about inane shit. last night I finished the book The Secret Life of Bees and I LOVED IT. Yes, it was a little “Oprah’s Book Club”, as someone put it to me, but I couldn’t help it, I am in love with this book. It’s been a long time since a book affected me enough to make me cry, but that fucking thing had me SOBBING last night and I couldn’t stop reading until I was finished, which was about 5am. After I was done, I put a post-it on it for Madison saying that she should read it too, but before I went to bed I changed my mind because there’s too much in the book she wouldn’t understand. She has no idea about the American civil rights act of 1964 – they don’t teach that in Canadian schools – or segregation or racism or Catholicism or even what grits are. Hell, I’m not even totally sure what grits are. But I want her to read it nonetheless and after talking it over with Blake tonight, he said he’ll read it (it’s not a very long book) and then when she reads it, there should be someone around to explain to her the things she won’t understand.

I added the movie adaptation of the book to my wishlist last night and I really want to see it. I don’t have very high hopes that it’ll be anywhere near as good as the book and Dakota Fanning bugs the shit out of me, but I think I’ll like it and I’m pretty sure Madison will like it too. Plus, I love Queen Latifa.

Anyway, as I said, I’m in love with this book and I think Madison will be too once she reads it, so a HUGE thank you goes out to my friend Belinda for buying it for me for my birthday this year. <3

After I finished the book, I took my clonazepam like I always do before bed, waited about 20 minutes and then tried to go to sleep but no matter how hard I tried to clear my mind I couldn’t. Wanna know why? That fucking song “Goodbye Earl” by the Dixie Chicks was stuck in my head on a loop and it WOULD NOT STOP. After about 45 minutes of laying there with this goddamn song in my head, I got up and took another clonazepam (3 total) and make another attempt at sleep. That didn’t work either so after another hour or so, I got up and took an over-the-counter sleeping pill and sat at my desk screwing around on Buttercup while I waited for it to take effect. After I thought I gave it enough time, I crawled back into bed, annoyed that by this time the sky was starting to lighten and I laid there and laid there and laid there and watched the room grow lighter every time I opened my eyes to look at the clock.

Finally I got up around 7am and thought maybe eating something would help, as I often feel sleepy after I eat, so I made myself some eggs and toast and a cup of tea and ate them while I watched a bit of Breakfast Television. When I was done, the kids were just starting to wake up, so I hugged them both and got back into bed…and then Blake’s alarm went off. And he snoozed it. So I laid there not even trying to sleep because I knew the damn thing would go off again in like, 5 minutes. Of course it did and he SNOOZED IT AGAIN, so I laid there and waited for it to go off and when it did, he got up, we discussed my sleep issue and when he left the bedroom to get ready for the day I finally fell asleep.

And then I woke up around noon and couldn’t get back to sleep. My eyes felt sandy and I just didn’t feel good. I’d be cold and then hot and then cold again. I made myself some coffee to see if that would help me but it didn’t seem to.

Around 3:30pm I went over to Wayne & Judy’s to see what Judy was up to, we had a smoke and then when the kids got home from school I went back home. I did the homework check and signed Madison’s agenda and by that time it was 4pm and being Tuesday, it meant that it was time for Hug Nation, which I try to attend every week. I love Halcyon, but I was so tired that everything he was saying just kinda blurred together so all I heard was “blah blah Burning Man blah blah” as he and Andicat had just come back from Burning Man and Hal’s always juiced after that, so since I was half falling asleep, I just decided “fuck it” and went to bed. The next thing I remember is Blake coming into the bedroom to check on me and I told him to wake me up when dinner was ready, which would be about 7pm.

So I got up and ate my steak & potatoes while we talked about our day (or my lack thereof) and after that I was pretty much fine. he and I both did Buttercup stuff until the kids went to bed and then I worked on my new painting while we watched recorded episodes of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!

I didn’t think to take a picture of the canvas, which is more or less finished, until now and right now the light sucks so maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. This painting is either going to be called “The Two Sunnies” or :Sunny Light and Dark”, I haven’t decided, and it’s going to be about being bipolar. It’s, um, a very obvious painting and was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s “The Two Fridas”. (Although hers was about divorce.)

