It’s 5am and I’m awake. I went to bed at about 12:30am but woke up about half an hour ago because Lucky was whining to be let out and when I tried to go back to sleep, it was a no go because there’s too much on my mind, namely agoraphobia.

Yesterday or the day before, Blake had a troll on his Cubeless blog and the troll said, “Grab yourself a job instead of claiming agoraphobia of convenience which seems to kick in every time you have to go shopping, but lifts when there’s an art show or a concert you absolutely have to attend because you’re ‘creative’.” And that wasn’t the first time in the last couple of weeks where people questioned my agoraphobia. At a forum I frequent, there’s a thread in a secret forum called “Reasons to feel good” and when our Gogol Bordello tickets came, I posted the picture of me holding them up to the cam in that thread and a couple of people said “wait, don’t you have agoraphobia?”

And that’s the thing. Agoraphobia isn’t a cut & dry thing. It’s different for each person. In my case, I can’t go anywhere by myself and there are certain places, like grocery stores, that I avoid because they give me anxiety to the point of panic attacks whether Blake’s with me or not. And in the case of the grocery store, yes, Blake does the groceries and it’s not so much because I can’t (well, since I haven’t done it so long and have next to zero concept of money anymore it would cause a problem anyway) but it’s simply a case of, “why make it a family outing when Blake can just go in, get what we need and come home”? Since I can’t go by myself, and I don’t have a car even if I could, that’s the way things have to be and the way things are. In case I wasn’t clear, when it comes to groceries, why take 4 people to the store, which over-complicates things, when Blake can just go in, get what we need, not go over budget, not impulse buy, and be home in half the time it would take us if all 4 of us went. Plus, if all 4 of us went, there’s a very good chance that I would have a panic attack and would require medication (Ativan) to first get there and some more to actually stay there.

As for art shows, well, that’s actually a laughable thing. I’ve only ever been to one art show in my life and it was Touched By Fire, which is put on by the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario. If anyone’s going to understand my idiosyncrasies at such an event, it’s going to be those people, or at least that was my logic behind going. Being in the city (Toronto) makes me very very nervous and the night of that art show, I must have taken at least 4 Ativans. But the thing was, I was totally fine at the show and I actually questioned this after the fact the next time I saw my shrink. I wanted to know how come I was totally fine at that show, yet I can’t go to Wal*Mart or even the art supply stores by myself and she said that it’s because at an art show, I have a defined role, I’m an artist, and therefore there’s guidelines as to how to act which are comfortable to me because I can easily play that role for that is what I am. I mean, I wasn’t totally fine at the show, when Gayle Cutler wanted me to do a commission, Blake had to navigate the business end of things because that’s not a role I’m comfortable with. While he did that, I hid in the bathroom. Literally.

And as far as concerts, well gee, the last concert I went to was either System of a Down or Metallica, I can’t remember and both of those shows were at least 7 or 8 years ago. With Metallica, I almost didn’t go because I had a meltdown half an hour before we had to leave. I ended up going to the show in my pajamas after Blake spent 45 minutes talking me into going. With Gogol Bordello, they are my favourite band right now and there are certain experiences where I know I’d have regrets if I didn’t go and this show is one of them because Gogol Bordello doesn’t come to Toronto very often. As I said when I posted the picture of the tickets, I have roughly 2 months to psych myself into going. A normal person wouldn’t have to do that. And even when I do go, I’m going to have to be chowing down clonazepam (klonopin) and Ativan like there’s no tomorrow. I won’t be in the pit. I’ll probably be way at the back, away from people. I’ll also be with Blake and our two best friends so I’ll have like, a circle of protection, which helps. Going to this show is not going to be an easy thing for me at all and actually another aspect of this endeavor is that when I posted the pictures of the concert tickets on that forum that I frequent, one of the members there, whom I’ve known for many years and who lives in Toronto, asked me if I wanted to get a drink and meet up before the show, to which I replied “hellz no” because that is completely outside of my comfort zone, especially when going to the show is going to be hard enough as it is. I am already losing sleep over this show because I don’t know what to wear – and it’s 2 months away.

I don’t know what to wear because where I’m at right now as far as weight loss is that I don’t fit into my “normal” clothes just yet and my “fat clothes” are now too big. Chances are, I’m going to have to buy something to wear to the show and since we’re not particularly made of money that stresses me out.

And as far as meeting this person I know from the forum I frequent well, the thing is, I decided a while back that I wasn’t going to meet people from the internet anymore with very few exceptions and the reason for that is because…I’ve met roughly 200 people from the internet in the last 12 years and during the last several encounters, I’ve realized that people sometimes don’t want to meet me to actually meet me, they want to judge me to see whether I’m the same in person as I am online (which I am) but more than that, they want to be able to tell people that they met me because it gives them cool points or something in our respective circles. I’m a notch on a belt and I’m not cool with that.

The fact of the matter is, I have agoraphobia. It’s not a phobia of convenience as Blake’s troll implied, it just presents itself in a certain way where I can go certain places and do certain things, but quite often those things take a lot of planning, a trip to my shrink, psychiatric medications and a lot of preparation.

I left the house the first week of January to see Avatar. I was supposed to go to a baby shower in Toronto at the end of January but I couldn’t deal with going to a place with a bunch of people I didn’t know so I didn’t go. Seeing Avatar in January was the only time I left my house that month. In the first week of February I went to my doctor to get a new prescription and in the second week of February, I went to my shrink appointment. In the middle of February, I went with Blake to the grocery store for about 5 minutes. And that’s it. I left the house 3 times in February. Now it’s March. I went to the doctor’s tonight to get a pap smear and chances are, that’ll be my only outing for the month of March. A normal person wouldn’t be able to tell you the exact places and the amount of times they left the house in any given month, but I can because it’s such a rare occurrence and since they are such rare occurrences, I mark these outings down on my calendar. Again, a normal person wouldn’t do that.

Last spring, when I took a walk down the Trans-Canada Trail by my house to take pictures, that was the first time in about 6 & a half years that I went anywhere by myself. Last spring I tested my agoraphobic limits with mixed success. When I went to one of the local restaurants to have breakfast all by myself, I was so freaked out by the situation that I didn’t leave the house for a month. Last spring & summer, Lucky and I checked the mail and mailed things in the middle of the night and that was a huge deal. All of these things can easily be searched on this blog under “agoraphobia” for those who are interested.

My agoraphobia is compounded during the fall and winter by Seasonal Affective Disorder. I simply do not leave the house unless I absolutely have to during this time. In the spring & summer, that’s when I go back at it with the immersion therapy, although truth be told, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve mostly given up on that because at this point I have zero motivation for trying to get better. I live in a shitty little town with nothing in it and nowhere to go and I have no car. I don’t think I can get better here. I’m not sure where I could get better exactly, but here ain’t it.

And that’s the thing, which I don’t know if it’s part of the phobia or what, but 95% of the time I’m okay with not leaving the house. I stopped fantasizing about a different life a long time ago.

Also, part of agoraphobia is that quite often, as is the case with me, the person has a hard time letting people in to their homes. It’s not just about leaving one’s home. Having people in my house is a very hard thing for me to do. At Xmas time the neighbours offered to watch my dogs for me so we didn’t have to bring them up North with us, but i couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have people in my home when I wasn’t there. And even when I am here, if people are going to come over, we all make a mad dash for the cleaning supplies because I don’t want people judging me by our home, which isn’t exactly the nicest home to begin with. A babysitter being here so Blake and I can go out? Unheard of. My kids have only been babysat in our home by our friends Alex & Ronny and my mother. When the neighbours watch the kids, the kids go over there. Hiring a babysitter, like a teenager or whatever, simply wouldn’t happen.

