So, I’m awake. I woke up around 3am and decided it was a great time to start making turkey soup in my brand new crock pot! The crock pot cookbook I got with it had a recipe for turkey soup and I more or less followed it, except I think I filled the crock pot a little too high. The instructions for the crock pot said to fill it 3/4 of the way full and I think I’m more like ALL the way full.

Sooooo I guess we’ll see what happens!

I started making the soup at 3:38am, see?

I started with a sweet potato first because the cookbook said to put your root vegetables at the bottom so they cook better. Honestly, I think sweet potatoes are actually pretty gross, but they’re good for you so that’s why I decided to throw it in.

Cutting sweet potatoes is a fucking pain in the ass which is why I only used one. We have really crappy knives and they just don’t mesh well with sweet potatoes. I actually had to use TWO knives to get the sweet potato peeled and chopped!

Next I cut up potatoes. Pretty uneventful. I used red potatoes because I think they look nicer, but really it doesn’t matter what kind of potatoes you use I don’t think, I just like to have really colourful food when I can help it. I don’t peel potatoes because I’m convinced that most of their nutritional content is found in the skins, so I just chopped them up. I didn’t end up using all 4 though, just 3, but really, I probably should have only used 2.

I almost forgot to add onions! I was getting the carrots out of the fridge and saw the onions at the bottom of the crisper drawer, so I got them out and started chopping. Truth be told, I’d rather have had red onions, but we always just get normal, everyday, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill cooking onions because they’re only like, $1 a bag when they go on sale.

I looooooove carrots. Blake and Madison have a thing against cooked carrots, which I totally do not understand, but Wes and I like them a lot and they’re cheap so I always put them in soups and stews. Again, when they go on sale, they’re only about $1.50 a bag and I’ll also use them grated up for Hospital Salad.  Carrots weren’t on sale this week, I don’t think, but I didn’t check the flyer so who knows…aren’t they beautiful though? Look at those rings! Nature wasn’t fucking around when it made the carrot.

Now for the gross part, or at least I think so. I hate the smell of left over turkey so when I opened the container we had it in and it hit me like a wall, I literally almost threw up and had to leave the room. Something strange about the whole pancreatitis/being in the hospital for a few months thing is that ever since I got sick, my sense of smell has been like, a super power. I can be in the living room and smell Blake cutting CUCUMBERS, which of course have  barely any scent, in the kitchen.

Anyway, the smell of the turkey was gross so I had to wait until the air cleared a bit before dealing with it.

Once the air was clear, I just grabbed pieces and cut them up and threw them in the crock pot. One thing I love about turkey soup/stew is how stringy the meat gets when it’s really tender and that’s how the meat was this time. It’s going to be phenomenal when the soup is finished cooking!

We had a LOT of leftover meat.

And finally, spices…the recipe was like, thyme and fresh parsley. Well, I don’t have fresh parsley but I did have thyme so I put in about a teaspoon of that, along with a teaspoon of sage and a teaspoon of garlic powder. Then I threw in some cayenne pepper for good measure. Oh yeah and I threw in a can of diced tomatoes (with the liquid), as well as the gravy that Blake made because why the hell not?

I stirred it around a little bit just to make sure I could with it being that full and I could so we’re all good. I set the cook time for 10 hours and I got finished around 4:30am so it’ll be ready at 2:30pm tomorrow afternoon, just in time for my afternoon meds. I’m verrrrrry excited! It’s like, this is my magic cauldron and I’m brewing up some super nutritional food for my hungry family. Look ma, I’m cooking!

When I was in grade 4, I had this really amazing teacher named Mrs. Lewis. One day she came in and had us all sit at the front of the portable on a rug she’d brought in from home, with throw pillows all around and she told us the story of Stone Soup. She told us the story very slowly and in the beginning, when she got to the part about the stone, she produced a medium-sized stone and she placed it in the crock pot. Then she filled the crock pot with water and as she told us the rest of the story, she would add ingredients to it, like potatoes and carrots and onions and a can of corn and eventually, when she got to the part about the meat, she started browning ground beef in an electric frying pan and she added that too. Then some salt and pepper and maybe some other stuff too. Near the end of the day, we were all given a bowl of soup with some crusty bread and butter and it was probably the most delicious soup I’ve ever tasted and it’s one of my favourite childhood memories. I’d really like to make Stone Soup with Wes.

This same teacher taught us about Medieval times and we had a Medieval feast at the end of the unit. We put all of our desks around the edges of the room in a circle and we put garbage bags down on the floor. We drank mulled cider (from her magic crock pot!) and ate Kentucky Fried Chicken, throwing the bones on the floor in the middle of the room. Some people were serfs and we had a king and queen and prince and the whole royalty deal (we drew names from a hat) and a couple of people were dogs and we all dressed up to the best of our ability. It was awesome. (Oh and I was a serf, for the record.)

This same teacher also sent me to Literary Guild, which is this neat workshop thing where every teacher in the area chooses one student to go to it and you go there (a school hosts it) and you share your story and discuss it with others and you eat food and then there’s a guest speaker. The first time I went (I went in grade 4 and again in grade 6), the guest speaker was ROBERT MUNSCH! The world’s greatest children’s author!

Anyway, Mrs. Lewis was fantastic and I hope she’s doing well.

Now I think, since it’s 5:30am, that I’m going to go back to bed. I’m a little uneasy about going to bed with an appliance plugged in and turned on, but that’s what they’re meant for so I guess I should just “trust and allow”.

Goodnight!

I have an ingrown toenail that is so pusy and nasty and painful that I just want to chop my toe off and be done with it. It’s my own fault, when I cut my toenails about a week ago I cut too deep by accident and knew it was going to turn ingrown. It fucking hurts.