After Blake went to bed, I took a break from drawing and started writing this post. As I was writing, I was waiting for the kettle to boil because tonight was Jell-O night where I make Jell-O for Blake & the kids to take in their lunches in little singe-serve containers. One pack of Jell-O is 33 cents and makes 4 containers. You can’t buy pre-made lunch snacks for that kinda money and they all really like Jell-O so it all works out. I just use the Glad or Ziplock containers you buy at the grocery store, the little ones:

And now, here I sit. It’s 2:30am and I think I’m going to retreat to my Sims Bunker for the rest of the night. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to sleep and have a better tomorrow.

I’m exhausted, I don’t even know why I’m writing this.

This morning I had to get up early so we could be in Toronto for my 11:30am post-op appointment with the endometriosis specialist who did my surgery in August. Getting up early kinda sucked because I had trouble sleeping the night before, but it was free hashbrown day at Tim Horton’s if you bought a breakfast sandwich and their bacon & egg breakfast biscuits are soooooooo good and I hadn’t had one in about 6 months. So at least the day started off okay despite the suckage of early rising.

It took us forever to get to the Dr.’s office because of construction but we finally got there and I barely even got to sit down in the waiting room before they called my name.

First, here’s the post-op report (most of which I don’t understand) and then I’ll get into what the resident told me about the surgery:

Page 3 just says that the anesthesia was reversed and I was taken to the recovery room.

So long story short on the post-op report is that things were pretty fucked up in there, in fact the resident said flat out it was the worst he’s ever seen (no idea how long he’s been a resident). There was endo on and in my bowels, colon and bladder…just, as you can read, everywhere. What was interesting though is that they cut some nerves in there somewhere without asking me beforehand if I was okay with that. I am okay with that, but I find it a little strange that this part of the surgery wasn’t explained to me in the beginning. The resident who was explaining how the surgery went mentioned it (I forget what it’s called and I’ve stopped trying to make sense of the above report) and said it like I knew what he was talking about. When I said no, Dr. Leyland didn’t explain that to me beforehand, he looked a little embarrassed and explained that they cut these nerves in there so that when the endo grows back, which it inevitably will, I shouldn’t be in as much pain and in the meantime, my periods should be less painful both with the removal of all the disease they could find and these severed nerves, but that it could take 3-6 months for the effect to kick in. (I don’t know why.)

But of course, they don’t want the disease to grow at the rate it had been over the past 8 years, so to slow the growth I’m on a birth control pill continuously for 3 months, then I’ll have a period, go back on the pill for 3 months and repeat for a year. Then they want me to come back. If the pill doesn’t lessen the pain of my periods, they’re going to try an IUD that secretes the same(ish?) kind of hormones as the birth control pill but in different amounts.

All in all, I’m optimistic. I got emotional in the car when we left because already I’ve been able to do a few things that I haven’t been able to do for a long time because I’ve always been in too much pain, like dance around my house.

On the way home, Blake asked if I minded if we stopped off at his work because he had to change some data tapes and he said it would only take 10 minutes. I asked him what was in it for me and he asked what I wanted and I decided on a cherry slush from Dairy Queen. So he went into the mall and into work (his work is the top floor of a mall) while I baked in the car and tweeted like a crazy person and came up with the most brilliant idea ever which I shared with him when he finally came out with my slush: we had enough time to spend an hour & a half at the beach before the kids got home from school.

So that’s what we did. We got home, got our pool noodles, towels and swimming attire and headed off to Wasaga Beach, which is about 10 minutes from our house and, as I’ve maybe mentioned before, is like, the longest fresh water beach in the world. I took this pic with my phone and sent it to Twitter:

We walked out into the water, which was cold, but felt soooooo good after being in the hot car all day and floated there, just talking about random stuff for about an hour and then we got cold so we decided to get out and go to the grocery store to grab some stuff for dinner. That’s one of the cool things about Wasaga Beach, you can walk into the grocery store with wet hair and a damp towel wrapped around you and no one really cares.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’m addicted right now to these shishkabobs they sell at the meat section of a certain chain of grocery stores and that’s what we intended to get but instead, we got these steaks that were marinated in the same stuff as the shishkabobs (which I think may contain crack). We said hi to Wayne, who works at the grocery store, then we got in the car and went home.

There was still about 15 minutes until the kids were going to be home from school so Blake and I HAD THE MARITAL RELATIONS IN THE DAY TIME and then the kids came home and we bragged about going to the beach. they were not pleased with us.

Then I went over & hung out with my neighbour Judy for a bit while Blake made dinner. The marinated steaks were okay, nowhere near as awesome as the shishkabobs, but still pretty good and Blake also did garlic butter potatoes on the BBQ so dinner was more or less amazing.