I think my agoraphobia started in two ways: 1) I’m pretty sure that whenever I left the house when we lived above my grandma’s furniture store, she came into the apartment and snooped. That made me so mental that I stopped leaving the house so she couldn’t do that and that’s why I can’t have people in my house when I’m not there now. 2) When Blake moved in and had to give back his car, he took over mine and it was just easier for him to get groceries on the way home from work than for me to go do it after he came home and I have access to a car. Since we lived in the middle of nowhere, there was nowhere for me to go, especially without a car. And this lasted years until it became habit and then became phobia.

But long long long before that there were signs that this was just part of my natural state. When I was 15 and living with my boyfriend at the time’s parents, I rarely left the house then too. I would go to check the mail which meant walking about 20 feet from the house and I would do so in my pajamas at 2:30am. Sometimes I’d go to my Aunt’s house in town, which was about a 15 minute walk, but again, I’d only do it at night and most of the time in my pajamas.

I know when I absolutely have to, I can leave the house, kick ass and take names. When Zulu got hit by the car, I didn’t even think about it, I got in the car with the cop who stopped to help, with Zulu in the back seat and I dealt with the vet by myself and went back home with the cop while Blake was on his way to the vet’s to take care of the rest. When it was just Madison and I in our apartment in Uxbridge, I only had a bar fridge and I’d load Madison up in her stroller and we’d do groceries every day. When I was in college, I dealt with Madison going to daycare and drove myself to Toronto every single day because in all of the above scenarios, what choice did I have?

If Blake died tomorrow, I’m fairly confident that we’d all be okay and that I could get shit done. (Don’t get me wrong, Blake dying would suck, but life does go on, bills still have to be paid, kids still have to be driven to school.)

As things stand though, as I said, there’s little motivation for me to get better. There’s nothing in the outside world for me except these rare situations like an art show, a movie or a concert and I do all of the above extremely seldom.

As I said in the beginning, agoraphobia is not a cut & dry thing. It affects everyone differently. Yes, there are similarities in every agoraphobic patient, but they all have to be treated on a case-by-case basis. I’ve just explained how my case presents itself and it is my hope that I won’t have to do it again.

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)

Last night we invited Wayne over to drink beer and play Guitar Hero, which he had never played before. Hilarity ensued.

(Don’t even ask me what he was doing with his tongue, I have no idea. o_O)

Wayne discussing the finer points of his “Third Degree” hot sauce:

Wayne….doing I don’t even know what, but at the end I took a drink, he made me laugh and I subsequently spit it out all over the dog who was at my feet so that’s when I put the video camera away:

I’m sure gonna miss that fucker when they move. :o/

Oooooh what a week it’s been.

First of all, I’m menstruating, which is always fun and because I’m menstruating I’m taking insane amounts of codeine which has made me extremely constipated and I know that’s probably TMI but I don’t fucking care. The stool softeners? They are ineffective and I’m cranky because I literally have something up my ass. Aren’t you glad I shared?

Also making me cranky is the fact that my site has been down for a lot of this week and while that’s not really a huge deal since I x-post everything to Live Journal anyway and haven’t had a whole lot to say, it really sucks because my e-mail is on the same server as my site, so when my site’s down, it probably means I have no e-mail either. So my apologies if you’ve left comments on LJ or have sent me e-mail this week and I haven’t replied, I haven’t been getting my LJ notifications (obviously) and while I’ve been trying my best, it’s hard to remember who I’ve replied to and where so again, I’m sorry. Some people have asked about my host as they’ve seen me bitching about this all week on Twitter and I’m hosted by my friend Kevin, who is the co-owner of Camwhores.com, and he hosts me for free so I try not to complain. It’s not his fault the server took a shit this week and I know he’s been working extra hard trying to fix it, so when I complain, I’m not complaining about my hosting provider, Kevin is great and I love him, I’m just bitching because I’m bitching.

And speaking of my site, in the last 30 days I’ve had almost 3,000 unique visitors , which is actually a record since I began keeping stats just over a year ago. So hello new people! My name is Sunny and I’m not nearly as whiny or insane as I probably sound in this post. If you’d like to know more about me, there’s a page for that and while I update my site usually once a week or so, I update my Live Journal just about every day so if you’re bored, you might want to check that out too. Anonymous comments are turned off on my Live Journal because some people are pricks and while comments are moderated on my site, I’ll approve and reply to just about all of them as long as you’re not being an asshole. I’m done with giving assholes a forum, there are an infinite number of sites on the internet to be an asshole on, take The Forum [NSFW] for example, and I just don’t need to put up with them here.

Anyway…

This week Blake and I watched the movie Precious, but Blake reviewed it for Buttercup and his article will be going up tonight at around 1am so I won’t say anything about it other than I liked it and I agree with Blake’s assessment of the film.

Also this week I worked on my ATCs a bit and just about had a coronary because I spent hours and hours and hours meticulously drawing and shading miniature versions of my girls and then I used a Micron Pigma pen (02) to outline their mouths and noses so I’d be able to see them after I painted their faces with a flesh colour. I do this on my regular sized girls every time and didn’t figure it would be a problem. BUT IT WAS. A HUGE problem. I went to paint their faces with the flesh colour and the ink fucking RAN! That has never happened to me before and these pens are supposed to be waterproof and archival so WTF? So I stopped painting faces with the second girl and decided to let the ink “cure” over night and when I tried painting their faces the next day, everything was totally fine. I ruined 2 of 8, which sucks because I worked really hard on them, but at least I didn’t ruin the whole batch. Currently they’re still sitting on my desk with freshly painted eyes and faces awaiting hair colour and dresses. Truthfully, I haven’t kept working on them because I got distracted by another project…

This other project…well, I don’t really want to talk about it too much because I always do that (I suck at keeping things secret) and because I always do that and give too much away, I self-sabotage and never finish anything. Here’s the gist: I had a dream on Monday that was so vivid and so surreal that as soon as my eyes opened I flew out of bed and just began writing down every detail I could remember. Then that afternoon I fleshed it out a bit more and when Blake got home I showed him my scrawls to see what he thought and he thought it was brilliant, which was reassuring because I never know if my ideas are brilliant or stupid.  I thought about the story over the next couple of days, slightly intimidated by it but Blake threatened that if I didn’t write it, he would, and he wouldn’t do as good of a job as I would because I saw it all unfold in front of my eyes in the dream and for some reason, I think this is a story that needs to be told. I think it’s a story that’s never been told before, but then again, I’m not exactly well read so I could be talking out my ass there. Anyway, yesterday I actually started writing the thing and somehow, in the span of a couple of hours, I had 10 pages typed out, today I added 4 more and this story, that was only supposed to be a “short story” is turning into a novella. Honestly, I don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s a refreshing feeling and I’m enjoying the writing process more than I’ve enjoyed writing in a long time. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it when it’s done, but I’m trying not to worry about that and just fucking write the thing.