I also didn’t have dinner last night because I knew if I did, I’d throw up. My “mind over matter” dealie isn’t working so well these days. I *am* almost 6 days barf-free but over the past 2 days I came pretty close and I don’t know if I can keep this up. I guess my mental powers just ain’t what they used to be. Then again, if I don’t believe in those powers, they won’t work, so I should probably be a little more positive about it.

So none of you probably noticed because you all saw the post earlier in the day, but I’ve removed yesterday’s post entitled “Sweet Child o’ Mine” because Madison got mad at me for posting her note. She wasn’t mad that I showed the whole world, she was mad that it was an image that people could save and potentially print out and bring to school to tease her with. Her friends don’t really come here but she was afraid of that scenario. She said that if I could figure out a way to leave the post up but make it so people couldn’t save the pics, I could leave it up, but as you all know, that’s not possible, which is a shame because I think that was a good post. I saved it as a PDF so I could print it out once we have black ink again, though, so it’s not exactly lost forever, it’s just not public anymore.

Anyway, total lapse in parenting judgement. I’ve apologized and promised that I wouldn’t post publicly about her sexuality again, especially in a savable format. We’re good.

I wish I could post publicly about how everything went down with her last night because I think it was very interesting but since I’m banned from speaking of her sexuality I can’t really go into details. I understand her reasons for being upset, and again, it had very little to do with you guys and more to do with people from her school, and I respect them. If she were an adult, I probably wouldn’t because don’t tell me shit if you don’t want it on the internet (unless you specifically say “don’t post this”, which I do respect, or unless it’s really obvious that it shouldn’t be public) but she’s a kid and has the right to grow up with a little privacy. Note that I said “a little”. She is unfortunately my daughter and I put everything on the internet that happens in my life from the mundane to extraordinary and sshe’s a part of my life so there’s going to be some cross-over. I’m not just going to write around her.

I explained this to her and she seemed fine with it. It was mostly the sexuality thing and who she likes (which I know I didn’t mention but I do have a video teasing her about someone we thought she was crushing on last spring that she hated but I didn’t know until last night because she didn’t tell me) because those things can come back to her at school if it falls into the wrong hands. And like I said yesterday, she’s already being teased at school, to a much higher degree than she let on before, and it breaks my heart so I won’t do anything to knowingly contribute to it.

So that’s what happened to the post, more or less.

Before I apologized, she was really mean to me and made me cry, which was a bad move on my part. Now that she knows she has that power, she’s going to use it as she gets deeper into the teen years and the shitty part is, I can’t control myself. I can’t not cry when someone’s being mean to me. I’m an extremely sensitive person and I cry a lot. I cry if the store’s out of ketchup chips. I cry if someone shows me a video on how Chicken McNuggets are made. I cry when celebrities die. I cry when Blake yells. I cry when Wes tells me about when he saw me at St. Mike’s and I was “sleeping”. I cry when “Creep” by Radiohead comes on my iTunes.  I cry for really stupid reasons, especially when I think people are mad at me or they’re being mean to me. Blake’s like, “it’s only going to get worse as she gets older” and I just cried some more because Madison’s never been mean to me before. She’s never gotten mad at me before. She fights with Blake all the time and gets made at him and that’s just their dynamic, they butt heads and scream at each other for a while, then Madison goes to her room and Blake goes to his desk and a couple of hours later Madison comes out and pretty much acts like nothing even happened, which Blake doesn’t let her get away with, they discuss whatever it was calmly at that point, but it always turns out okay.

Yesterday Madison made me cry, twice, and didn’t even apologize for it after everything was fine and we were back to joking around and being normal.  She was indignant, she was like “good” while I was crying, even though she didn’t say that. That really bothers me.

It getting worse will absolutely destroy me and I’ve been crying all morning just thinking about it. :o( Okay I’ve only been up for an hour, but I hit the ground weeping. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through her teens if this is how it’s going to be. She’s just literally, in the 13 years she’s been alive, has never gotten made at me before, she’s never lashed out at me, she’s never said anything mean. That’s not how we are. Or that’s not how we were.

Don’t get me wrong, even after she saw I’d posted the note and before I apologized, she was still telling me all about school and the kids in school and who she liked and was acting totally normal. She took the opportunity to be mad at me and ran with it to see what it tasted like and I think it tasted good. She’s been testing the waters with me a little bit the last few weeks, like saying “no” if I ask her to bring me a bottle of water from the kitchen or to recycle my old ones or to grab me an apple while she’s in there or whatever. She plays it off like she’s joking but she’s kinda started taking it too far and I can’t really explain in text how she’s testing the waters, it just feels like she is. Blake thinks the same thing.

Other than that, we’re totally fine. Blake tweeted this weekend, “I think that Madison and @SunnyCrittenden sitting around shooting the shit is just about the cutest thing ever.” and he mentioned somewhere else that it was “heartwarming”. I don’t/didn’t really understand what he meant because Madison and I were just being normal, this is how we are after school every single day, but I guess he doesn’t see that because he’s at work. Madison and I have talked after school about everything under the sun since she started school, pretty much, so it’s totally normal for us, but again, he just doesn’t see it. I don’t know what was different this weekend, but something was and he noticed and he mentioned it. He also said that it “warmed his heart” that we went into my office and watched The Muppet Movie together while I made art because, to him, Madison and I don’t do that together. But the thing is, after school we do, we’ve watched many an Oprah episode after school together and now on Thursdays we watch Extreme Couponing together. (That show is AWESOME.) Since I got sick, I don’t go in my office that often so we don’t watch as much TV as we used to, but obviously we still do it because we did it on Sunday and last Thursday with Extreme Couponing. In fact she stayed home from school that day to help me deal with a new nurse because I just couldn’t deal with her by myself (and rightly so, she was pretty gross and I hated her touching me :o(). Today after school, Madison is going to the pharmacy to pick up the drugs for me that Blake forgot to get on Sunday because he worked all weekend. She’s a GOOD KID, she just has this streak of malice now that I don’t know how to deal with.

