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

Now that that’s been said…

It was a pretty ho hum weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, enough of that, it upsets me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bleh.

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

PS. I am 15 days smoke-free.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

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

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

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

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

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

Hi there.

It is I, Sunny Crittenden, textibitionist extraordinaire and I’m here to…probably bore you to tears.

Honestly, nothing’s really been happening. Life’s just kinda gone by without any real events or anything.

Raymond has decided to join us for D&D and since we’ve only had 2 encounters so far, we’re just going to pull a Buffy and pretend he’s Dawn and just have him appear and give him the XP that we all have.  And and and…

So we did that on Sunday, then we watched Game of Thrones. I haven’t read those books but I cannot conceive of how they’re going to resolve everything in one hour next Sunday. Is it a 2 hour finale?

I have cramps like fucking crazy and they will not go away no matter how many drugs I throw at them. I just ran out of Tylenol 3 a few days ago and can’t get any more for another 30 days because that’s how my doctor prescribes it.

This morning I had a shower. Shocking, I know. But when I got out of the shower, the nail polish on my fingers was peeling off! And now, since the nail polish was green, my fingernails are yellow! I look like I’ve been smoking 6 packs a day with all of my fingers or something and no amount of nail polish remover is getting it off. I’m told, via Twitter, that I should have used a basecoat but since I already spent *murmers* on nail polish this month, I don’t want to go out and buy any of that but I’m told topcoat will probably do the trick.

HOWEVER, I think tonight we should really go to Wal*Mart to buy dirt and hooks so I can get my cucumbers planted and I bet they sell basecoat there, just not OPI basecoat, unfortunately. Blake won’t like that I want to go to Wal*Mart but it’s something that needs to be done or my cucumber plants are going to die. They look as though they’re getting ready to flower as it is and right now they’re just in beer cups. We need the hooks to hang the planters because we’re growing them upside down. And we need to do it like, 2 weeks ago.

So I’ve been using Lush’s Big shampoo and Veganese conditioner and I’ve noticed that in using these two products, one of which is 50% sea salt, it makes my hair kinda curly. My VERY straight, won’t hold a curl to save its life, hair. Wavy. Little loose ringlets. Here, let me show you (please ignore my fat, ugly face):

Isn’t that weird? When I brush it out, it goes straight again, but with the slightest bit of humidity it curls right back up. I’m thinking it’s gotta be the sea salt in the Big shampoo doing this and I realize it’s a small thing on the surface but I’ve had stick straight hair my whole life, the idea of volume and BODY has been absolutely unheard of. Many times in my childhood I had perms, only to have them fall out a few weeks later, if that.

Anyway, it’s a bloody miracle.

Y’know what I love? Cakepops. Just throwin’ that out there.

Know what I don’t love? The fact that I haven’t sold a painting in like, over 8 months. That sucks. What sucks even more, which pertains to this, is that I have absolutely no desire to paint right now. I’m all out of inspiration. I am sick to death of fairies. And mermaids. And angels. And I’m tired of making pretty girls in pretty dresses JUST to make pretty girls in pretty dresses. I *should* be painting Asian girls as mermaids and fairies and angels and pretty girls in dresses now that I know how to draw them but I just don’t want to. I’m burnt out. I should also be making more ACEOs with girls of colour on them since all the ACEOs I have up in my Etsy shop are all white girls, but I just don’t have it in me right now.

All I seem to want to do any more is sleep and read books and work and that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

But I feel like I should be squeezing every drop of productivity out of myself and it makes me very upset that I’m not doing that, that I’m not over-achieving. That I don’t have something “on the go”. I *ALWAYS* have something “on the go”, just not right now and that bothers me immensely. I feel like I’m in a rut and I don’t know how to get out of it.

I see my shrink during my vacation and I’m afraid her only advice is going to be to quit my job, which simply isn’t an option, but what else can she tell me? This is not a chemical thing, she can’t adjust my meds and make this better.

Usually I approach a painting thinking “this is going to be the best thing I’ve ever painted!” and generally I do tend to top myself most of the time, I think. But now I just don’t have the fire in my belly, I don’t have the ideas I usually have. I wonder if this *isn’t* because of my last increase in my meds and maybe she needs to up the Wellbutrin. I dunno. I’m just not happy with myself ion any way, shape or form lately and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t feel myself.

Blah. Whining. I’ll stop.

In other news, it’s been 11 days since my last cigarette and I have (almost) no desire to smoke ever again. A few days ago I kinda wanted to, but now I think I’m okay. I’m still going to be avoiding any and all smokers like the plague for the next few months but I think I’m okay doing my own thing right now. I’m lucky that none of my friends smoke. Really the only person I know who smokes anymore is my mom. They’re a dying breed, fortunately. (Well, depending on how you want to look at it…I don’t really want my mom to die but she’s killing herself of her own free will and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Emphysema, here she comes. At the VERY least. I told you I was in the preachy phase of quitting smoking!)

Right now I’m re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and I totally forgot how freaky her version of the future is in this book. I haven’t seen the movie, but I want to.