So often I sabotage myself by, like I said, explaining a project so much on here that I feel like I’ve completed the project or that just having the idea “out there” is enough for me. And I often get caught up in my fear of success. As much as people accuse me of being an attention whore, the opposite is actually true. I fear the spotlight like nobody’s business and when it comes to creative work, writing in particular, I fear criticism and thus I don’t often put very much out for critics. Even as I write this story, there’s this little negative voice in the back of my head telling me how much it sucks or how implausible the story is or how flimsy my characters are and all kinds of wonderful things like that. And it’s one thing for my own inner critic to say these things, but it’s a whole other thing for other people to say them. Since I’ve never really put anything out there for that kind of scrutiny (and yes, I realize that I put myself “out there” constantly with my site and my cam and all that, this is different) I don’t know how I’d deal with it and a fear of the unknown suddenly surfaces.

But right now all the story is, is 14 pages on my MacBook that no one’s seen but Blake and until it’s finished, that’s all it will be.

This week I also taught Wayne & Judy how to use Facebook, to the best of my ability. Right now they can’t afford internet but they have a wireless card in their computer so Blake built a booster on our wireless router and set them up with the password for the network so they have internet…some of the time. Most of the time they don’t get a signal, but this week they’ve actually had a strong signal for some reason and thus, they’ve been calling me every day to show them how to do things on the Facebook accounts I set up for them last week. Today Judy was asking me how to play FarmVille because a few of her friends sent her FarmVille gifts and since I have that application blocked on my own Facebook, I didn’t really know what to tell her. She also called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that she figured out how to comment on people’s status messages, which I thought was cute because she was so proud of herself for figuring it out.

This weekend I plan on going over there and if they have a strong enough signal, I’m going to set them up with FireFox, add all of the bookmark tabs that they’ll ever need and delete their shortcuts for Internet Explorer altogether. Yes, I realize Chrome is the new big thing but I haven’t used it myself yet and I want them to quit clicking on stupid pop up ads that tell them they have a virus, causing them to freak out and call me. Oh and I changed all of their homepages (they have 3 profiles on Windows, one for Wayne, one for Judy and one for Courtney) to Google so now how they get to Facebook is by typing “www.Facebook.com” INTO Google and going to the first search result. *headdesk* I don’t really blame them though, their Internet Explorer has/had so many toolbars on it for some reason that it had 3 possible inputs for a url and no doubt they chose the wrong one many many times. I got rid of the Ask Jeeves one, but since I don’t use IE and haven’t in many many years, I wasn’t sure how to get rid of the others and it’s difficult to tweak anything when they’re over your shoulder asking what you’re doing every 30 seconds. So, setting them up with FireFox and breaking their IE habit seems like the best thing to do. I also set them up with Gmail accounts and I’m going to try and get them in the habit of checking their e-mail as often as they check their Facebook so they understand how Facebook’s e-mail notifications work. Instead of Google, I’ll probably make Gmail their homepages for that reason.

I’m not a very patient person and my patience in teaching them how to use the internet is surprising even myself.

This week I got a call from the mental health clinic saying that they wanted to set me up with an appointment for another doctor who I think is a nutritionist or something. Are nutritionists doctors? This woman has “Dr.” in front of her last name and she runs a metabolic sumpin-er-other clinic where I see my shrink and I requested to get in on that when a spot opened up because the meds they had me on has slowed down my metabolism and while I’m still eating my eggs every day to help boost my metabolism, progress has been slow and this clinic is all about how to switch your metabolism around and lose weight. Apparently it’s 6 or 8 weeks and it’s in a group setting (oh yay) once a week in the afternoons. I’m assuming the new group starts in the new year and my appointment with this new doctor is on the 29th.

Before I called them back, I checked with Blake to make sure he was okay with using his days off to take me to this thing and he was, so I called and made the appointment with the new doctor. I guess she’ll like, assess me or something, I have no idea. Maybe there’s even a chance I can’t get into the clinic because I’m not fat enough. I don’t know how these things work.

And speaking of mental health…since some folks have been asking…no I have not been driving anywhere. I have not been doing my immersion therapy. I have not been checking the mail. I have also been neglecting my light therapy and had a really bad day earlier this week, so starting Monday the lightbox is going back on my desk and I’m going to start using it again. As for immersion therapy…I’m just done with it. I don’t even care anymore. I can go places, like with Blake or even with Judy, and be okay. I haven’t had a panic attack in public since the spring and I think I’ve made all the progress I’m going to make right now. I have zero desire to drive the car, in fact I hate the car and the mere thought of driving, so fuck it, I’m done. Maybe I’ll pick it up again in the spring, maybe I won’t. I’ve decided that in the end it simply doesn’t matter and that I’m fine where I am. So that’s that.

Anyway, this is a really long fucking post about basically nothing so I’m going to end it here and get back to work on my story.

I worry, a lot, about the fact that I no longer seem to see the world with the same magic glasses I’ve worn my whole entire life. Not too long ago, I could take day to day situations and make them spectacular, because to me they were spectacular, and share them with the world via this blog, but ever since my meds have become stable, that scenario has become a rarity. Or maybe it’s because I turned 30. It’s hard to say because the two events sort of happened around the same time.

But I miss it because it’s always been a part of me. I often sit outside, usually because I’ve taken up smoking again, but often just to sit outside in the sun because I don’t like my lightbox, and I think about how I see the world now versus how I used to see the world before. Now I see hard reality, I see what’s actually there, whereas before I saw the potential in everything, what could be there.

When we moved to this town I was ecstatic because it had so much potential. I loved that it only had 1700 people and that it had a downtown core reminiscent of another once small town outside of a big city called Unionville. (And yes, I know I’ve written about this before.) See, Unionville was this little village built around the same time as this one (mid-1800s, if not earlier) and as the city of Markham expanded, Unionville became this little boutique town full of art galleries, cafes and antique shops – or at least its downtown core did.

With Elmvale being so close to Barrie and Barrie being the ever-expanding metropolis it is, I envisioned a similar scenario here, especially after we’d already moved here and our neighbour on the right told us that they were going to be building a subdivision of 300 brand new, $250k+ houses right across the road from us. As Barrie expands and creates more jobs, more people are wanting to move to Elmvale and that’s the same thing that happened with Unionville.

But here we are 4 years later and now when I look at Elmvale’s downtown core, all I see is a dead village because that’s what’s there. No longer do I see the potential, I see the reality. As I’ve mentioned before, half the downtown shops are empty or uncared about, the restaurants leave something to be desired, we’re only a town of 1700 but we have 4 big name fast food chains and a Wal*Mart up the road…pretty much the only thing about this town reminiscent of Unionville is the organic food store which I’ve never been in and I constantly wonder how the guy stays in business. The dollar store here is abysmal with the lowest stock of any dollar store I’ve ever seen, we have one clothing store by a woman who makes all her own designs but they’re designs for heavier set 40+ year old women, not exactly high fashion and I too, wonder how this woman stays in business. We have one gift boutique-y type shop but I’ve never been inside and from what the kids tell me, it’s mostly stuff made in China. There’s an art studio downtown that, from looking in the windows, appears to be occupied by a potter but it’s never open and I don’t think it’s ever going to be open to the public. Another artist works out of that same studio, Blake actually found her on Etsy, but I can’t remember her name. She makes really expensive beaded broaches, or at least that’s what she had in her Etsy shop.