And it bugs the hell out of me that she doesn’t believe me that she’s a good kid when I tell her she is. Maybe I should write her a note. I mean, she helps out around the house a LOT and for no allowance because we can’t afford allowance anymore, she runs errands, she’s constantly asking me if I need anything and both kids understand that walking is difficult for me, so they both grab me water from the fridge and stuff like that and they seem happy to do it. Sometimes (not often) I say in the living room where everyone is, as a joke, “the next person who gets me an apple gets a kiss!” and all three of them will literally fight over who’s going to do it, like they all run to the kitchen to get the apple. The ONLY thing I know for certain in this life is that my family REALLY loves me. Like, to an abnormal degree I think.

So then how could she be so mean to me? I don’t understand. Blake tried explaining it to me as there being reactions that come from the (logical) brain and reactions that comes from the (illogical) heart but I still don’t get it. I could never be that mean to her. I’m the one always sticking up for her, I’m the one always in her corner.

I guess all there is to do is to try and grow a thicker skin. Blake says I need to try as hard as I can next time not to react when she tries to hurt me and he guarantees that there will be a “next time”. I’m not so sure about that, but he’s probably right about the thicker skin thing, just in case. I just don’t think I’m capable of it.

Enough about that.

Last night I watched a movie called “The Switch”, which starred Jennifer Anniston, who I think is SO pretty and Jason Bateman who I think is a dork. Juliette Lewis and Jeff Goldblum were also in it and Juliette was really great. Jeff, not so much. Anyway, it’s about an artificial insemination gone awry and it’s a romantic comedy, which I’m a sucker for, and I expected it to be really awful as most rom-coms are but it was actually pretty decent and do you wanna know why? It’s because it was based on the short story “Baster” by JEFFREY EUGENIDES (!!!!!!) who is probably my favourite author in the whole wide world. He wrote Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides and a new book that I forget the name of but Blake’s getting it for me for Xmas. Something about a marriage or a divorce or something, I honestly didn’t read the jacket, I just saw the name and basically screamed in the middle of Chapters because I love him so much.

Right now I’m half-assedly reading Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs which is kinda cool because of its gimmick (the story is written around strange photos that were supposedly “found”, but I’m not so sure – the photos are interspersed throughout the book) but the writing is kinda “meh”. The story is kinda “meh” too. And actually now that I think about it, the writing sounds like I’m reading a blog, which I don’t really mind but I read a lot of blogs and I want more from a book. Apparently they’re making this book into a movie and I have no idea how that’s going to work.

Speaking of movies, The Help comes out next week on DVD and I have to have it. If anyone was going to get me anything for Xmas, that’s the thing. It’s on my wishlist. Just sayin’…(I hate that term and I can’t believe I just used it, but it fit…)

Here are scenes from my bed from yesterday:

Wes gave me a bat ring for Halloween. It’s one of my prized possessions. :o)

My empty Tylenol #3 bottle.
I always keep them so I know when I can refill the prescription because I only get 100 pills every 30 days so I don’t become an addict (probably too late).

Wes’ picture from the dentist last year.
His hair IS tinged pink in this pic, it’s not  a trick of the light.
I just realized that it’s weird that its for the DENTIST and he’s not showing his teeth.
They probably wanted him to, but he probably politely declined.
That’s just how he is.

This is my extra special snowflake mug.
Blake got me a set of 4 from Caribou Coffee when he was working there like, 10- years ago.
This is the only survivor. :o/
It’s getting old and I need a new one but I haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement.
It’s stained on the inside and the inside also has a whole bunch of fine cracks.

I’ll be very upset if anyone breaks it.

Yesterday Blake called me from Shopper’s Drug Mart and told me that Isopure Plus (my protein drink that I need so I don’t die of malnutrition) was on sale for $3.50 off, which is a very big deal because the stuff’s $15 + tax for 6 bottles which is very expensive for us and he wanted to know if I thought he should get 2. I said yes. I wish we had more money so we could get more than 2 because that’s a really good deal and we should probably stock up. :o/ It’s NOT a good deal if we have to put it on Visa and pay interest on it, so that’s why we only got 2.

Today is a grey, rainy, depressing day. I really really hate fall, especially right now when we’re in the tail end of it; when the leaves are all off the trees and soggy brown muck on the ground and it’s cold enough to see your breath but there’s no snow. I love rain when everything’s green, but when everything’s brown, it just depresses me. Also, I just don’t get outside enough. I want to be outside, I just don’t know what to do out there.

Did you know that a serving of cashews (1/4 cup, which isn’t a lot) has 9g of protein? Learn something new every day. The chicken bowl steamery microwave thing I’m going to have for lunch is like, 18g of protein. My mom found an online protein calculator and she says I need 44g of protein per day. I’ve been doing some research of my own and I read that if a person is recovering from a surgery or an accident, they should actually DOUBLE their protein intake because their bodies are working extra hard to heal themselves.

My wound is almost healed and while my guts are swollen and unhappy, I can’t exactly heal them, so I say I should split the difference and that I should aim for 66g. There’s no way I can eat that much in a day without gaining a ton of weight and there’s also the puking thing to consider, but I can come close with the Isopure Plus (18g of protein) every day. I got Blake and Madison to try a little bit of the Alpine Punch flavour last week and Madison said it tasted like medicine and Blake just said he thought it was pretty good. I agree. The texture is a little weird and takes some getting used to (it’s more dense than water or juice) but after that it’s actually pretty good. Blake got me grape this time and everything I’ve read says that that one’s the best flavour so I guess I’ll see later tonight.

Even though Isopure Plus is designed to be easy on tummies, I find that if I drink it too quickly, I feel really really sick, so I have to drink it in little sips across a span of an hour or more. If it gets warm, I have to put it in the freezer to cool it back down, because it’s pretty gross when it’s room temperature.

Anyway, I’m very pleased with the stuff.  I just wish it wasn’t so goddamn expensive.