Anyway, I think I’m going to go find something else to do. I can’t think of anything else to write or bitch about and nothing much is really happening in my life these days (that I can write about anyway). Have your pets spayed and neutered and have a lovely day.

Speaking of spaying and neutering…

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

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

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

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

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

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

So I’m wearing the awesome socks Heavenly Evil made me.

I almost killed myself trying to take that picture. I was balancing my fat ass on the railing of the porch.

Anyway, I love hand-knit (crocheted?) socks and these ones are super soft and I love them.

Did you know that nail polish only lasts a few days before it chips? I didn’t know that and I was dismayed to find that mine chipped today, only 4 days after I applied it. And I think that sucks. My toenails never chip and I only redo them when my nails have grown long enough that the nail polish is kind of growing out and looks bad.

Anyway, totally a first world problem but a pisser nonetheless.

On the weekend we went to the drive-in. And I took pictures which you can see here (I’m x-posting this post to Camwhores where I can’t post pics of kids, hence the linkage). We saw Kung Fu Panda 2 which was alright, Wes loved it and Super 8 which I thoroughly enjoyed. Blake didn’t believe me that it was a kid’s movie before we saw it but it is and it is very much a cross between The Goonies, E.T. and Cloverfield. I liked it a lot.

Then on Sunday morning (well more like noon-ish), Blake and I went out for breakfast to this diner at the beach that we both really like that’s all done up like the 50′s & 60′s and it is aptly named “50′s & 60′s Diner”. See, a few years ago there was a franchise of these diners and they were all called “Galaxy Diner” but the franchise went under. Despite the franchise going under a lot of the restaurant owners stayed open, renaming their diners and this is one of those. There’s another one in Barrie called “Flashback Diner” that we go to often too because the one at the beach has funny hours (although they’re on summer hours now so they’re open until 8pm every night now).

I’m on Day 8 of no smoking with almost zero desire to start up again. I kinda wanted “just one” on the weekend but with very little convincing by Blake, I decided against it. I’m kinda in that sanctimonious phase of being a non-smoker but I think for right now that’s a good thing.

I’m also on day 4 of wearing earrings and so far so good. They’ve been a liiiiittle weepy in the mornings but after I put alcohol on them, they’re okay and I have no doubt that in a couple of weeks they’ll be fine. I’m even considering getting them pierced again. Like, 2 new holes. I did it myself when I was in grade 9 with a darning need, some ice and a potato but I never left the earrings in long enough for the holes to stay open because they got infected so they just healed over. This time I’d get it professionally done but I’m not sure where.

Tonight is yoga. That’s all I have to say about that. Well not really. I’m sick of yoga. I hate going. But that’s only half true because this is what happens every Monday, I dread going and then when it’s over I’m glad that I went. So right now I’m all “ugh” but later I’ll be all “ahhhh”. (Or more to the point, “Ommmmm”?)

And that’s all the poop that’s fit to scoop. Nothing really new to report in Sunnyland. My yellow begonia is pretty much dead because it hasn’t been watered because it’s under a shady tree and isn’t getting the rain water the orange one got, but I just soaked it and I think it can come back. I just have to remember to water the damn thing.

So yeah, Happy Monday and all that shit. Back to work I go.

PS. We got our photos developed for A Million Little Pictures and they are all crap. We’re still sending them in but don’t expect anything fabulous outta that one. We won’t be signing up for that one next year because the cameras they send you are way too crappy.  A Million Little Crappy Snapshots is more like it.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

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

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

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

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

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

Being a non-smoker is hard. Twice this week I slipped up and bought cigarettes and had one and then flushed the rest and now I’m finding myself craving like crazy. I have eaten so much gum in the last 2 weeks that I may never shit again. (I don’t chew gum, I eat gum. Always have.)

My kids prefer me as a non-smoker and I know Ronny & Alex do too and NOT taking breaks in the middle of D&D to go have a smoke is my goal so that’s what’s keeping me going, keeping me trying. Truthfully though, I’d much rather just smoke.

Anyway, I’m going to stop talking about it now because it just makes me want them more the more I talk about it.

Today is a PA Day, meaning the kids are home from school today and will probably make me nuts all day oh joy of joys.

There was something I wanted to post about and now I cannot for the life of me remember what…oh wait yes I do: my vacation.

I am having a REALLY hard time with the idea of this unpaid vacation week. The fact that it costs us money for me to take a vacation week is something I’m really really uncomfortable with but it’s literally that I take a vacation week and relax or I quit this job completely because I’m beyond burnt out.

So I’ve been thinking about what I want to do on my vacation week and the only real concrete thing I can think of to do is that I want to go to the beach. Not for a whole day because I hate that, but just for an afternoon when it’s hot. I’m hoping for a heat wave that week.

Another thing I’d like to do is get drunk. I pretty much missed my opportunity at our End of the World/KOTL party because I got tired and wussed out early, but I think an afternoon/evening of being drunk might be in the cards.

July 8th is also our anniversary so we will be going to Haugen’s for the best ribs and fresh strawberry pie on Earth.