I guess the potential’s still there, it’s just not as easy for me to see it because I’m either medicated up to the tits (which I am) or I’m old and jaded (which I am).

Blake was interviewed on the phone this week for a new position within his company and from what I understand, they’re fine with remote work so he’d theoretically be making more money and would have a more secure job, but we’d still be stuck here. He’s applied for another job within the company which is basically the same scenario but more money than the first. He’ll find out Dec. 8th if he’s made the short list for that one.

So, it looks like we’ll be staying here for a while longer and I have to kiss my dream house with its studio and our dream town goodbye. Really, it’s bittersweet. The hassle of getting our house ready to sell and then selling within a timeline feasible for buying another house made me really nervous because I don’t know how to do that, so I’m glad we probably won’t have to do that now. I really hate my house, though. It’s small, dumpy and needs a whole hell of a lot of work that neither of us know how to do. All of our bedrooms are impossibly small, we only have one tiny bathroom, I have hardly any room for my art, even though I have a whole room to myself to do it in, because the furnace, elliptical and a futon are in here and this is where the grown ups hang out. I’m glad we won’t have to leave Wayne & Judy because I really do love them, but with the way things are going with them financially…I’m not sure we’re going to be neighbours for very long anyway.

But I’m trying so hard to access my power of seeing potential to see the positive in this. More money and the same commute means that we’ll have money to fix this house up. It means I can get my dad to build my built-in bookshelves in this room and get him to lay the new carpet and re-trim the whole room. It means I can paint my studio how I want to. It means we have time to go slow and do a project at a time so when it comes time to sell this place, everything’s ready. It means I won’t have to sod over my garden right away.

It means that I won’t have to find a new doctor after I’ve finally gotten this one to work with me as far as pain management. It means I won’t have to find a new dentist after getting this one to understand that I’m seriously terrified of dental work so he drugs me up a little extra so it won’t be so scary. It means that the pharmacy is still going to know who I am and will continue to spot me a weekend’s worth of drugs when I forget to call my shrink to renew my prescriptions. It means that the ladies at the blood clinic will continue to remember who I am, that I’m terrified of blood tests and they’ll continue using the needles they use on babies to take my blood. It means that if one of the kids is sick at school, Judy’s still just a phone call away at work and can come get them and bring them home.

It means that things will remain the same but with a few minor improvements and I guess I can’t really complain about that. I just really really really wanted to move. :o/ There’s nothing in this town for me, I’ll never drive here and will be forever dependent on Blake to get anywhere, and Cookstown had so much more to offer. But the thing is, and I told Blake this a long time ago, I’m only moving one more time. It’s either the house we’re going to be in for the rest of our lives or nothing. With Blake continuing to work in Barrie there’s no point in trying to upgrade to a nicer house in this town because it won’t be our forever home because his “forever job” will probably be in Scarborough after he moves up from either of the positions he’s applied for.

I guess I should be thankful that in this economy he has a job at all and maybe it sounds like I’m whining here, I’m just tired of feeling like we’re in limbo. I hate not having a plan. In the beginning, when we moved here, we had intentions of staying in this house for 5 years tops and this July, it’ll be 5 years. My feet are getting itchy and I’m way less in love with this town than I was in the beginning because it’s become quite apparent that it’ll never be what I envisioned it would become.

So I guess it’s time to try and put my magic glasses back on and seek out the magic that was once here. Easier said than done.

Today my best frenemy, Krissy, had her baby. Emma Grace, 6 lbs, 3 oz. That’s really all I have to say about that because to say what’s really on my mind would be bad karma and I’m just not gonna go there. One thing I will say though, is that newborns skeeve me out. They’re all wrinkly and red and gross and almost always ugly – and I mean even my own here, not just Krissy’s – and I don’t know what to say to people when I’m shown pictures of a newborn. (And the pictures have begun…the kid’s only 8 hours old and there’s already a 40 picture album of her on Facebook.) I haven’t even met my own sister yet, who’s 10 months old, largely because little babies freak me out and I didn’t want to be put in a situation where I’d be forced to hold her and I’d look like a dick if I refused. I just don’t like them. Now that Rachael’s 10 months old, we’re good and I’m looking forward to seeing her for the first time at Xmas. Now she’s solid and can sit up by herself and stuff, I don’t have to support her neck and all that shit with newborns, so we’re gonna get along just fine.

Anyway, babies are gross. I’m glad I’m done having them and that none of my friends want any.

Right now I feel all kinds of barfy because of the Naproxen I’m taking. Even taking it with food and taking the Nexium in  the morning, that evening dose just fucking kills me. I find cold water helps with the nausea, usually, but it doesn’t seem to be helping tonight.

All day today I worked on the girls that will be going on my ATCs which has practically given me carpal tunnel and one hell of a back ache. Drawing girls in miniature is a whole lot harder than drawing them full-sized but even harder than that is shading the damn things. The brushes I have are all too big to do the best job possible and I already know Curry’s doesn’t sell smaller angled brushes, so I just had to make do with what I had. Tomorrow I’ll paint their legs and faces and hair and probably the next day I’ll start working on their dresses.

And that was pretty much my day. Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m writing a blog post today because nothing at all even remotely exciting happened. Wayne stayed home from work today because he was hung over and Judy stayed home from work today because of her tooth, but that’s not very exciting either and I didn’t even go over there today. I only know that they both didn’t go to work because Blake was supposed to pick Wayne up from work today and Wayne called to tell him it wasn’t necessary.

Yesterday Judy’s abscess was so bad that all underneath her eye was swollen and it looked like she either got stung by a bee or someone punched her in the face. She works at Tim Hortons and said that people were staring at her and doing double takes because of her face on Friday, so that’s why she missed work the last two days. She has tomorrow and Monday off, so hopefully on Monday she can get her tooth taken care of. Wayne has tomorrow and Monday off too.

Anyway, I’m gonna stop babbling,  just post this stupid entry and go to bed. Maybe tomorrow will be more exciting.

Obsessed I tell ya!
This is what I spent my evening doing, while talking to Ronny & Alex.

Once these are dry I’ll mix glitter paint with glazing liquid and water and do a heavy coat of that on each card, then it’ll be time to start working on the girls which I have a feeling is going to take foreveeeeeeeer but I think it’ll be fun.

I won’t have time to work on the cards tomorrow as we’ll be busy setting everything up for Judy’s surprise party. In the morning, when Courtney (her 8 year old daughter) comes over because it’s a PA day and I look after her when there’s no school, Blake’s going to help her and Madison make Judy’s cake and then he’s going to start blowing up the balloons while Madison cuts metallic purple ribbons for each one. When the cake’s done we’re going to go over to Judy’s house to start decorating. Madison bought green and purple streamers (Judy’s favourite colours) and she already has two garbage bags full of blown up balloons, so those, along with the ones I bought, are going to be taped to the ceiling in the kitchen and living room so they look like helium balloons with their ribbons hanging down. We did this for Madison’s 4th birthday (except we filled the balloons with heart-shaped glitter and gave my cousin Haylie a pin ;o)). Madison’s also been busy all week making frog-themed decorations, which she’s going to tape up all over the living room.

As far as presents…I got Judy a box of hair dye and a pack of three lip balms and a birthday card that’s sort of cheesy but has a recipe on the inside which I think she’ll like because cooking and baking are her favourite things to do. Madison sewed her a stuffed frog. Courtney got her a plant and Alyssa, one of the kids down the street, got her two frog birthday cards to be from all the kids and she also got her a set of three ceramic frogs that are really cute. (Did I mention Judy collects frogs?)