Thennnnnnnnn nothing happened, we just screwed around online and bugged the children and I watched Deal or No Deal with Wayne and then it was time to come back home to watch the season premiere of 90210 and now here I sit writing this post.

So as the title says, today was a pretty good day. Tomorrow I can sleep in, maybe get some painting done and watch a few movies and then it’s the weekend! Yay!

THE END.

Yesterday was…a friggin’ day.

For some ungodly reason, I got up at 6:30am and I’m not really sure what I did between then and when the kids and Blake got up, probably internetting and screwing around on Buttercup, but after they left I decided to go over to the neighbours’ to see what they were up to. They were cleaning out their car and wanted to borrow my vacuum, so I brought it over and chatted for a bit and then I left to let them do their thing.

When I came home I don’t know what got into me but I looked at my stove, was immediately repulsed by the state of it and started taking it apart. I cleared the top of it, where the knobs are, of spices and my recipe box, then I took out the elements and set them on the counter while I pried the metal rings around the elements out (they were so filthy and stuck I needed a screwdriver for one of them – my stove came with the house and has NEVER been thoroughly cleaned) and with them, the metal…I dunno, grease catcher thingies that sit beneath the elements. The rings and the grease catcher things were BLACK, so after an unsuccessful cleaning with dishsoap, I put them all in the kitchen sink and doused them with a can of oven cleaner.

Prior to taking the last element out of the stove, I boiled the kettle and made myself a cup of coffee with this single-cup plastic coffee thing Blake has. I NEVER drink coffee, in fact I don’t really even like it, but I wanted to maintain the energy I woke up with so I figured I’d try that and it made me hyper as hell.

While the metal stove pieces were soaking, I happened to find two packs of the aluminum liners you put under the elements so the greaser catcher thingies don’t get as dirty, so score there and then I Mr. Cleaned the shit out of the wall above the stove, the top of the stove where the spices sit, the panel where the clock & knobs are and then the surface of the stove itself. Then I did the dishes from the kids’ breakfast and while I had a sink of hot, soapy water, I cleaned out my plastic recipe box.

Oh did I mention that I never clean? Okay that’s not totally true, I clean the toilet and the shower if I’m feeling industrious, but Madison does the dishes and Blake does the vacuuming and then Blake & I both take care of laundry and that’s pretty much the extent of our housework aside from lawn mowing (Blake) and taking out the garbage, compost (we have community composting, it rules) and recycling (Blake & Madison).

As my recipe box was drying, I came into my office to sit down for a minute when I realized the wooden landing, which is painted white, was looking more dark grey than anything else, so I got out the Mr. Clean again and washed that. Then I went outside and took pictures of my newest painting, which is finally finished.

After that, I went back over to the neighbours’ to see what was up and we shot the shit while they drank a few beer before Judy had to go to work. After she went to work, Wayne & I continued to sit on the deck and talk about how awesome it was that the kids weren’t there. I brought Lucky over with me to play with their dog Mandy and we just had a good afternoon. Periodically I’d come back over to my house to get another Coke Zero, take pills and check the progress of my stove parts, but other than that I just hung out with Wayne until it was time for the kids to come home.

Before I go any further into the tale of my day, which I know is oh so riveting, I have to tell you about what a shit Wayne is. We kind of have a feud.

Three days ago he opened the gate of his deck to find a dead “mouse” and apparently it was huge, he says, and he got the rake and flung it onto the empty lot next door. He kept telling me how huge this mouse was and how disgusted he was and I said “Wayne, that wasn’t a mouse, that was either a mole or a vole,” because mice, at least the ones around here, are NOT the size he indicated and our cat brings home dead voles all the time. (For those who don’t know, a vole is a small rodent related to muskrats that look like big mice except they have shorter tails.) Wayne is born & bred in Toronto and has no clue about the flora & fauna of “up north” so this isn’t the first time I’ve had to educate him seeing as I’ve lived “up north” my whole life.

Anyway, he said I was making up this whole vole thing because if such a creature existed he’d have heard about it. He claimed that was he flung with his rake was a grown up mouse and the little ones in his house are just babies.

WELL…I had my laptop over at their house yesterday to show them something on the internet (because our wifi miraculously reaches their back deck) and I got on Wikipedia and showed him what a vole was and read to him the part about how they’re 3-7 inches long and live in Ontario. Then I Wiki’d mice and lo & behold, the average mouse is about 9 centimeters long and THEN I showed him this picture of an adult mouse that I rescued from the cat last year and told him to note the size of the kernel of corn beside it.