If the drive-in is actually playing anything decent, I’d like to go there as well, but I don’t have high hopes for that because most movies are crap these days, but I don’t even know what’s coming out so I should probably reserve judgement for now. It’s just that the drive-in always pairs stupid movies together, like, they’ll play The Dark Knight FIRST and then put a kid’s movie SECOND, which is just beyond moronic. My only guess as to why they do this is so people can see the “good” movie and then leave if they don’t care about the 2nd one. But still, if you go and plan on seeing both movies it’s dumb, especially if you have kids with you.

So that’s all I can think of to do on my vacation. Since I have weekends book-ending the week I’m taking off, I’m off for a total of 9 days and I absolutely cannot wait. I do have a shrink appointment in there but other than that, it’s all free time.

I got Sims 3 Generations on Tuesday when it came out and I’ve gotta say, I don’t think I’m going to be buying any more Sims expansions because I’ve been disappointed in pretty much all of them except World Adventures. Rumour has it that the next expansion is going to be Pets, which I have zero interest in, so I don;t think I’ll be buying that one for sure. What a let down.

Anyway, work’s getting busy so I’d better shut up and go do that. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I’ll update on Monday.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t want to go to Burning Man.

Blake and I had planned on going in 2012 and flying out to his sister’s in Tahoe, leaving the kids there and then going to Burning Man with his sister’s friends who know all about it and go every year.

But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be stuck in the desert, all sweaty and dusty and gross and without a shower for a week. I don’t want to live on peanut butter sandwiches. I don’t want to deal with the logistics involved. It seems like a whole lot of hassle for an unfun time. So I don’t want to go. And I’ll totally resent Blake if he goes alone which admittedly is unfair but there it is all the same. I just think I’d get really bored out there. I’d look at the art once or twice which would take a whole day, maybe two and then what do I do for the rest of the time? Sweat my tits off in a tent I guess?

I don’t “camp”. That’s the thing. I just don’t do it. I’m with my friend Missy when she says “why would I want to be homeless on purpose?” I don’t shit in filthy port-a-potties and I don’t sponge bathe. I don’t get up at dawn, I don’t sleep in tents, I prefer not to sweat. I just see myself bitching and complaining the whole time and pissing everyone off and it’s not like we’ll be able to just pack up and leave if I’m not having a good time either since we’d be going with other people.

I don’t eat whatever’s available. I am very very picky and I get pissy without food. Also I’m just not cool or thin enough to be there. Have you ever looked at pictures of the people at Burning Man? They’re always skinny 20-somethings with perky breasts – or at least that’s who they’re taking pictures of. My coolest clothes are A) dry clean only, B) winter-friendly and C) not desert-friendly and I don’t see anyone buying me a whole new wardrobe any time soon.

So there it is: I don’t want to go to Burning Man. I like the idea of BM. I wish I was the type of person who could deal with the logistics of going to BM. But it’s not me. It would just be lots and lots of stress with little to no reward, especially since I’d have to go without a week’s pay to even go on top of all the costs associated with going.

If we had like, an RV and could somehow drive there? Then I would consider going, but as things stand it’s not going to happen.

Why that all popped into my brain, I have no idea. I think it was because Ronny & I were talking on Twitter and he said we all need some time to ourselves to just “be” and this is the next opportunity to do that that Blake and I have planned. Or not planned as it were, but an idea that’s been kicked around to the point of even talking to his sister about it. I wish I was adaptable enough to do it but I just don’t think I am and that I’ll just end up miserable and stuck in a place I don’t want to be. I just don’t think there’s enough Ativan in the world for me to do it.

So anyway….yeah.

Today is Day 1 of no smoking and I feel like I’m holding up pretty well. A little weepy, but I think that’s a PMS thing rather than a quitting smoking thing.

I have cramps so bad that earlier I honestly thought I was going to throw up all over my desk so I was in the bathroom reading on the bathroom floor beside the toilet for a while just in case. Thank god for my co-worker, Dott. She had my back while that was happening, although I didn’t tell her what was up. I ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich which helped and I’ve been taking Tylenol 1 every hour which is horrible for my liver but at this point I really just don’t care.

Today is Oprah’s final episode and I know I’m going to lose my shit completely during and after it. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t even remember TV without Oprah and the fact that my friend won’t be on TV every day at 4pm anymore is really going to break my heart. I don’t care who takes her timeslot, I won’t be watching. I have her OWN channel but the only good thing on it is “What Would You Do? OWN Edition” where they do hidden camera stunts to see if people will do the right thing, stick up for the underdog, that sort of thing. And then there’s “Oprah: Behind the Scenes” but they changed the timeslot of that show without warning so my DVR doesn’t record it anymore so I’ve only seen a few episodes and I think it’s almost finished. If they rerun it, I’ll watch but I’m not going out of my way to watch it now since it’s almost over. The rest of the shows are really lame, like there’s a couple about psychics (fraud!), Shania Twain has her own reality show, Chaz Bono has his own reality show, neither of which interest me in the slightest. Lisa Ling had her show “Our America” which sounded interesting but really wasn’t from the few episodes I saw because they changed the timeslot on that one too so my DVR didn’t record it. It was a documentary series about fringe societies in the US, basically, like transgendered people, heroin addicts, sex offenders, super religious people who handle snakes, that kind of thing.