Okay I think it’s time to go into my office where I can’t see the grey day, watch some bad movies OnDemand, eat my chicken bowl steamer thing and then work on this sketchbook. I got the sketchbook for the Limited Edition Sketchbook Project last week so the pressure’s on! My theme is “the last word ever spoken”. Hmmmm.

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.

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.

So today’s the big day! All of Canada votes today and the results should be interesting. Early polls have shown that the NDP may in fact get their minority government, which would be fucking amazing and historically unprecedented. I hope it happens, truly. I voted liberal, though. I usually vote NDP because I really like Katy Austin, our local NDP rep. but this vote is very important, we need to get Harper off the throne, so to speak, and Blake looked up the voting history of our riding and they lean heavily conservative, next liberal and then a tiny fraction NDP.

Our conservative MP, Helena Geurgis, disgraced herself pretty badly last year and is now running as an independent. I don’t think she has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning and the conservative representative is someone I’ve never heard of. So is the liberal candidate for that matter. But since Helena and the conservatives got smeared last year in the press because of Helena’s actions, I think there’s a good chance of a liberal majority in our riding as a result, which is why I voted the way I did.

Having said that, I truly hope Katy Austin, the NDP representative, wins, but I don’t think she will.

Oh politics. I’m going to be glued to the TV tonight as the votes come in, probably way past my bedtime. Harper needs to go and I want to see him go in real time. I have faith in Canadians to do the right thing.

If anyone doesn’t know how to vote or where to vote, just e-mail me or comment and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Last night I was very upset because I got defriended on Live Journal by someone I consider a very good friend. Why did he defriend me? Because I’ve been posting about these charities and apparently his scroll finger is broken or something. His stance is that these click for charity events are – I don’t know what words he used now because he defriended me and I can’t see the post – bad, we’ll say, because they pit charities against one another and that people should just give money to these charities instead. And that’s really easy to say when you make a bajillion dollars a year like he does, but I don’t and I’m betting neither do you. Money I don’t have, an audience I do. That is the currency I deal in. In his act of defriending me for posting about these things, he is in fact saying that nothing else I post is of any value to him, completely discounting everything else I post about.

So after he wrote his diatribe in his own journal about how we should all be giving money to these charities, I told him that I’d still be posting but as always, he\’s free to scroll on by and that’s when he defriends me and I was very upset. Then to add insult to injury, he comments on the journal entry I can no longer see or comment on that he would REfriend me if I set up an “opt in” filter for these charity posts. Well, first of all, I don’t do ultimatums and no one dictates what or how I post on my own site or journal, but second of all, I post on my site and then it cross-posts to my journal, there IS no way to make a filter like he’s proposing. And I wouldn’t make one even if there was because half of my audience reads Live Journal because that’s what they have bookmarked and half of my audience reads my site because THAT’S what they have bookmarked. And I’m talking about non-Live Journal users, not the people on my friends list. Some people even read my site through RSS, which I still don;t understand, but it’s there and they do.

These are the people I’m trying to entice to vote for these two charities that are near and dear to my friends’ hearts. I refuse to feel “punished” for supporting my friends in their endeavors the only way I know how. I don’t have $25,000 to give to the Richmond Animals Protection Society, but I bet I can get about 20 people clicking for the cause. I don’t have $10,000 or even $3770 to give to The Neutral Zone, which is what they’ll win if we keep clicking, but I know just by my friends list on Facebook that I’ve got 15 people clicking for that cause and that’s just the ones I know about. I’m sure for every person I *do* know about, there’s at least one person I *don’t* know about. Maybe even 2. Maybe even 3.

And I’m asking people to vote, I’m not telling them to vote and there’s a difference. Anyone is free to scroll on by, it’s no skin off my nose and I understand that people may have other things they have to do with their time. It’s a personal choice. I’m not mad at anyone for not voting or anything and I don’t think my posts have come across that way. If you feel guilty for not taking 10 seconds out of your day to make real change in the world, so be it, that’s on you, but the next time you change your userpic on Facebook for a cause that doesn’t even exist, I’m going to call you on it. And the next time you post a status update on Facebook to raise “awareness” for a cause that people are already aware of, I’m going to call you on that too because if you can do that then you can click for these charities and make a real difference too.

But to defriend me for posting about charities, one of which is for the benefit of a mutual friend, is a new low in social media politics. At first, last night, I was really upset because regardless as to whether or not he said I shouldn’t take it personally it is personal. It’s saying that nothing I write is of any value. It’s saying that what goes on in my life is unimportant to him because he can’t be faced with posts every few days about a charity or two that he’s under no obligation whatsoever to do anything with or for or about. He’s somehow incapable of scrolling past a one paragraph post about, again, a CHARITY, that he has no obligation to click on or repost or take part in in any way. Wow.

So now I’m mad. I’m not bawling anymore. I’m not sad. I’m pissed off. He said we can keep in touch by e-mail until the contest is over but I have no desire to repost, essentially, the same things I post here in personal e-mails to him because he’s too delicate to handle posts about charities. I have better things to do with my time.

And knowing him, he’s going to be pissed at me for posting this and the comment is going to start with “You bloggers…” and end with how we don’t respect privacy etc. Well when the hell have I EVER dealt with anything privately. The only thing I’ve ever dealt with privately was Madison’s adoption (because things were sensitive and people like to try to sabotage me) which, by the way dear readers, is complete. She is now Blake’s daughter legally and he has the same rights in regards to her as I do. And she now knows about her sperm donor and she knows that he was just that. She doesn’t know that he beat and raped me pretty frequently but she will once she’s old enough to start asking questions about him, although with the way things are going I don’t think she will. She does know that he held up the adoption by being unavailable. That fucker told me many years ago up until two years ago that when the papers came to relinquish his parental rights to Blake, that he’d happily sign them because it was mutually beneficial. He didn’t want to pay back child support and if he relinquished his parental rights, he would never have to. It was all about money for him. So I made friends with his girlfriend on Facebook and she happily gave me their phone number and mailing address because it was financially beneficial for her and her 4 other kids (with him) too but when it came time to serve him the papers, he was nowhere to be found. He and his family are pros at avoiding registered mail and subpoenas, I’ve seen it first hand, so the adoption had to be completely rewritten and it extended the whole thing for another YEAR because Rob couldn’t be found. And I’m angry about that because once again he lied. This wouldn’t have cost him anything, it wouldn’t have taken him more than 2 minutes to sign the papers like he said he would. I have never asked that man for anything except this and he couldn’t even do that, nevermind the fact that the last time I spoke to him, about 2 years ago, he even offered to PAY for the lawyers to start the adoption procedures. Instead, they bought ANOTHER big screen TV, as I found out through his girlfriend’s status update on Facebook about 2 weeks after he’d called me.