And THEN I showed him pictures of pink baby mice feeding from their mothers and read him the part about how, as soon as they have hair and open their eyes, they stay with their mother about another week and then they’re considered full grown and even after I showed him ALL OF THIS GODDAMN EVIDENCE THAT WHAT HE SAW WAS A VOLE, he still says I’m full of crap and don’t know what I’m talking about. He is so frustrating!

Anyway, around 3:40pm Blake called me (I take our home phone over to the neighbour’s when I go because miraculously, the signal goes that far too) and asked me if the kids were home. I said that they weren’t and he said “the school called, there’s a missing kid named Tyler and they think he might have walked home with Wes,”. I guess this Tyler kid, who is the same age as Wes (6) and, as it turned out is also in Wes’ new class (and they’re BEE-EFF-EFFS), was supposed to get picked up by his parents and when they got to the schoo, he wasn’t there.

So I explained this to Wayne when I got off the phone with Blake and we set our lawn chairs in the driveway to wait for the kids. When they started coming up the street, with Emily & Alyssa, our other neighbours, in tow, we looked and there was no Tyler. So I explained the situation to the kids and asked if they’d seen Tyler and Emily said she saw a little kid named Tyler at the crosswalk near the school walking home alone. Madison volunteered to take her bike and go look for him, so I gave her my cell phone and off she went with Emily.

About half an hour later, Madison comes home and tells me that Tyler had realized that he was lost and backtracked his steps to get back to the school where they called his parents and he was now home safe. So disaster averted.

By this point it was almost 5pm, my stove was in pieces and I had a roast to get in the oven, so I told Wayne I’d see him tomorrow (today) and I headed back home to finish my stove & do what needed to be done. before I left, Wayne gave me 2 S.O.S pads to help with my task, which, as it turned out, I desperately needed and currently my arms are spaghetti from scrubbing the burnt on foodstuffs from my stove parts. But I got it done, got the roast in the oven and then I started filling out the bajillion forms each kid came home with.

People, it took me an hour and 15 minutes to fill out all these goddamn forms.

Then I signed Madison’s school agenda to confirm that she got her homework done and by that time dinner was ready (and Blake was home), so I ate and ate and ate because I hadn’t eaten all day and Madison did the dishes after dinner.

When I was done eating, I had to pee, so I went into the bathroom and stopped dead when I saw myself in the mirror. I don’t know how the HELL I did it because we were sitting in the shade all afternoon until about the last hour of being on the deck but I’m burnt again, making this the third time in a month & a half. My eyelids are burnt. I can honestly say that I’ve never gotten so much sun in my entire life, I mean, I’m kinda known for my death pallor, but right now I look like I’d been vacationing in Florida. It’s so strange, I barely even recognize myself.

After that, I said goodnight to the kids and hung out with Blake on Buttercup for a while and then it was 11pm, which is when I go next door again to fill Judy in on how the day went because that’s when she gets off of work. (I see her daughter after school and get the scoop and I tell her of Wayne’s antics and stuff like that because with the shift she’s on, she usually doesn’t see Wayne until late the next day and that’s just in the car for 15 minutes.)

I left Judy’s at around midnight and while I was absolutely exhausted, I didn’t want to go to bed yet, so I decided to go to the park across the street and swing on the swings for about 20 minutes. While I was over there, I looked out at our street and realized it was garbage night because everyone had their stuff on the curb, so when I came back over, I put our garbage and recycling out so Blake wouldn’t have to rush to do it in the morning (I forgot the compost though, oops!) and then finally, I took my burnt ass to bed.

I slept like the dead until about noon today and when I woke up, Lucky had his head on Blake’s pillow and as soon as I opened my eyes, he slurped his tongue up my face.

While today’s been a much slower pace, I did have another coffee (which I drank as fast as I could because I really DON’T like it), I made Jell-O for the kids’ lunches in little Tupperware containers and cut up celery which GODAMMIT THEY WILL EAT, as well as bringing in the garbage can & recycling bins. I was going to get industrious and clean out under the carport because it’s a huge mess that makes me crazy and my in-laws are apparently coming to visit the last two weeks of the month, but man, it’s like, 40 degrees outside with the humidex and I’m not in the mood to sweat.