There has been talk of Oprah having her own show on OWN but I don’t think that’s going to happen because I think she really just wants to retire and man, she deserves it.

Oh, one thing I did miss this season was the episode where they did the book club thing for Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I’m sure it was mixed in with something lame and that’s why I missed it (if it sounds stupid on the show blurb on the TV guide, I delete it) but if anyone knows what it was mixed in with, please let me know so I can catch it in the reruns which I think are going all summer.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I’m reading The Witching Hour by Anne Rice for the second time and as all good books do, it’s making me feel like shit, like nothing I write is good enough. I think my ideas are solid, but my vocabulary and descriptions are sub-par. I’ve lost interest in Cammity Jane again because these books I’ve been reading have given me incredibly low self-esteem and it doesn’t help that Madison and I were the only ones who seemed to care that I was even writing them again. Plus my editor is apparently too busy these days to edit it and if he’s not interested and stuff, I didn’t see any reason for me to be interested. All of the above just pummeled my self-esteem as a writer into nothing and I feel like I don’t have anything left to say that I can’t say in a blog. I thought I was doing well at the fiction thing and then I read some good fiction and that was the end of me.

Blake gets mad at me because I think too much about “what comes next” rather than simply writing whatever it is I’m working on but I can’t help it. And “what comes next” with Cammity Jane was plaguing me. I don’t know how to release a book. I don’t know how to lay out a book (I know I know, a friend offered to lay it out for me, so I shouldn’t worry about that but I do because what if it goes the same as editing has gone? And since I’m not paying these people, what right do I have to complain? None!). I don’t know how to make people buy the book. Lulu.com is a fucking scam and as a Canadian I’m not sure if I can self-publish through Amazon. And what if it just sucks and people don’t like it? Then what? And should I sell for 99 cents for Kindle versions like some self-published author recommended on some link I was sent or is that just selling myself short? I don’t know ANYTHING about Kindles and Nooks and iPads as I would never own any of the above, let alone how you would lay a book out for one one of them or all of them or whatever.

I can’t not think about this stuff. Blake says to just write the damn thing and not worry about any of that but I can’t. I don’t think I’m capable because if there’s not a purpose, a reason to do something I don’t see the point of doing it. If it’s not going to be published, I don’t see the point in writing it. If no one cares that I’m writing it, I don’t see the point in writing it. (And Madison doesn’t count.) And some people matter more than others. If my editor doesn’t care that I’m writing it then what’s the point? (And that’s not a dig at you, dear editor, you’ve got shit on your plate and I understand that.) I just feel wholly unsupported by damn near everyone. It’s about 1/3 finished and I have the whole thing planned out, I know the story from beginning to end, it’s just a matter of actually writing it which I have little desire to do because of said lack of support.

Blah. I’m throwing a temper tantrum. I’m in pain and I really want a cigarette and quitting now was the worst idea ever.

Speaking of writing though, my Fiction Project book was received yesterday and IS going to be in the show even though it was late. I got confirmation yesterday. So yay for that, the $30 I paid in shipping for it to get there as soon as possible wasn’t wasted! The books will be touring with The Sketchbook Project 2011 and they’ll start in June in Seattle and end up in Chicago. The dates can be found here if anyone wants to go see my books, both for the Fiction Project AND the Sketchbook Project because both will be there.

Next year the tour’s actually coming to Toronto, which I’m excited about. I have my sketchbook but I haven’t put anything in it yet or made it a cover. It’s not due until January and while that seems like plenty of time, it sneaks up on you or at least it did me last year, so I should start on that soon.

Well, I can’t think of anything else to write about and I think I’m done my whining and crying for the day so I’ll just tell you to vote for the kitties and be done with this post.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

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

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

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

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

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

This weekend has been fucking GLORIOUS so far! It’s my first weekend off in 3 MONTHS and I am milking it for all it’s worth!

I spent all of Friday night playing Sims Medieval, which is fucking AWESOME, then all day today (Saturday, since I haven’t slept yet) I sat on my fat, lazy ass and painted 3 FAIRIES who just need the whites of their eyes painted, their pupils painted and to be given dresses and they are FINISHED, which is also FUCKING AWESOME and tomorrow? I’m not sure what my plan is for tomorrow but Blake got me instant mocha latte mix at Wal*Mart today so I know that’s in the plan and I’ll probably just continue painting, watching the Oprah channel and playing more Sims.

Tonight we had a McDinner and it made me feel so wretched I had to take 2 Gravol afterward. I don’t know why I do this to myself, I only eat McDonald’s maybe twice a year now and every single time I have it I feel like barfing afterward and then I feel guilty about all the fat and salt I just consumed. :o( Oh well.