So that’s the deal with Madison’s adoption. Now you know and now I can honestly say that I don’t deal with things privately. As I’ve explained half a million times before, writing is how I process things, I write it out, I get feedback, that is how things go. So now if this friend of mine doesn’t want to be friends at all after I post this, then I’ll let you all know. He did say, “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not think this LJ De-Friending means that I do not want to be real friends with you.” so we’ll see how that goes, I guess. But for right now I’m pretty pissed off because I’m being dictated to about what I can or can’t write in my own personal spaces and that nothing else I post is of any value in the face of these HORRIBLE, TORTURING CHARITIES that he simply CAN’T SCROLL PAST because it’s SO PAINFUL.

Gimme a fucking break. The RAPS click campaign goes until June 30th and I *will* be posting about it every few days, as I’ve been asked to, to remind people to vote, so I guess I’ll talk to this friend of mine again on July 1st. Or not. Whatever.

In other news, Madison’s going to be 13 on May 16th. A few people have asked me if there’s anything she wants so allow me to point out her wishlist here, which she’ll be updating with more things after school today. Since 13′s a pretty big deal, I’m hoping she gets lots of stuff, but don’t feel obligated to buy a birthday present for a kid you don’t even really know, I’m just putting it out there since a few folks have asked.

I can’t believe she’s going to be a teenager. I mean, this girl came out of my body! And now she wears a size 9 women’s shoe! She’s just so BIG! And she has boobs and she gets a period and the whole works, she even shaves her pits and uses deodorant! She doesn’t drink coffee yet, although she wants to. We made her try black coffee first, the results of which were hilarious:

I just can’t believe how grown up she is. I suppose I can tell you all now where she was when we were in Hamilton watching the Pixies: she was home alone. Over night. She went to bed at her regular bedtime (she says, and I believe her) and she got herself up for school the next morning and did her talent show that afternoon, which was the whole reason she was allowed to stay overnight by herself. She needed to be at school the next day for the talent show and that wouldn’t have been possible if she went to my mom’s with Wes. Her friend Eryn, who did the Time Warp with Madison, needed Madison there or their segment of the show couldn’t have happened and the teacher running the show would have been super pissed.

Anyway, she was totally responsible from what we can tell and it all went off without a hitch. Blake didn’t drink at the show just in case there was an emergency and we had to leave, Madison knew where the candles were and how to use them responsibly if the power went out (which happens when you live in the middle of nowhere), she knew my mom’s phone number and the neighbour’s if anything happened and last but not least, with her being home, the dogs were a lot happier and we were able to take our time getting home the next day because their bladders wouldn’t be about to explode.

It’s just weird that she’s at this point in her life, the time went by so fast. In another year she’s going to be in HIGH SCHOOL. It’s just completely bizarre to  me. At the same time it also makes me feel really good as a parent because she’s a great kid and that’s because of how Blake and I have raised her. She’s thoughtful, compassionate, great at doing dishes (for the most part), funny and just awesome in general. And we did that! Blake and I did that! I mean, Madison did a lot of it herself, but it was all with our guidance and I feel good about the person she is AND the person I see her becoming. So high fives to us!

For her birthday, Blake’s taking her and Eryn to Canada’s Wonderland, which Madison’s never been to, and I got her those silver sparkly TOMS shoes and then we also got her a keyboard because she’s taken an interest in music ever since they went to Miltiagan and her, Blake and Blake’s friend Steve all jammed in his basement which is set up as a jam space with drums, a keyboard, guitars and a bass. She’s been practicing on this virtual keyboard that she found somewhere on the internet because she thinks she’s saving up to buy herself a keyboard and lessons, but we already have the keyboard and I don’t think lessons are in the cards. Maybe next year for her birthday. I don’t even know if lessons are an option in this area to be perfectly honest, but we’ll see.

Speaking of Miltigian, Blake’s mom sent Blake a friends request on Facebook yesterday so now they’re Facebook friends again, which is a good thing. Like I said in a previous post, steps are being taken to repaid our relationship with her and they are appreciated, no matter how small they are.

And speaking of FAMILY in general, Blake and I were talking on the way home from Battles Friday night about moving and how we have to save up for the kind of house we want and where it should be and that we shouldn’t just buy a house because we HAVE to move, we should deal with the commute issue for as long as we have to until we find THE house, our forever home, which I agree with. But we got talking about where that should be and we both decided that Stouffville, where I grew up, would be ideal. The only drawback to that is the property taxes are huge and houses are expensive and that’s where my grama lives. The evil hellbitch. I don’t think if we moved there that she’d show up on my doorstep but part of the reason we moved here to Elmvale was because I knew she wouldn’t drive up this far to show up on my doorstep. In moving to Stouffville, there are other worries, like my Aunt Betty showing up on my doorstep, the mother of my cousin who molested me who I’m pretty sure knows about that now because my grama has a big, fat mouth. I’m not sure I’m strong enough for those kinds of confrontations and I really want nothing to do with any of them. But in a town like Stouffville where everyone knows my grama, it’ll be very easy for her to know of my comings and goings and that’s going to bother me. On the plus side though, I can see my old doctor again, which is very important to me. On the minus side, I’ll have to give up both my shrink and our yoga studio, both of which are also important to me. But then again, on the plus side, in Stouffville, because I grew up there and know all the roads, there’s more of a chance that I’ll drive again. AND if I pay off all my credit card debt, it’s theoretically possible that I could afford to buy myself a cheap car to drive. Not that I have anywhere to go, though.