I think I mentioned this already, but last Saturday Courtney’s best friend Mikayla (which I’m probably spelling wrong) and her mom took Madison to the dollar store in Barrie to buy the streamers and decorations for the cake, as well as the cake mix and icing. Then they went back to Mikayla’s house and they all made Judy a lasagna which is thawing in my fridge right now. Unfortunately Mikayla and her mom (whose name I believe is Sharon, I’ve only met her once and wasn’t introduced) can’t come to the party because the husband has the car that day and they’re homebound. I was going to talk to Blake about maybe calling and offering to come get them and drive them home afterward, but with everything going on and the fact that we need his help because he’s the only one tall enough to do the streamers and balloons, I’m not sure that’s going to be possible. It was really really nice of her to do all that though, making the lasagna and everything. I’ve tried calling her to thank her (and get directions for heating up the lasagna) but I keep getting their answering machine.

What sucks is that tonight at about 10:30 Judy called our house saying that she had a really bad tooth ache and she wanted the number for our dentist to see if she could have the tooth pulled tomorrow. That means that there’s a very good chance she’ll walk in as we’re getting the house ready, which I’m worried about. :o/ All of the kids have worked so hard on this party and they’re so excited that it’s a surprise and she has no idea that it would really suck if the surprise was ruined. There’s not much we can do about it though, so we’re just going to go ahead as planned.

But how much does that suck, having to get a tooth pulled on your birthday? And the worst part is that they don’t have dental insurance so they’re going to have to pay out of pocket when they’re already struggling financially. :o/ As Blake said though, at least we’re doing something positive that she can enjoy even though that aspect of her birthday is going to suck.(And hey, I have like, a metric fuck tonne of painkillers, so I can get her all high and she won’t even think about her tooth if need be.)

After we have the lasagna and do the cake and presents, we figure the kids are going to wander off to play and that’s when we’re going to bust out the cards to play Judy’s favourite game: euchre. I was talking to Wayne today and even though he has to work the next day, he says he’s up for staying up late to play with us (Judy has Saturday off so she can sleep in or have a nap).

All in all, I think it’s going to be a good day for her and godammit, she deserves it too. She sacrifices so much for her family and goes without constantly, which is why the kids all wanted to do this for her. On the weekends, when she’s off from work, she invites all the kids over and bakes with them or plays cards with them and like, her door is ever revolving with neighbourhood kids. I think it’s awesome that the kids planned this and were that thoughtful. In fact, they started planning this 3 weeks ago (it was Madison’s idea) and Blake & I only even heard about it last week!

Anyway, tomorrow’s going to be a busy but good day and I hope Judy’s surprised. It really sucks about her tooth though, I’m worried about that. :o/

Well, I should probably stop writing now and get some sleep because there’s a lot of work  to be done tomorrow so I better not sleep ’til noon. Goodnight internets, I love you. <3

I just woke up from yet another “end of the world” dream. In this one I was camping with my mom and her boyfriend when earthquakes started happening and the hydro went out all over the world. I’ve already been up for about 45 minutes so the details of the dream are fading, but there was a store on the campgrounds and I went in and had to save the girls hiding behind the counter from a brown bear that had wandered in after the first quake. It jumped up on me, like a dog that’s happy to see you, so like a dog, I grabbed its paws and kinda tossed him down off my shoulders, opened the front door of the store and it wandered back out. While the door was open, a deer skittered out behind it. The girls gave me a flashlight, which I brought back to our tent and that was the end of that segment of the dream.

The next one, I was in the town I used to live in and all the streets were black. It was winter and there were strange noises everywhere from people looting and vandalizing the town in the dark. I was thirsty, so fucking thirsty. I met up with my friend Heather from when I was a kid and she brought me to this ice cream stand inside a bowling alley where she knew the owners and they gave me a can of Sprite, which I chugged down like it was the last liquid on Earth. We all hid in the bowling alley in the dark with boards and baseball bats, waiting for the looters to break in.

And then I woke up thirstier than I swear I’ve ever been in my life and with an unexplained ache in my left jaw. I got up and chugged the half can of Coke Zero I’d left in the fridge when I went to bed, then I opened another one and drank the whole thing. Now I’m on my third and as I said, I’ve only been awake about 45 minutes.

This has been a common occurrence during the past week, waking up around 6am so thirsty I think I’m gonna die. Usually I go for Coke Zero when this happens because if I drink water I’ll just be up in another hour to go pee and orange juice is bad for your teeth if you’re just going to go back to bed.

Just now I tried going back to bed, but I’m having racing thoughts again and the attempt was futile. I’m tired though, really really tired. Again, I figure if I get these thoughts out of my head and “onto paper” maybe then I’ll be able to go back to sleep.

I watched Oprah on Friday, where she announced that the season after this one would be her last. I cried. I cried hard. Her show began in 1986, when I was 7 years old, and really, I don’t remember TV without Oprah. When her show started, I was being babysat by my Aunt Heather and every day after school we would watch and Oprah’s been a big part of my life ever since. No, Oprah and I haven’t always gotten along, there were times when she and I disagreed, but she’s always been there and it’s hard to imagine TV without her. I know her final show is going to absolutely destroy me. After I tweeted something to that effect on Friday, someone said something like “don’t worry, she’s getting her own channel”, which is true, The Oprah Winfrey Channel, which everyone now knows as The Discovery Health Channel, has been in the works since I think 2008 and is set to launch in 2011, but like her XM Satellite radio station, Oprah and Friends, it’s hard to say how much she’s actually going to be on it. The fact of the matter is, channel or not, there will be no more Oprah Winfrey Show and that makes me sad.

I mean, I knew it would have to come to an end sooner or later, I just wasn’t prepared for the announcement.

Tonight I read Oprah’s Wikipedia entry and smiled when it said that she planned on retiring in South Africa, at her school for girls. Truthfully, that’s probably where Oprah should be and it’s probably where she’ll be happiest. Did you know that in her will she’s left all of her money (she’s worth $2.3 billion, in case you didn’t know) “to the children of Africa”? That’s absolutely amazing to me. I can’t even fathom what that’s going to mean for the continent. If you’ve been reading me for any great length of time, then you’ll know that I worry and fret about Africa every single day, but at the same time, I believe that within my lifetime a lot of Africa’s troubles will come to an end and that the continent will rise up and become a booming voice in the international community. I know that’s an extremely optimistic view, but think about it: Oprah will probably die in my lifetime and what can her $2.3 billion inheritance do for Africa? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question because I don’t really have a clear concept of what you can buy with that kind of money or how to “fix” Africa, but I feel in my gut that it’ll really help things turn around. And I’m going to be very glad to see it, even if it’s from my nursing home.

In other news, Friday night Blake and I were just going outside to go have half a smoke and he was ahead of me so he opened the front door and all I heard was “no kittens in the house!” and he was blocking something with his feet. I assumed it was the neighbour’s cat, Misty, who occasionally spends the night with us when she gets locked out of her own home on cold nights, but no, through Blake’s legs I saw that it was a little orange tabby kitten, no older than 10 weeks old. Immediately I reached through Blake’s legs and scooped the kitten up and brought it into the living room to show the kids. The poor guy was dirty and definitely had a smell, so I figured he was a stray, but Madison, who somehow knows every animal in this whole goddamn town, said that it looked like her friend Alyssa’s kitten, Cheesy. Alyssa lives about a 5 minute walk away on the other side of the road.