My fairies…oh man do they ever look awesome. I was going to take pics and post them here but I’ve decided to wait until I’m finished their entire painting before I show the world. One’s Asian, one’s East Indian and one’s Caucasian and they all have black hair and metallic espresso eyes and they look fucking wicked. I was SO SO SO nervous about painting the Asian one because I’ve never done it before and I was also using a new brand of paint which is apparently more highly pigmented than the paint I normally use because I thinned it down the way I normally would but the coverage was too thick and it wiped out all of my shading, unfortunately, so the Asian fairy doesn’t really have any shading to her face while the other 2 do. I was so upset that I ruined her this way that I cried but Blake gave me a pep talk about how it was my first try and no one ever does awesome on their first try so I don’t feel so bad about it now. Her eyes look amazing though, I’ve gotta say, and especially with the metallic black hair she really does look Asian so I’m kind of proud of how she turned out despite the lack of shading. The East Indian one’s eyes are also on a slant and she just looks great. The white one? Well, she looks like every other fairy I’ve done in the past 3 years. All 3 fairies are going to have those pressed leaves I bought as wings, the Asian girl is going to have green ones, the Indian girl is going to have bronze ones and the white girl is going to have gold ones. I’m not sure what the background of the painting is going to look like yet, but you KNOW it’s going to have a fuck tonne of glitter! Anyway, I’m happy with them so far and I plan on continuing with them tomorrow after their lips have dried, which I just painted.

Today was super windy and grey and gross and I felt bad for all of the vendors at the Maple Syrup Festival that our town had today. They close off the main street so craft/artisan vendors can sell their wares and it was just a shitty day for it over all. The wind was so bad that it blew out gate open twice and the dogs got out but they know where they get fed and they came back. Blake’s now secured the fence with garden twine and two plastic zippy things and the wind’s not supposed to be as bad tomorrow so hopefully that solves that problem.

I’m smoking again. I don’t know why. I don’t really want to talk about it and I don’t really want to hear any lectures, I just wanted to throw that out there in full disclosure. I had quit for 2 weeks but on Friday the freedom of the weekend and having things be perfect was too much and I broke down and bought a pack and then I was thinking that we’re going to see the Pixies on Wednesday with Ronny, Alex & Deanna and Deanna smokes so if I quit on Monday, there’s no way I’m going to make it through the Pixies with Deanna smoking so I might as well just keep smoking until we come home from the show (Thursday) and start quitting again. I think I may read Allen Carr’s book again.

Speaking of books, I’m still reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and I’m finding it extremely dry. I don’t even know what the fucking story is and I’m about 1/6th of the way through. It reminds me of something but I don’t know what…

Water For Elephants opened this weekend I think, but I’m too broke to go see it because I’m in credit card debt up to my eyeballs. It’s just so goddamn easy to buy things on the internet and god help me, but I discovered eBay a few weeks ago and I cannot stop buying Japanese mulberry tissue paper because it’s impossible to find locally. I’ve bought 6 batches so far and I’ve received 2 of them, neither of which is pulpy enough for angel wings, which is what I use it for, so it was kind of a waste of money but it’s hard to tell what you’re buying in the pictures the sellers put up. I’m hoping to find one seller with the right type I need and keep buying from them, but for now it’s trial & error. Chali told me about “destashing” on Etsy where people sell art supplies on there, which is what I might do with the mulberry paper I can’t use. Someone’s gotta have a use for it and I mean it’s all pretty neat, I used a bit of it in “Black & White” on the skirt of the fairy in white, I’m not sure if you can really see the flecks of silver and gold in the paper, but like I said, it’s neat stuff, I’m just not totally sure what to do with it. And now that I’ve typed that, I’ve realized that it would probably make good skirt material for the fairies I’m working on at the moment, so hey, good for me.

Yesterday I literally tried to freeze my credit card in a glass of water in the freezer, but the glass cracked (it was plastic) and the ice just kinda, was repelled by the plastic of my card so I could literally just pull it out no problem. So much for that idea. Since that didn’t work then I guess it’s just up to me to have a little fucking impulse control which I really really suck at. On Friday I bought like, 11 lbs or something of cone incense off the internet – I’m out of control!

Tonight we finished watching Buffy, the entire series and I bawled at the part with Xander at the end of the last episode. Anya was my favourite character (Andrew is my 2nd) and I knew she was going to bite it and how she would and I knew it was coming but none of that knowing prepared me for it so I cried and cried.