I dunno, we’ll see how it goes. Blake just likes Stouffville because it’s a lot closer to his work and his commute would be about half an hour to 40 minutes if we moved there, as opposed to 1 & a half to 2 hours as it is now. I like Stouffville because I grew up there and theoretically have friends there. Or potential friends. Stouffville also has the 2nd best pizza in the world and the best Chinese food in Ontario, in my opinion. The town’s changed a lot since we moved, but the layout’s the same and it wouldn’t be difficult for me to get around. The main obstacle is finding the right house that we can actually afford, but that’ll come with time.

Anyway, that’s where our heads are at right now, we’re looking for houses in Cookstown and Stouffville. Or the Stouffville area. But we’re not in a rush to move because we want to do it right.

So BATTLES. We went and had a good time. My friend Mike was there with us and we got to meet his girlfriend Melissa who was super nice and I really liked. I recorded the whole show, the first part (of 9) you can see here. In part 2 (I believe) you can see Mike on the dancefloor dancing like a maniac and it’s funny because he was the only one. I had what I consider to be the best seat in the house. The Mod Club Theatre has an upstairs with private balconies, like boxes at the opera, and I was in the 2nd one, with the upstairs bar right behind me. I had a perfect view of the show, which I was apprehensive about in going at all because this is very much a show for boys who are all taller than me so I was worried about not being able to see anything, but the view was perfect and that’s why I recorded the whole show. I’ve had a few comments on the videos by people who were there too, thanking me for recording the show, so I’m glad my efforts are being appreciated. Battles themselves were great, as I knew they would be, although I’m not really feeling the new songs, at least not live. Maybe on the album they’ll sound better. (Speaking of which, the album, called Gloss Drop, has leaked so I’m going to try and find it today.)

Good time was had by all and we were kinda stupidly stoked that we were in Olivia Chow’s neighbourhood by all of the signs to re-elect her. She’s Jack Layton’s, the NDP candidate for Prime Minister, wife, and it was kinda cool to be in sort of a political celebrity’s neighbourhood.

Annnnnd I think that’s all I’ve really got to say. I have my story written for The Fiction Project, which I’ll share when the illustrations are finished (I hope, time’s an issue) but here’s a sneak peak:

That’s Octavia and she’s 5 years old. I originally drew her in 2008 for my friend Halcyon but decided to resurrect her for The Fiction Project because she’s so cute and my theme is “Happy Thoughts”.

Anyway, as I said, the story is finished and now I have about 25 illustrations that need to be done before May 16th so if I’m quiet or only blogging about THOSE HORRIBLE CHARITIES, that’s why.

I have to start work in 40 minutes, so I’d better stop writing and start getting “in the zone”, as they say. I don’t have my helper today because it’s her day off so the inbox is pretty full and it’ll take me an hour or more to empty it. So off I go! Happy Monday everyone, I hope it’s a tolerable one!

My period seems to be making up for the 2 & a half weeks it was late by being extra bloody. I’m soaking through a Lunapad liner about once every 4 hours and this may be a gross TMI thing but the smell of the blood is a lot like the lochia you get after you’ve given birth so now I’m paranoid I’m having a miscarriage. Blake’s had a vasectomy so the chance is pretty low, but still…he theorizes that the new anti-psychotic I’m on wasn’t at peak levels last month so that’s why my period was normal then, but wasn’t this month. I suppose that would make more sense than a miscarriage but I cannot get over how much blood there is. This isn’t normal. But then again it could just be the fact that I’m 2 & a half months late and maybe more blood builds up when that’s the case, I dunno. I’ve been super regular since I had my first period at 9 (well, it started being regular around age 12) so this lateness is just really weird for my brain to absorb.

I’m also having massive hormonal problems right now with little patience for idiots or negative people which is making work especially difficult because we tend to only get e-mails from idiots and complainers. And I don’t think I can blame this all on hormones either, I mean, if you’re just going to come around to be a negative bitch, get the fuck out of my life, y’know? I don’t need you. There seems to be an influx of people like this in my life right now and I’m getting mighty sick of it, especially from people online who only come around to be negative and say negative things. Like, why are you even here? If I’m so flawed and you so disapprove then why are you here? Why are you reading my shit? Does it make you happy to walk around feeling negative all the time, feeling a false sense of superiority? Does being smug keep you warm at night you hypocritical cunts? I suppose if that’s all ya got then I’ll leave you to it, but stay the fuck outta my way or I will mow you down because I’m not taking it anymore.

Yesterday was a really bad, bizarre day. I woke up in an absolute panic due to a nightmare (that I don’t remember now) and the anxiety it caused lasted most of the day. I felt like I had too much electricity in my body and my ears felt like they were pulsing so I took Ativan and Klonopin and gradually as the day wore on my sanity leveled out, but for a while there I was shaking and crying and had to call Blake at work to talk me down. I dunno, it was a really bizarre situation that I’m for sure going to tell my shrink about when I see her next month. It just came out of nowhere. It was also day 1 of my period so it’s possible that it was hormone-related and my shrink told me a long time ago that if a woman is heading toward a psychotic break that it’ll often manifest itself when she’s on her period because the hormones amplify things so maybe it’s the same with anxiety. I’m fine today, despite the fact that I had a nightmare about being carried off to sea in a tsunami this morning, but the memory of that is fading now. I wonder if what I dreamed about yesterday set my anxiety off subconsciously or something? I dunno man, but it was weird and I’m glad it’s over.