So Blake and Madison went to see if it was their kitten and when they got to the house, Alyssa’s brother was there with his friend from next door, ALONE. These kids are in grade 3, who leaves two 8 year olds home alone? Anyway, Madison asked them if the kitten was Cheesy, the kid said yes and the cat was returned. How the little bugger got so far away from home and ended up at my front door, I’ll never know, and why do these stray animals always make it to my house in the first place? Between June and August, Madison and I found the homes of 4 different stray dogs! Not to mention the other 2 we found the owners of throughout the school year! And now this kitten? Blake says they find their way here because animals just know that I’m a sucker and somehow that must be true because they do seem to always end up at our house.

It kinda sucks that we found Cheesy’s home though, he was the exact kind of kitten I want when it’s time to get another cat, and I was kind of giddy at the prospect of keeping him. At the same time I’m glad we did find his home because Pixel would absolutely freak the fuck out if we added another cat to the mix and for sure she’d stop using her litterbox because there’s no way she’d share. (And we just got her using her litterbox religiously after almost 4 years. Our house is very small and there are only 3 places to put a litterbox. First I had it beside the washing machine, underneath the wash tub, but with the way the washtub is set up, there’s blocks under its legs so the litterbox was kind of suspended and she wouldn’t use it. Then I had it between the dryer and the furnace, which was all fine & dandy in the spring & summer, especially since she usually did her business outside anyway, but in the fall & winter when the furnace or dryer was on, she’d pee in it when she got the chance (when both appliances were off), but she preferred to shit under Blake’s desk. I didn’t make the connection that she was afraid of the furnace until just this fall and that’s when I moved her litterbox to behind the bathroom door and ever since she’s been a completely different cat. Much more relaxed and loving, not so skittish. gets along better with the dogs. And as an added bonus, because it’s behind the door, the dogs can get into it which they’ve been known to do. Anyway, since she’s so finicky about the litterbox, I know if we introduced another cat, we’d be back at square one. When we get a bigger house, maybe one with a basement where two litterboxes can be set up, we’ll get another cat, just not right now.)

This week was unseasonably warm and the giant spider that lived on a web strewn across my office window all summer made its reappearance and that got me wondering about what happened to spiders in the winter. I figured, because of Charlotte’s Web, that they laid an egg sac and then died and it turns out that I’m only partially right and it really depends on the spider. The spider in my case, is a garden orb weaver, and they most definitely lay eggs and die, while others in warmer climates, but that still have winter (just not Canada’s kind of winters) hibernate and others who lay eggs and die, their babies hatch before winter and keep each other warm in clusters around their egg sac. I’m wondering when my spider is going to die. She’s definitely got a male on her web, I’ve seen him (the males are smaller, so I know she’s a girl), so I’m assuming she’s laid her eggs already somewhere, but she’s creepy and too big to kill (she’s about the size of a twoonie) and I’ve been waiting for her to go away for a long time now because while I kinda think spiders are cool and I like watching they catch prey, I also think they’re really gross and when I go outside for a smoke she’s pretty much above my head and I have awake nightmares about her jumping into my hair. It’s irrational and I know she won’t, but the whole idea of it gives me the willies and as soon as I think she’s dead, I’m vacuuming up her web and when her babies hatch, I’ll be relocating them to my garden. Or maybe my neighbour’s garden…

On Twitter, my friend Poetic Dreams pointed me to a blog post made by Katielynn where she asked:

Who are you?
Really,
Truthfully.
Deep down.
Under the weight the world has put upon you.
Do you have an answer?

And it got me thinking. Who am I? DO I have an answer? The fact of the matter is, I’m 30 years old and still trying to figure out who I am because I’ve had so many setbacks in my life that finding out who I am has always sort of been put on the back burner. Does it matter if I know who I really am? I mean, I know who I am right now, is that the same thing? I know who I want to be, does that count for anything at all?

I think knowing who you are right now DOES count because everyone changes. But at the same time, I guess there’s who you are at your core and I guess if that’s the case I know exactly who I am. I’m the girl who, despite intense social anxiety, can put on a pretty good front and charm an entire room full of people. I’m the girl who gives away a lot of money to certain charities even though she can’t afford it because it’s important and there are people out there who need it more than I do. I’m the girl who’s insecure about most things and has low self-esteem in general, but who’s also brave and confident when it comes to other things. I’m the girl who’s not afraid of a challenge…most of the time. I’m the girl who can make boys cry. I’m the girl who sometimes doesn’t realize how much her words can hurt, even though she’s lived a lifetime of hurting people with her words. I’m the girl who, despite being 5 foot fuckall and 100 lbs at the time, can put a 6′5, 300 lb man in the hospital for fucking with her kid. I’m the girl who hates Guitar Hero with a burning passion. I’m the girl who likes to bake at 3am so her family wakes up to surprises in the kitchen. I’m the girl who’s helping the kids plan a surprise birthday party for my neighbour on Friday. (With the help of another mom who took the kids to the dollar store yesterday to buy supplies and who made Judy a lasagna for her birthday dinner that I’ll help the kids cook on Friday (it’s a PA Day). Also on Friday I’ll be helping the kids bake a cake and decorate Judy’s living room.) I’m the girl who’s already freaking out about turning 40, even though it’s almost a decade away, because I still haven’t grown up and I feel stunted. If I’m still stunted at 40…what does that make me? I’m the girl who sometimes wants to give up and go work at McDonald’s but doesn’t because that would give the haters exactly what they want and dammit, I’m stubborn. I’m the girl who thinks sex is vastly overrated. I’m the girl who takes 28 pills every single day and drinks way too much Coke Zero. I’m the girl who thinks the world would rather hug you than harm you. I’m the girl who’s helping to raise 2 pretty awesome kids. I’m the girl who always knew she wanted to be a mother and who made HUGE sacrifices to make that happen. I’m the girl who will take in any animal that comes her way, much to the dismay of her husband. I’m the girl who loves her husband fiercely and couldn’t live without him. I’m the girl who loves and hates with equal intensity. I’m a girl who’s easily distracted. I’m the girl who can spend an entire day reading about random things on the internet, who gets a hold of a subject and obsesses about it until the curiousity is satiated and there isn’t anything left to know. I’m the girl who sucks at sodoku and crossword puzzles but does both anyway. I’m the girl people claim to be intimidated by. I’m the girl who hates not having a book on the go. I’m the girl who doesn’t have a lot of friends and prefers it that way. I’m the girl who dislikes other people’s kids and their mothers. I’m the girl who seethes when people let their animals go astray and who don’t spay & neuter. (The aforementioned “other mom” who made Judy the lasagna? Her husky was in heat and “driving her nuts” so she just let her out to run through the bush and “if she comes back pregnant, so be it”. UGH.)

I don’t know if any of that answered Katielynn’s question, but I think it’s a good start. These things are at the core of me and will probably never change.