I have no idea what’s going on with my period and it’s making me fucking mental. I was supposed to get it on the 6th but it was a no show, then last Sunday I had what I thought was the beginning of it (that brown goo you get right before you gush) but that tapered off after a day and now nothing except a LOT of discharge, enough that I’m wearing a pad anyway. It’s like I’m having a white period or something (and no, it’s not an infection, it’s like ovulation goo x a thousand). My new anti-psychotic that I’m taking for sleep can affect your period so I’m chalking it up to that but even that doesn’t make much sense because I had a normal period last month while I was on it so why would I have an abnormal period THIS month? I’ve also had the pain of a period, just no blood. I want blood dammit! I tried to go to sleep at around 11:30pm tonight and as I was laying in bed, I started worrying that Blake’s vasectomy had reversed itself and that I’m pregnant and what would I do if I was. (Were?) Blake and I have gone over that scenario a thousand times before and the answer is always “abort abort abort” but the question in my head tonight was, if I did have to have an abortion, would I blog about it and risk the threat of it being absolute troll bait and having the world judge me for that decision? And it’s a hard thing to answer, I thin, unless you’re in that situation, but I think I would blog about it. If I were pregnant right now, the amount of drugs I’m on would seriously fuck up a fetus and it would be all drug addicted and probably be deformed or mentally retarded or something so an abortion would be necessary for that reason, but there’s also the reason that we’re done having kids and we’ve taken every precaution NOT to have any more kids, so there’s that reason too. I think anyone who has an abortion has valid reasons, don’t get me wrong, I’m just listing what mine would be. Anyway, while laying in bed, I decided that I would blog about the whole thing because hey, that’s what I do. But I’m (probably) not pregnant so I don’t even know why I’m writing this…

So we’re going to see the Pixies on Wednesday and it’s out of town and I’m getting really nervous about it. We’re getting a hotel room, which I love because I love staying in hotels, but I’m worried about the dogs who will be alone for the night. We’ll be leaving early on Thursday morning and it’ll take 2 hours to get home, so the dogs shouldn’t be in too much discomfort, but still, I worry. And I feel horrible because in planning this whole thing, I didn’t even consider them. My mom’s taking the kids for the night and that’s all that I had on my brain as we planned. It only occurred to me tonight that the dogs would be an issue.

I also think that tomorrow Wes and I are going to plant our vegetable seeds and get them started on the living room windowsill. I have the cups for it and have for a while, but I keep forgetting to do it or I’ve been too tired after work to do it (because it takes twice as long and it’s twice the mess when Wes helps, but he likes doing it) but it needs to be done and I have the time tomorrow so I might as well.

And I’m really just babbling at this point so I’ll tell you about the Sims Medieval and call it a night.

The Sims medieval is not like the regular Sims really, it’s kinda like a cross between the Sims and WoW on super easy mode. You control your Sims but they have specific jobs and you have to do quests. To be quite honest, the guidebook that came with the game is pretty worthless and I’m not even sure what the point of the game is yet. I made a kingdom and did every single quest and now I’m not sure what to do. There are “ambitions”, like the first one is called “New Beginnings” and the goal is to build up your kingdom so it has every building and every profession, which is what I completed tonight, but then there was nothing left to do so I went to the main menu screen and saw that 2 new ambitions had opened up so I clicked on one of them and it wanted me to make a new game, a new kingdom, rather than playing with the kindgom I’d just built. And that’s confusing because what is the point of building a whole kingdom if you just have to keep building like, alternate kingdoms for each new ambition. Is anyone playing this game? Am I doing it wrong? So I started a new kingdom for one of the new ambitions and that’s what I’m playing now. The first kingdom was called “Sunnyland”, naturally, and the new one is named “Sunnyland 2″ because I’m creative like that.

Anyway, here are some screencaps:

My first monarch, Sunny Moody.

Sunny Moody having a royal bath.

This one is Queen Sunnybananas of Sunnyland 2.

My wizard, Zennish Moody.

My physician treating a patient. I forget his name. :o/

Praying with Oprah, my Peteran priestess.

All in all it’s a fun game, but I wish I understood what the hell I was supposed to be doing better. I can’t imagine I’m doing it right with the whole starting another kingdom thing for each new ambition because that is a royal pain in the ass.

So that’s been my weekend so far. I think now I’m going to see what everyone’s up to on Facebook while I finish my Coke and then get to bed. Happy weekend!

I either made Asians, Vulcans or elves.

1. With this one, I tired making a very thin upper “eyelid” that started below the corner the of the eye and extended almost all the way out to the end of the eye to create the epicanthic fold that Asians have, but I messed up on her right eye so I had to try again with the next one, which turned out better.

2. I think this one looks Vulcan.

3. Blake thinks this one looks the most Asian:

4. The same thing but with eyelashes:

What’s sort of unfortunate/good-ish is that I like the way the slanted eyes look, just in general, without being Asian, and I like the eyelashes too but the only thing I have then, if I use that for brown & white girls from now on, to distinguish “big white people eyes” from “Asian eyes” is the “eyelid” that starts below the corner of the eye that doesn’t go all the way across. Is that enough?

There is also, as Impling pointed out to me in an e-mail, skin colour, which is going to be a cream, whereas I use a peach-ish colour for white people.

So are those three things enough to distinguish pan-Asian from white and brown girls?

PS. I broke down and bought smokes last night. Smoked 3 of them before wanting to die. I was on Day 20 of no smoking. I’m not counting this slip up though, and today is day 21.