I am STILL reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and it feels like it’s taking forever to get through this book. It’s amazingly well-written but it’s taken me about 200 pages to care about the characters and actually get into what’s happening. Not that I have though, I think I would consider it a good book, depending on how things end up. It’s definitely the most dense thing I’ve ever tried to read though, like wading through chocolate pudding. Every single sentence is meaty, I’ve never read anything like it. Then again, I’m not the most well-read person on the planet so what do I know? I mean, I read a lot, I always have something on the go, but it’s never like, “fine literature” I don’t think, which is what I guess this book would be. But whatever, now that I’m in the thick of it, I’m liking it very much, I care about the characters, I want to know what’s going to happen next.

Speaking of books…I’ve stopped writing Cammity Jane. I haven’t stopped for good, I just sort of lost momentum with it, but here and there I have snippets of text running through my brain to add to it, which I’ve been writing down in my CJ notebook for when I resume writing it. In the meantime, The Fiction Project is due on May 16th (Madison’s birthday!) and while I have a rough outline of the story I want to tell and the illustrations to go with it, I haven’t written a single word for it yet and I’m having trouble with the middle. I know how it’s going to begin and how it’s going to end and what it’s going to be called, but I don’t know for sure what’s going to take place in the middle yet, so Ronny and Alex are coming over on Saturday to brainstorm with me and then hopefully Saturday night I’ll write the whole story and then (again, hopefully, I haven’t asked them yet) Sunday I want them to come over and help me physically write out the story in the sketchbook the project provided. Then I have 2 weeks to do the illustrations. I paid extra for the project to digitize the book, so when that happens, I’ll of course post about it here.

The Fiction Project is run by the same art gallery that did The Sketchbook Project and A Million Little Pictures and I’ve signed up for The Sketchbook Project 2012. In fact I’ve signed both Blake and I up for it. My theme is simply “Untitled” and Blake’s is “Ask me how I can help” (I think). My artist page can be found here. I finished my camera for A Million Little Pictures (I can’t link to that because they’re building a new site for it but it’s the same idea as The Sketchbook Project; they sent me a disposable camera and I send them back the pictures) on Wild Rumpus Day so that’s done, but Blake still has to finish his before we can get the pics developed. My theme for that was “The Great Adventures of ?” and his was something like “The End of the World”.  I know he’s taken some pics, but I don’t know how many or what they were of. The deadline for that is June 15th, so he still has some time.

I was on the DeSerres website a couple of weeks ago (that’s a CDN art supply company) and found a new scrapbook paper company called Basic Grey that had these fabulous small-print papers that would be perfect for my paintings and I ordered 3 packs, all different, with the hopes of the pink ones not turning orange when I varnished them. Well this morning I finally got around to doing a patch test with them and while they don’t turn AS orange as most of the other papers I’ve tried, they’re still definitely turning orange and that fucking sucks. Hand-dyed papers from Curry’s don’t turn orange but every single scrapbook paper company I’ve tried has turned orange. And I can’t change the kind of varnish I use because I need the triple thick gloss coat to get the maximum glitter effect I get from what I use now. Plus, I’ve tried another brand of varnish and it does the same thing. The only varnish that doesn’t turn them orange is Krylon, which is not paper-friendly (it turns the papers greasy) and Liquitex, which is way too thin and won’t allow me to achieve the effect I get with the glitter. SO, in case anyone ever wondered, that’s why I have very few girls with pink dresses!

While also on the DeSerres website, I decided to buy some Delta CeramCoat paints and I feel like I total traitor because normally I use DecoArt’s Americana line, but Delta had so many more skintones than Americana and, as it turns out, their paint appears to be more highly pigmented than Americana. I’d always avoided CeramCoat because by mom’s always used Americana, she even sold it in her store, and while they definitely have better packaging and more colours, I think I’m a convert as far as skintones go. I haven’t tested every shade I got yet, but so far the results have been really good and I’m glad I made that purchase.

What else?

I’m still kickin’ ass & takin’ names at my job. Not much new to report there other than the fact that I’m getting really good at catching fraud and the bosses are obviously very happy about that. I’m not sure if I mentioned it or not but they hired a new girl who works from like, 5am-1pm which overlaps my shift and she seems okay. Slow to catch on to things at first but she’s getting better now.

We’re under a severe thunderstorm watch right now and I’m really hoping the hydro doesn’t go out because not only would I lose this post, but if it went out I wouldn’t be able to do my job and I would HATE to have to make up the hours on the weekend. I’m already leaving 2 hours early on Friday so we can get to Toronto as early as possible for the Battles show. The club they’re playing at (in?) has seats all along the right-hand side apparently and since this band attracts a lot of geeky guys, I’m afraid I won’t be able to see anything because I’m only 5 feet tall. If I can get one of those seats, I’ll be able to see everything I would think. Doors open at 7pm, but I’m hoping to be there at least half an hour early to get in the line so I can get one of those seats. I have just enough money left over from my paycheque to buy a t-shirt and I’m making Blake buy me a drink or two.

I got a Canada Post notification in my e-mail today that there’s something waiting for me at the post office and I think it’s my new bag so I’m going to send Madison down to get it when she gets home from school. I’m going to have to call Blake  to find out which PO box is actually ours because I honestly have no idea. I thought I had it written down but apparently not. If it’s not my new bag then it’s mulberry paper, but since I got shipping notification on the bag on like, Thursday maybe, I think it’s safe to assume that’s what it is. Before I move all my junk from my old bag to my new bag, I’m going to do a “what’s in your purse?” picture post because I carrying around a really stupid amount of crap around with me because I get paranoid about needing things when I’m out. Like wetnaps. Hand sanitizer. Two cameras. Etc.

Since I’m leaving 2 hours early on Friday, I’m going to have to make that time up for work on the weekend, which sucks, but it’s only an hour a day so it’s not that big of a deal. I’m so lucky to have a job with such flexible hours and understanding bosses. I’m also fortunate in that the girls I work with are also flexible and we all cover each other’s asses.