Blake has all this week off and that’s awesome. On Monday I have a doctor’s appointment to get some Tylenol 3 & Naproxen for my upcoming period and to make sure a copy of my post-op report is in my file. I want him to explain to me exactly what they did but I’m not going to sit there while he reads it and then have him explain it to me, unless that’s what he wants to do. I figured I’d just leave a copy with him, which he can read when he gets a moment and then he can call me in for another appointment to go over it with me. I just don’t understand why I’m still in pain and I don’t understand what all they did, especially the whole “cutting of the nerves” thing, which I never willingly consented to and which doesn’t seem to be working at all.

Also on Monday or Tuesday, I’m expecting a little bit of money by way of a cheque in the mail, so Blake and I are going to go to Curry’s and Michael’s to buy some much needed art supplies and probably get Starbucks because it’s in the same plaza.

For something I’m doing, I have to write an “artist’s resume” but I have no idea what that is or how to make one, so Blake’s going to help me with that also. I also had to write an artist’s statement which ended up being easier than I thought and once I iron out the kinks, I’ll be adding it to my site. It could only be about 250 words for what I’m doing, so the version that’ll be on my site will be a bit longer and more fleshed out.

On Tuesday I have to go to the lab for blood work. Oh joy of joys. They’re checking my cholesterol and doing a metabolic work up to see what the hell is going on as far as me being unable to lose the weight I gained while on that heinous medication. Long story short, we’re pretty sure, my shrink & I, that the medication messed up my metabolism semi-permanently and I may have to go on drugs to fix it.

Wednesday Blake has a phone interview for another position within the company and he applied for another one on Saturday so hopefully next week he’ll have a phone interview for that one too. Both positions are in Scarborough, meaning we’d have to sell our house and move. I haven’t checked to see if the house we want in Cookstown has been sold yet and I’m gonna hold off on that until things are more concrete so I don’t get my hopes up again.

Friday is the kids’ PA Day and Judy’s surprise birthday party, kid-style. Being a PA Day means that I’ll have Courtney too, so she & Madison will be baking and decorating the cake and I’ll help them put up streamers in Judy’s living room. Plus they both made a whole bunch of decorations that I haven’t seen yet, so they’ll be putting those up as well.

Then at some point on the weekend, we’ll be playing Euchre with Ronny & Alex and then probably playing again with Wayne & Judy.

It’s going to be a busy week, but a good one I think. I like it when Blake has vacation days and we can just hang out and do stuff while the kids are in school. We don’t get to do that very often.

Anyway, this is long and I don’t really have a whole lot more to say. I think I’m gonna go take some drugs and go back to sleep for a while…or maybe stay up and read some more of The Scarlet Letter. I haven’t decided yet.

Tomorrow The Sims 3: World Adventures comes out tomorrow and I’m lucky enough to be reviewing it for Buttercup next month so this is probably the only mention you’ll see of it on this blog! Needless to say though, I’m stoked. STOKED, I SAY.

In other news, I slept 11 hours last night and woke up feeling like shit. I had my eggs, then had a shower thinking it would make me feel better, but it didn’t and I was sleepy so I laid down for a 2 hour nap. My body’s definitely trying to fight something off and I hope it’s successful because like most people, I really hate being sick. Unfortunately sleeping so much today means that there’s the chance I’ll be up retardo late tonight and there’s no way in hell I’ll be getting up at 5am to watch the Leonid Meteor Shower. I brought it up to Madison just now and she didn’t want to get up for it either, so I guess we’ll be missing it, but that’s okay, we’ll catch the Perseids in the summer.

I think I’m finally done fucking with the kids’ wishlist. Madison is really into the Get Fuzzy comic strip (or at least the two books I have of it, which she’s scooped for her own) so I just added all of those books to the list for her and I think that’s all I’m going to be adding for either kid. I also just e-mailed my mom to see if she still has all of her For Better or For Worse books because Madison really likes the few we have here (the later ones), that I know my mom doesn’t have, and I figured if my mom still had hers and didn’t want them anymore, then that’s an easy gift for Madison, especially considering that most of the earlier ones are now out of print.

When I was Madison’s age, I was obsessed with my mom’s For Better or For Worse books too, it’s always been my favourite comic (and Canadian!) and it makes me happy that Madison enjoys them too. I think those books/that strip really taught me what marriage was supposed to be all about and what a healthy family looks like and knowing that the strip was based on Lynn Johnston’s real family and friends made it less like fantasy like other childhood influences are.

My (step) dad used to buy them for my mom every year for Xmas and when they separated, I think my mom stopped collecting them.

What do I want for Xmas? Well, my wishlist is here and while presents are good and I definitely love “stuff”, honestly what I want is for people to either buy paintings or donate money to my site. (The button is on the bottom right, or if you’re a Camwhores member, my tip jar is always an option as well.) The fact is, I need money for art supplies if I’m to continue to work. I have a little bit of money set aside for art supplies that my friends Belinda and Mark sent me a while back, but that isn’t going to cover all of the stuff I need, (I’ve been keeping a list for the past 3 months as I run out of stuff) especially since I need to replace some of my brushes and brushes are the most expensive thing.

Speaking of Camwhores, I have been making a little bit of money over there that I could be using for art supplies, but sometimes other things, like taking Blake to the movies or buying Blake & I Chinese food because it’s “good TV night” and we never get ourselves anything are more important, so I’ve been trying to keep “Camwhores money” open for a bit of play. I’ve also been buying a lot of my own stuff rather than getting Blake to pay for it, like when we went to the movies we went to Shopper’s Drug Mart beforehand because I needed painkillers and while he paid for the drugs, I paid for the hair elastics (x 2 packs) and the Chapstick (x3 because I go through it like crazy) I needed.

I haven’t really ever had my own money and it feels good to be able to contribute, if only for treating Blake when I can and for buying my own “extras” that I’d normally go without. Painting money should go for art supplies, donated money should go for art supplies, but the meager amounts I’m making on Camwhores is for everything else. I’m also hoping to buy the kids at least one Xmas present each out of my own money, just because I’ve never really been able to. Like Madison this year needs a real bra (as opposed to a training bra) and I think that’s something that should come from her mother, y’know?

I also want to be able to buy Xmas presents for my neighbours even though we only usually buy for each other’s kids. For Wayne I’ll probably just get him a 6-pack because beer is really the only thing he’s into (I’m also going to be making him a bunch of mixed CDs, I’ve been working on them since last month) but for Judy I want to get her this $15.00 pack of Lipsmacker lip balm because she never gets anything for herself and she’s constantly running out. She’s like me and has to have some form of Chapstick on her person at all times so when I saw that $15.00 pack of Lipsmackers, which I know is her favourite brand, at Shopper’s the other night, I knew that’s what I’d be getting her. (I’m hoping it goes on sale though first, or that we save up enough Optimum points to make it cheaper.)

I have no idea what to get my mom or Phil or Lisa. My sisters are easy, they like toys, and I sent Lisa a Facebook message asking what they’re into and what they have. I was going to make Rachael a painting like I made for Raili and Madison last year, but Blake brought up the point that she wouldn’t even really know what it is (she’s 9 months old) so I should probably wait until she’s Raili’s age to bother.

Ashley’s baby shower is going to be in January, so after Xmas I’m going to be making her an 8 x 8 inch painting like the ones I made for the kids for the baby’s room, but I have to wait until she has her final ultrasound so we know the sex for sure and I know whether to make a boy or a girl and when she knows the sex, she’ll know what colours her nursery is going to be so I can make the painting to match. (Btw, it’s going to be a massive deal that I’ll be going to her baby shower. The only person I’ll know there besides Ashley is Judy and the shower is going to be in Toronto and big enough that the last I heard, they’re renting a hall. Big Italian family.)