Today Judy gets off work at 3:30pm, so she’s going to pick up the kids and when they get home, I’ll go over there to hang out with her and help her fill out the bajillion pieces of paperwork the school sent home yesterday (like explain to her a few of them, which were confusing, and give her our contact info for the emergency contact stuff) and then I’m going to come home and edit the pictures of my new painting until it’s time for my Buttercup staff meeting at 9pm.

*WHEW*

When I saw my shrink last week, I told her I thought I was sort of on a high, but like, a mild, good high and she told me that this was the level where she wants me all the time so she upped my meds. I’m not happy about having to take 11 pills after dinner (which make me feel barfy), but from my behaviour since she upped them, I’d say they’re doing their job. She also gave me a light box to use starting at the beginning of next month so S.A.D. doesn’t set in and bring me down.

So yeah, things are pretty good in Sunnyland right now. I mean, we’re fucking broke and that sucks, but other than that, everything’s good!

Ana just posted this on Facebook. I’d like to see it.

Official website

Oh, thoughts. Thoughts thoughts thoughts thoughts thoughts. So many of them.

First things first, I’ve been absolutely anxiety-ridden for the past two weeks and have popped more than 3 times the Ativan I normally do. What’s stressing me out? Here’s the list (because I like making lists):

- DRAMA. Mind you it’s drama I’m barely involved in but drama in general puts my stomach in knots.

- Getting these paintings done and done perfectly. The fact is, I need money almost as badly as I need to get these ideas onto canvas because without money a lot of my immersion therapy/”Plan: Sunny needs a Life” goals and ideas are impossible. I’m not saying that art isn’t a venue for stress relief, it is, I’m just extra worried about this series of paintings because I’m SO proud of the ideas behind them that I’m totally stressed out about them being perfect, especially because in a couple of cases I’m using techniques I’ve never used before. Right now I’m working on two paintings, which are about 2/3 finished but have been slow going. They’re almost ready to be varnished though, or at least they should be by Monday if I keep up this pace. Most of the time I do “in progress” shots when I’m working on stuff, but these ones are just too special.

- This Hypercube contest will be the death of me. Over the weekend the French winners were selected (but we don’t know who they are yet) and apparently next week the English contestants are going to be judged and I’m paranoid about my site/blog being interesting enough. I don’t know if they’re just going to click on the links I had in my canvas or if they’re going to be going a little more in-depth and actually read my site, but in case they do, I want some decent content up…but at the same time, I’ve never edited my content to be anything other than what it is. This is just my life, I write about it as it unfolds and if it’s an interesting week, it’s an interesting week, if it’s not, it’s just not. And often what I think is interesting is completely boring to other people and vice-versa so I don’t even know what to do next week with the idea of these people who could radically change my life and the life of my family potentially perusing my blog.

- Madison turned 11.

- I’ve been a busy girl during the past couple of weeks and I’ve been going far beyond my comfort zone with this immersion therapy thing. Take a look:

See the 29th there? I have to have lunch in a public place with my caseworker. yes Blake’s going to be there with me and it’s a familiar restaurant, but still, it’s not something I’m comfortable with and I’m not exactly looking forward to.

- June 4th I have my appointment with the endometriosis specialist in Toronto and I’m terrified of what he’s going to say. As I’ve written before, I’m cool with laser surgery, I’m cool with being on the birth control pill for a year straight WITH THE UNDERSTANDING that if it turns me into a psychotic, suicidal bitch as birth control pills have been known to make me, I can switch pills under the care of my family doctor. I’m also cool with the whole full hysterectomy deal, but again, as I’ve said before, only if I can take that shit home with me in a jar. People laugh when I say or type this, but I am absolutely serious and I’m worried this doctor will suggest hysterectomy but say no to letting me keep my bits externally. I’m just tired of fighting doctors over my wishes and this goddamn disease. This guy’s apparently good though, so I guess we’ll see what happens.

- Mystery project that I’m half working on and I’m far from ready to talk about because I’m not even sure it’s going to happen. As of this blog post, I’m leaning towards no, but I could wake up inspired tomorrow so who knows? Trying to MAKE it happen, though, is stressing me out.