So I’m not sure if anyone caught it the other day, but it was Blake’s MOM who e-mailed me about the purple mystery flowers in my garden. Someone asked me recently how things were going with her so I thought I’d give a brief update about that: we’re working on things. Blake had a positive experience with her at the funeral for his Aunt this month and so did Madison and I know she’s making efforts with me that are greatly appreciated. We’re not best friends yet, hell, we’re not even Facebook friends, but efforts are being made and bridges are being built and I think that’s something. So to answer my friend’s question: things are going fine. Slowly but surely.

And this post is just a little over 2k words so I suppose I should wrap things up. Long story short, despite having the most wretched period I’ve had in a long time, things are going pretty great. I have a good family, nice friends and I’m not worried about money so I guess I can’t complain.

Happy Wednesday!

I’m working on so many things right now it’s actually kind of ridiculous. I’ve got another painting on the go that’s of TWO fairies so it’s double the work, I’m working on top sekrit writing project #1 (Cammity Jane), which is about half way done I think and now I’ve decided to grab another writing project off the shelf and spend the weekend working on that since Blake’s in Militiagan with Madison for his Aunt’s funeral so it’s just me and Wes.

This writing project is a short story about a fat woman and it’s bugging the shit out of me that I can’t find my notes about it. It’s a story that actually took place in a dream I had and when I woke up I wrote it all down, but now I can’t find where I wrote it down. The story is that there’s this fat woman and her kids living in a small town in the southern US when this health and exercise obsessed minister comes to town who targets this woman and her family, turns the town against her and she sits on the top porch of her house singing as they pile books and wood and other burnable things around her house because they intend to burn her alive. She sings as she’s burned alive but as she was singing throughout this ordeal, her daughter recorded her and after her death the kids put her songs on iTunes, they were a hit and the kids lived happily ever after, fat on the cash from their mother’s singing.

Don’t ask me what the story is actually all about because I have no idea. It was just a fully formed idea that materialized out of nowhere one morning while I was sleeping so I wrote it all down. The story is about half finished, the problem had been though, that I didn’t know what to make this woman sing. I spent this morning/afternoon downloading Elvis and ripping my Buddy Holly greatest hits CD and I’m listening to Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers right now for inspiration because I’m certain that she’s going to sing “oldies” but being not of that generation, I’m not all that familiar with the song possibilities. I’m probably MORE familiar with oldies than most people my age, having grown up with them, but I never paid attention to who the songs I know were by or really what the words were beyond the titles.

Oh and if you’re not familiar with Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers, this is them:

Their first album, the self-titled one, is one of my favourite albums of all time. It just has practically everything in it and I dare anyone not to be okay with it playing in the background.

Anyway, my heroine is going to sing oldies, but I have to be careful with song selection and I worry that I’m going to pick the wrong songs and wreck the whole story. :o/ But I won’t know until I try so that’s what I’m working on this weekend.

I had signed up for The Fiction Project and I have my little Moleskine notebook sitting here waiting for words and this fat woman story was originally going to be for that, but it’s gotten too long to be for that so I either have to scrap the project (likely) or think of something else. They don’t want you printing out your story and pasting it into the book and handwritten, my fat lady story is going to be way too long so I don’t know what to do. I also kinda think my writing is worth more than just giving it away for free like that, to be perfectly honest. Not my blog posts obviously, but my ideas. And I realize I just gave you all my idea for free, but…am I making any sense? I like the idea of The Fiction Project and if I had a simple idea I’d freely give it to them, but I don’t and it’s due in a MONTH! I’ve decided this year that I’m not going to get down on myself for being unable to keep creative commitments, especially ones I’ve paid money to participate in rather than ones I’ve been invited to be a part of, so I won’t feel guilty if I don’t finish that one but still…

Speaking of projects, yesterday during Wild Rumpus Day, I finished taking pictures for the A Million Little Pictures Project so that’s out of the way at least. I still have to develop them, but at least they’ll be sent on time. That one’s due June 15th, so it was the least of my worries, but my theme was “The Great Adventures of ?” and I thought Wild Rumpus Day would be good for a bunch of “wtf who are these people?’ pictures. I had all these plans to modify the camera to take macro shots and stuff like that, but I don’t know enough about photography to do fancy shit like that. My pictures were taken outside in the woods so I know they’ll turn out well, since I was just using a 400 ISO cheapo disposable camera (that was issued by the project). I paid for both Blake and I’s pictures to be digitized so you’ll see them when that happens. Like The Sketchbook Project, AMLP is going to be a touring exhibition and at least one of each person’s pictures is going to be a part of it.

Last night we went and saw Sucker Punch and while Blake really liked it, I was disappointed. I think this movie was just way too hyped for me and it just didn’t live up to that hype, that’s all. I can’t pinpoint what I didn’t like about it, just that I wouldn’t watch it twice and I don’t think I’ll be buying it on blue-ray unless Madison ends up really liking it, which I think she will. Her friend Eryn saw it last weekend and thought it was the best movie she’s ever seen, period, “even better than Forrest Gump!” so I’m fairly certain Madison’s going to like it too.

After the movie, I talked to Kevin for a bit and then we went to the grocery store to stock up on supplies so Wes and I didn’t starve or run out of toilet paper while Blake and Madison were gone and I saw these tulips, which had to come home with us:

They have to live in the kitchen though because there’s no room on my desk for ANYTHING with everything I’ve got going on right now.

Tonight I have to cover Belinda’s shift at work because it’s her boyfriend’s birthday. I have to work 5 hours and I’m going to do them between the hours of 10pm-3am which means I’m going to be having a nap this afternoon or at the very least a long nap tomorrow afternoon.

Anyway, that’s all I have to write today I think. If there’s any more, you know I’ll post later ha. I’m off to my Sims Bunker!  Happy Saturday!

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.)

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