I had to go to the doctor’s this morning to get repeats on my codeine contin (which he raised by 100mg/day) and Tylenol 3 (30mg codeine/300mg acetaminophen) and Naproxen. He lectured me about taking so much Tylenol because it’ll kill my liver, which I’m oh so aware of but I don’t see any alternatives here, which is why he raised my codeine contin. That’ll keep me from having to take so much Tylenol 1 (8mg codeine/300mg acetaminophen, 15mg caffeine) during the month and then I have the Tylenol 3 for when I’m actually on the rag and wanting to kick puppies. So was that clear? He lectured me about taking so much Tylenol and then rx’d me…more Tylenol. I’m not complaining because he did what I wanted him to do, I just thought it was funny.

I have today off because I had to go to the doctor’s this morning at 10:30am (we just got back now and it’s almost noon) when I start work at 10am usually, and then this afternoon is metabolic clinic. But this actually worked out well because I woke up to an e-mail from Belinda asking our boss for Saturday night off because it’s her boyfriend’s birthday. I have to make up my metabolic clinic hours on Saturday anyway (Belinda works nights) and Blake’s gone to Militiagan for another funeral this weekend anyway too, so I said I’d take today off and work Belinda’s shift Saturday night for her. Then I’ll still have Sunday off, which, if I’m working the night before, I’ll probably use to sleep in and then play Sims Medieval all day. So it all works out! I had intended to work from whenever metabolic clinic was over (we usually get home around 3:30 or 4pm) until 6pm, which is when my shift usually ends, but I decided I’m not going to bother and I’ll just make up the hours on Saturday since I’m needed then anyway. That means that I may actually make it to yoga tonight, which is good considering I haven’t actually been in about 4 or 5 weeks because work + metabolic clinic all in one day is too many things for me, so yoga has had to go by the wayside until metabolic clinic is finished on April 5th.

Speaking of yoga, our teacher is pregnated! She already has a toddler, she goes to school for holistic medicine and she has a full-time job on top of teaching yoga, so she’s going to be one busy lady. We’ve signed up for the next session because I’d like to continue once metabolic clinic is over and done with. As I may have mentioned a time or two, I absolutely love yoga and I’m really looking forward to going tonight since it’s been so long. I bet she’s going to make me sweat…

Today at metabolic clinic we’re discussion our addictions. I am 6 days smoke-free and talking about smoking makes me want to have one so I hope they gloss over that and just talk about the addiction part. This is our last real class I think, as next week is our “graduation” and evaluation session. I’m not really sure what that means but I do know that I’m going to need to fill out my module evaluation sheets which I’ve been neglecting to do unless they’ve specifically asked me to do them at the end of class, as they have in some instances.

I’ve been doing the treadmill daily. The first day I did a total of 55 minutes but then the next day I was sore because my shoes are those Sketcher’s Shape Ups so I only did 20 minutes and I’ve only been doing 20 minutes since. In fact, instead of writing this post, I should probably get on the treadmill, especially since I’m at the very tail end of The Virgin Suicides and I’d really like to finish it so I can star Freedom by Jonathan Franzen since that’s Oprah’s current book club pick and I think she’s going to be doing the show about it sometime soon. I’ve never read one of Oprah’s book club picks while the book club was happening before and I’ve always skipped those episodes as a result, but this being her last season I figured I’d give it a shot, especially since I read in Adbusters that my generation doesn’t read enough Jonathan Franzen, so there’s that too. Have any of you read this book? What did you think of it? I don’t even know what it’s about, I haven’t read the back or anything and I know absolutely nothing about the author or his previous works. But whatever, I’m looking forward to cracking the spine on that thick sucker and I love that I got a treadmill with a book stand. Reading while walking is turning out to be something that I really enjoy. The treadmill even has a place for an MP# player to be plugged in and two cup holders that fot a can of Coke Zero perfectly. I’m totally set up!

Yesterday Blake brought me home dirt so when I’m NOT wearing my $200 hockey jersey or going to yoga, I have to start my veggies on the window sill. I have Super Sugar Snap peas, Napoli carrots, Thunder cucumbers, Parade green onions, Golden cherry tomatoes, Sugary cherry tomatoes and Big Beefsteak tomatoes. All I’m going to start inside this week is the cucumbers and all the tomatoes. The peas did fine last year with just being stuck in the garden and hopefully the carrots and onions will do the say. Last year the garden got overrun with weeds and I didn’t know what were weeds and what were vegetables so I couldn’t weed and the carrots and onions never grew. Neither did any of the herbs (that I know of, like I said, I couldn’t tell the difference between them and the weeds). This year I’m going to do herbs in pots on the porch, although part of me is thinking “why bother?” because fresh herbs at the grocery store really aren’t that expensive and we use frozen basil chunks for Blake’s awesome cherry tomato pasta anyway and I think they’re only $2.99 for 20 cubes. (I think he uses 4 in the tomato thing, maybe a bit more.) It just seems like, for the pain in the ass of it, it would just be easier to buy fresh herbs at the grocery store than tend my own.

Blah, I’m babbling. I’m gonna go finish The Virgin Suicides and get on the treadmill. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

PS. Yes I know I need to get my roots done. I was going to go to the new salon here in town to have highlights put in, but I’m broke right now so I bought a box of hair dye today at the pharmacy instead. I’ll go to the salon another time and just get Blake to trim my ends with my awesome art scissors. No big deal.