- Cammity Jane. For those just tuning in, Cammity Jane is a fictional blog project I started in 2006 and never finished, that a few months ago I had planned to bring back (which I did) and work on. Well, then the Hypercube contest happened and Cammity Jane got pushed back until after that was over and now that Hypercube is almost over, it’s time to start thinking about Cammity Jane again but the thing is, my enthusiasm for the project has waned since I first thought of bringing it back. I don’t want to bring it back only to abandon it again and I fear that I may end up doing that. So I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last few days and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Chances are I’m going to re-blog everything I had up the first time around, but without the promise of finishing it at this point in time. Cammity Jane is so hard for me because it’s like an iceberg. What you guys see or have seen is only the very smallest percentage of what Cammity Jane is to me. It’s not just a story of this girl with HIV to me – I mean yes, that’s what Cammity Jane is right now – but she’s only one in a series of stories, she’s the first, she sets the stage for everything else I’ve got scribbled in notebooks. Did you know that the town she goes to called Utopia is a real town in Ontario? And that I’ve mapped out and drawn my fictionalized version of it meticulously several times in notebooks similar to Tolkein’s maps of Middle Earth? (Although not quite as map-like.) Cammity Jane is a big deal to me and I worry constantly about fucking it up, or rather, fucking up the experience for the reader.

So that’s why I’ve been a little “on edge” the past couple of weeks. It’s so easy for people to think that I just sit in my house all day and screw around on the internet and live this boring life, but there’s an awful lot going on in my world at any given time. Just because I don’t have a 9-5 or do the groceries or have art shows or whatever the hell it is people with “lives” do, it doesn’t mean I don’t have stress and pressures. In fact because most of my stress and pressures are self-imposed, I’d say they’re probably worse because they’re inescapable.

Anyway, for the last two weeks, I’ve pretty much been in a constant state of wanting to throw up.

At the same time, I’m terribly excited. I may have my very own car soon, a COOL car and a FREE one! One I would have won and let’s face it, winning feels good! (Or so I’ve heard.) I’m going to have these paintings finished soon and they’re going to look amazing and I think someone out there is going to want to buy them. Despite the fact that I have to go out to get it, I get to have restaurant lunch on Friday! And as much as I’m stressed out about all things immersion therapy and I’m having too many experiences at once…I’m making progress. I’m ahead of schedule.

Tomorrow Blake’s going to help me weed the garden and then we’re going to plant several POUNDS of beautiful cosmos and bachelor’s button and sunflower seeds that are going to be the envy of everyone on the street come August. Did you know that some people take walks up this far just to see my garden when it’s at its best? I don’t have the means this year and probably not even next year either, but one day I hope to give them more to see. I want a buddha’s head out there. I want my mom’s boyfriend’s teapot birdhouses and suncatchers hanging from the tree. I want hummingbird feeders and hanging baskets. I want our new window to be fixed up properly (we need to paint and buy new shutters.) So many things.

And also? The series of paintings I’m working on right now is of 4 paintings and if I sell all 4 I should have enough money to fix up my studio/office the way I want to with money left over to mail people things, buy my kids some new clothes and do “immersion therapy stuff” like go to the fabric store or go out for lunch with or without the kids and in our town or in the next town, depending on the status of our vehicular situation.

Good stuff is happening all over the place and there’s more good stuff to come, I just have to ride this period of anxiety out. I think once the Hypercube contest is officially over, whether I win or not, a lot of it will dissipate and I should be put out of my misery in that regard by the end of the month.

Soon the kids will be out of school, which is a bittersweet thing for me. Them being out of school limits my immersion therapy options because going places WITH them is on the very high end of the spectrum of things I’m not currently able to do. That’s something I have to work up to and realistically I only have a month to work up to that and I kinda don’t foresee me getting there. So, once the kids are out of school, immersion therapy grinds to a slow crawl as I’ll only be able to do things in the middle of the night and all there is to do in the middle of the night is go to the corner store (where I don’t need anything) or check the mail. There’s a 24-hour Wal*Mart about half an hour away but I don’t think I’ll be at that level of “okayness” until the fall.

So while the kids being home kind of messes up my therapy, summer is also the time when I do most of my reading and since my birthday, books and magazines have been piling up on my dresser, most of which I’m extremely eager to get to. One of my most joyful activities in the summer is making a  large salad of local veggies, crisp romaine lettuce, crunchy cucumbers, sweet cherry tomatoes, spicy radishes, stringy celery and tiny cubes of marble cheese, maybe with a few slivers of apple thrown in the way my mom used to do it and eat while I either catch up online with shows I missed during the fall & winter (I want to watch The Tudors, re-watch V and possibly How I Met Your Mother, which I’ve never seen) or read until the wee hours of the morning.

Spring and summer are my seasons, this is the best part of the year! So maybe I should just suck it up, paint, read, play with my kids and be happy. Right?