Speaking of big deals, y’know how I mentioned a while back that Blake & I have been playing euchre with the neighbours some Saturday nights? Well I’ve become such a euchre fiend that when I found out Blake’s friend from work, Charissa, knows how to play euchre and so does her husband, I’ve been seriously considering inviting them over on a Friday night so we can play. I don’t know how much I’ve emphasized this over the years, but I don’t let people into my inner world easily and I have this stupid attitude that work friends can’t be real life friends, so if I get over my issues and make this happen, my shrink will be very proud of me.

Blake has next week off and I’m going to be getting both bloodwork done and going to see my doctor to finally get a professional’s take on my surgery in August. I forget if I mentioned this or not, I probably did, but being on the pill non-stop and despite the fact that the surgeon cut some nerves in my uterine area so I shouldn’t be in pain, I still am. It’s not as bad as it was before, but it’s still there. During the times I’m supposed to be having a period but I’m not because I’m on the pill (like now), I’m still in enough pain to need crazy amounts of painkillers. I’m worried about the beginning of next month because it’ll be my first period in 3 months and I’m going to ask the doctor for Tylenol 3’s and Naproxen to have on hand in case it’s hellacious.

My day to day pain has been manageable and I can do things I normally haven’t been able to do, like dance around my house like a crazy person, but despite the extra hormones pumping through me, I still seem to be on some sort of painful cycle. What sucks is that if I go back to the specialist next year and tell him that, he’ll start pushing for the Lupron so I probably won’t say anything.

Okay that’s every thought in my head right now – well, every sharable thought – so I think I’m gonna go find something else to do.

These are the current source of my misery (besides my mother-in-law): Bull Rushes.

Across the road from my house is a park and a field and in the ditches in front of both (where I took this picture), there are deep ditches full of bull rushes. Right now, as you can see, the bull rushes are fluffing up to spread their seeds and currently the world outside my front door is so full of bull rush fluff that it looks like it’s snowing and while it’s kinda pretty and sort of surreal, it’s making my allergies go insane.

They reminded me of something though. When I was in grade 9, some kids, about this time of year, brought in fluffy bull rushes, a lot of them, and went up and down the downstairs halls whacking them on lockers so the bull rushes would explode and the fluff would go everywhere. The downstairs halls were so full of fluff that some kids were having trouble breathing and everyone’s allergies were going mental and no one could go to class, so they gave everyone the day off, which was probably the goal of the kids who did it. I learned later that this “prank” happened almost every year at that school.

I don’t remember now what I did with my day off, I do remember that they just let us loose in Port Perry, they didn’t call the buses in early, we caught them at 3:30 at the school like we did every day, but I have no idea what I did for a whole day in downtown Port Perry. For some reason I recall getting fried chicken at a place I think was called Dixie Lee’s or something like that, but other than that I have no idea. Chances are though, I was up to no good.

This week I only lost 1lb on my newfangled egg diet, but a loss is a loss, so I’ll take it. I’m thinking that the reason I didn’t lose more is because in the last week I did a lot of late-night eating, like right before bed, and while I was eating protein which should boost my metabolism more, doing it before bed was probably not a wise choice. Oh well, I know better for this week.

I’ve also been trying to cut down on drinking Coke Zero. For about a month & a half, I was getting sick every single day at around 6:30pm or so and at first I blamed it on my birth control pills (because sometimes they can give you pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness) but after I really thought about it, I realized the culprit was Coke Zero. I guess I would just reach my aspertame/acesulfame-potassium saturation point and would start to feel really sick, like dry-heaving kinda sick. So I started switching to water at about 4:00pm and magically my sickness stopped happening, so it must have been the Coke Zero. Now I limit myself to 2 or 3 a day, usually 2 in the morning (hey I need the caffeine and coffee is not my friend) and then another one in the evening with ice water in between. A little known fact about me is that I drink a LOT and I’ve never been able to pinpoint why, like if it’s just a habit or if there’s something wrong with me, I’m just constantly thirsty and always have been. My whole life I’ve always had a drink of some sort sitting beside me and I carry it around with me constantly. Weird, right? Or is it? Anyway, I’m convinced Coke Zero is actually toxic (or more to the point, the artificial sweeteners in it) so I’m aiming to cut down to 1 a day and eventually none, with the odd “baby Coke” here & there. (“Baby Coke” are these itty bitty squatty cans of Coke you buy in 6-packs that are 100 calories each. We buy one once a month and I have one every now & then because dammit, I really do love Coke.)

Later today I have to take my laptop over to Wayne & Judy’s because Judy wants me to set her up a Facebook profile. They don’t have internet at their house due to finances, but Blake built boosters on our wireless router and while it cuts in & out and the signal is weak, they use our wireless (when it works). Judy wants me to get her set up on Facebook so she can talk to Ashley more often and see pictures of Ashley’s ultrasounds and stuff like that. (Did I mention Ashley’s pregnant? She’s due in February.) The first order of business will be setting Judy up with a Gmail address because she doesn’t have an e-mail address of her own. And I know once I start doing this over there for Judy (oddly my laptop gets full signal strength from our wireless next door, but their PC only gets 1 or 2 bars), Wayne’s going to want me to do the same, so I guess I’m spending some time over there tonight, which is fine because I really haven’t hung out with them much this week.

OMG their cat though…they have this 13 year old, grey cat named Misty who’s extremely friendly and really likes me. Whenever I’m over there, Misty jump into my lap and just lays there waiting to be petted. Well, 4 times now, I’ve been sitting outside at night and Misty comes out of the shadows and jumps into my lap and scares the ever-loving shit out of me. Well, something else she’s been doing is when I’m not outside, she’ll meow at my front door.

The other night it was really cold and she started meowing at my door at about 3:30am, so I opened the door and said  to her “If you’re coming in, get in here,” and she cautiously sniffed around and decided to come in. So I figured no big deal, she can spend the night at our house if she’s cold, so I went about my business and at about 4:30am I went to bed, leaving a note on the bathroom mirror for Blake & the kids saying that Misty was in the house and to let me know if they let her out.

No one let her out in the morning so all day on Wednesday I searched the house looking for this cat and worrying that I lost my neighbour’s cat because I couldn’t find her. Since she’s old, I got scared that maybe she found a hiding place and died and I was getting really worried. So I’d search the house again, under beds, under couches and chairs, in closets, but there was no sign of her.

Judy got off of work at 3:00pm that day, so at 3:30 I went over there and said “Judy, I think I did a stupid thing…” and explained to her that her cat was somewhere in my house and that I couldn’t find her. And that’s when Judy said, “You’re nuts! She’s right there!” and pointed to a sleeping Misty laying right on the kitchen chair in front of me.

How she got out, I have no idea. My only theory, since Judy said she was waiting at their back door to come in at 6:45am, is that she must have gotten out when I let the dogs out before I went to bed and I just didn’t see her. I couldn’t believe that I had gone all day worrying about this damn cat and searching my house multiple times, even enlisting the help of Wes, and she was at her own home the whole time!

Needless to say, Misty’s not invited back.

Anyway, my hand’s cramping up and it’s time to eat my eggs, so I guess I’ll end this post here and wish you all a good day!