Okay, to tread I go!

PPS. I can’t go to yoga tonight! We’re playing the Sabres and I have to tweet 100 times about how much I hate Ryan Miller! Curses!

This post is going to be done in bits & pieces because I’m working right now. Things are slow however, so I have some time to write.

Today is Day 3 of No Smoking and it’s a hell of a lot better than Day 1. Last night I had a minor freak out and went to the store to buy smokes, which I did, but I bought the lightest kind they had, only smoked half of one when I got home and flushed the rest of the pack. Expensive lesson, yes, but that’s what money is for. At least I know now, for sure, that it is *I* who wants to quit smoking and I’m not doing it for any other reason and that’s important I think, because I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.

Spongie*’s going to yell at me for this, but usually the first thing I do when I wake up is to go outside and have a smoke. This morning when I woke up, I wanted a smoke, so what I did was grabbed a Coke Zero and went on the treadmill for 10 minutes instead, while watching last night’s Jersey Shore. My goal for the treadmill is 3,000 steps/day, which isn’t a whole lot and just in the 10 minutes I was on it this morning, I did 1,101, so not too shabby. I find as far as speed, that “1″ is too slow but “2″ is too fast, so I do 1.8 and that’s just perfect. I’m still trying to get used to my new shoes, but I’m getting better with them as time goes on. These are my new shoes, is case anyone missed it when I posted them the first time:

Shape Up shoes are weird in that they have thick, rounded soles and they really do take some getting used to. Last night I was dragging my feet like crazy but today I did better. The point of these shoes is that I can just put them on and get on the treadmill; there are no laces to deal with and I don’t have to go find socks to wear them. They claim that they help improve your posture, tone your legs and butt and adjust your hips, but there are a ton of independent studies that show they don;t do any of those things, despite Sketchers’ own studies that say the opposite. I don’t really care about any of that, I just wanted an easy to slip on shoe where I didn’t have to hunt for socks or do up laces. And that were cute. I got all of that in these ones, so I’m happy.

Aside from the treadmill, I’m eating pretzels and popsicles instead of smoking. Rold Gold Pretzels, which are low in calories and Del Monte Real Fruit popsicles which are only 50 calories a piece. Since I’ve chosen those 2 things, I shouldn’t gain any weight from this, which is good, obviously, since I’m in a friggin’ METABOLIC CLINIC to LOSE weight!

The recreation therapist sent me this link yesterday which had some interesting facts. This one I felt was the most interesting:

Intervals increase your basal metabolic rate (BMR), causing you to burn more calories 24 hours-a-day, and intervals can make your exercise less monotonous and help the time pass more quickly.

So let me get this straight, if I do inclines on my treadmill every few sessions, it’ll boost my metabolism? Is that what that’s saying? Because I think that’s what it’s saying, I would just like clarification from someone else.

Anyway, enough about the treadmill, I am so tired right now that I just want to have a nap. I’m not sure doing the treadmill first thing in the morning was necessarily a good idea!

On Tuesday night, my mom, her boyfriend John and his son Chris, brought Wes a bunk bed, which Wes was/is all excited about. The top bunk is just a single bed, but the bottom bunk is a futon. While my mom was here, I told her that I was working on my first novel and asked her if she wanted to know what it was about. She said yes, so I told her that it’s about “the Glotch” and her reaction was interesting. More confused than anything, I think.

The Glotch was a monster I think my Aunt Sandra made up, to keep me out of the dump when I was very small. (My grandma’s property backs onto a dump/former dump that was improperly sealed.) One time they threw a sheet over the dog and said it was the Glotch, which scared the shit out of me. Anyway, the book I’m writing is largely about the Glotch and that’s all I’m going to say about it. Yes, it is “Cammity Jane”, but I’m much further in the story than I was when I left off when it was a live blog.

Madison got into the school talent show. She’s doing “The Time Warp” with her friend and she wasn’t sure she was going to make the cutoff, but they did so they’re going to be in the show. I don’t know if I’ll be able to actually see the show since it’s going to be during the day, but I’ll send her to school with my Flip and hopefully one of her friends can tape it for me. A HUGE thanks to Drunken Housecat for finding us the music! <3

I don’t know WHY I’m so tired. I could go to sleep right now and sleep for a good couple of hours. I went to bed about 10:10pm and fell right asleep. I remember waking up at 11:30pm disoriented but I fell back asleep. This morning I woke up fine, right at 9am with the birdies on my Wake Up Light.

It could be because of the Tylenol 3 I’m on…but I thought I was pretty much immune to that. Apparently not, because I’m ready to pass out. I think I’m going to take an hour break while Dott’s still working so I can lay down.

Maybe I’ll write more later.

(*At least I believe it was he who linked me to an article where doing that was very very bad.)

Sunday was my 9 month anniversary of quitting smoking.
Yay me.

If I can make it a year, I’ll never touch another cigarette as long as I live.
Unless Blake dies. We have a deal about that.