Not sure how to feel

I haven’t talked like that with dh for a long time, and while it seemed very weird at first, we got through it okay.  He’s not the greatest listener but he really, really tried and did fairly well last night.

Our conversation surrounded the topic of my schooling.  I’ve been taking a degree for 4 years now, but am only ½ done and am burnt out.  He knows I do 97% of the housework, 95% of any kid ‘work’, social planning as well as be a backup for his endeavours.  I’m burnt out, seriously.

So, with being completely unable to hide his disappointment, he told me to do what I need to do to regain my sanity.  Not completely of course as it’s impossible for me to regain that .  But at least I can feel less of a burden by putting it on hold for a while.

I did it.  Today I withdrew from my only course, one that was fairly boring anyway (although I imagine it was boring because my mind wasn’t in it anymore).  Dh did tell me he’s proud of me for going as far as I did.  I can’t say all he said, but he complimented me, and it even made me cry *sniff*.

I can’t say how I feel except weird.  I don’t feel the weight of it yet because it’s not yet sunk in that I’m no longer a student.  Although technically I am for the next year, but I’m not registered in any courses so I don’t consider myself a ’student’.

I do feel a little guilty though as my mil gave me a scholarship a few years back with the condition, from my dh’s mouth, that I was going to finish.  I will, someday, but there’s no telling what I’ll finish with.

We talked last night about me finding something else to fill the void, but something I have a passion for.  It made me sad to realize that my only passion isn’t something that is viable with a family life.

Acting.  My dream has been to act, all my life, but as a mom, an overweight woman, it isn’t likely that parts would be feasible as I can’t be available at all hours to audition or act.  I truly don’t have much else that I am passionate about (besides writing & reading).  Any ideas?

Back-up! Back-up! Back-up!

I cannot, repeat, cannot say it enough, we have to remember to back-up our precious moments lived out on the pc.

I read in horror tonight at one of my Blogroll compatriot’s recent disaster. Roni’s Weight Watchen – a very good resource for many great recipes, tips and tools for losing weight – had disaster strike her hard work. Data corruption seemed to have destroyed the record of her blog information. I presume she had it backed-up somewhere as some of it is restored again, but how many of us forget, or just ignore the urge, to back-up our files, blogs or photos? I’ve backed up our photos, although I should do it again, but I need to redo our email files, addresses, and today I sat down and did my blog. Yes, I backed-up my drivel, my blithering idiocy, my thought vomit.

I’ve been blogging now for just shy of a year and have logged 129 posts out of those 11 months. I’m sure quite a few of them were about Adoption, or my duck-ass, and it was wild to read about things I’ve written.

For example; one of my first few posts, here, I wrote about Elbow Lake. It’s a beautiful little lake that is a starting off point to a longer hike. This is the hike we are going to do in about 4½ days.  I’m so excited to be going back there.  Not only for the beautiful scenery but because that was our very first hike, it only seems fitting to trek back there and continue on hiking to the next point of interest as if we haven’t forgotten about our roots (the original hike venture) but are not remaining in the past, but moving on.  Yeah, a little to freaking philosophical for me too.  We’re just backpacking.

So, my tip for the day.  Don’t wait until it’s too late to backup your precious files.  Computer geeks are wonderful people, but they cannot always retrieve corrupted files and they’ll be gone for good.

Happy Thoughts

To quote a moment in Peter Pan.

I thought I’d post my happy things so as to reassure all of you wonderful persons out there that commented to me below that I am not really in a funk per se, but more in a reflecting-on -my-life-kinda-mood.

• I’m happy that my life is filled enough with good people that care about me.
• I’m happy my dh loves me enough to try and attempt to learn new listening skills.
• I’m happy that I am a red head that can wear pink and look good.
• I’m happy that I’ve lost 20lbs and do not feel deprived whatsoever.
• I’m happy that I am aware of my sad ‘things’ so as to make my happy things seem so much better (thank you Teri!).
• I’m happy that I have the means to vomit my thoughts to the world through this blog and WordPress, it fills me with joy daily to be able to write on here (well, when I write on here daily that is ).
• I’m happy that sex is so pleasurable and good.
• I’m happy about the country I live in and it’s plentiful opportunities.
• I’m happy that Punk’s wonderful teacher is so tuned into her that I can approach her about which teacher wouldn’t be good for her.
• I’m happy I have the funds to buy Parmesan.
• I’m happy that I am so comfortable within my own skin, even if it’s over stretched at the moment, it is good skin to be in.
• I’m happy that my mom and dad are back, and hopefully that mom is coming out for coffee with me today.
• I’m happy to have an iron that works so beautifully that it no longer takes 2 hours to iron.
• I’m happy that I have had the pleasure and gift of the time with both my Grampas, it has been such an honour to know them.
• I’m happy that school is almost over.
• I’m happy that camping season is upon us.
• I’m happy that our 3 night backpacking trip is 5 days away and our 7 day ‘holiday’ is 16 days away.
• I’m happy for 100 calorie snacks, they’ve really helped curb my overeating.
• I’m happy that I have wonderful ils.
• I’m happy that we’ve been approved to adopt and that we live in a Province that approves fairly quickly (as compared to the 3 year wait in SK, MB, etc).
• I’m happy I don’t have a pet to clean up poo after.
• I’m happy for a dh who is very good with finances.
• I’m happy for Facebook (yes, I advertised for something on here) as it has connected me to so many old friends.
• I’m happy for the personalities given to Bing and Punk as they keep us entertained on a daily basis.
• I’m happy for free entertainment.
• I’m happy that this list is longer than my sad one.

See, I have a lot to be happy about and am glad to share some of them with you.

I’m sad

I’m sad about quite a few things lately.  Not sad/miserable, but sad/disappointed, icky feeling about, etc.

• I’m sad my blog is neglected most days.
• I’m sad that I missed my dd’s big awards ceremony yesterday because her teacher is non-communicative.
• I’m sad for the lack of choices in my life.
• I’m sad about the state of our environment and my own inability to change things, or alter my own existence to lessen the burden upon it.
• I’m sad that I’m out of Parmesan.
• I’m sad that my dh is so selfish as to take out salmon for his own supper tonight, yet ignoring the rest of us as if we don’t exist or it isn’t his ‘job’ to do supper.
• I’m sad of the hypocrisy exposed by my dh lately since due to his seeing a naturopath we have endless funds to donate to the cause of his plight, yet when I had issues last year he nagged to no end about the ‘cost’ for me to eat organically.
• I’m sad that a friend is oblivious to her affect upon me from her neglect.
• I’m sad that I can no longer eat the way I want to, but must scrutinize each morsel that is placed upon my palate so as to lose the excess pounds.
• I’m sad that I no longer have any sort of ambition to finish school.
• I’m sad that we have the money to fund inane things, but none to support my desires to learn another language.
• I’m sad that the computer has taken over my life, or rather, I have no will against it doing so.
• I’m sad that I enjoyed ironing so much this morning.
• I’m sad that others’ lives are so scheduled that there is no time for friends.
• I’m sad that my mom and dad are still away.
• I’m sad that my grampas are going to die soon.
• I’m sad that the adoption process takes so long only because the paperwork to be done is immense.  There are thousands of children waiting for the paperwork to be finished by very few workers.
• I’m sad that I’m slowly turning into an introvert.
• I’m sad that I no longer have the ability to feel comfortable alone in a man’s presence.
• I’m sad that I love chips so much that I have no problems eating an entire bag to myself (180g +).
• I’m sad that this list is über long.

I’m very sure I’ll make a happy list as well, but no time soon.  I’m not horribly depressed or sad beyond measure, but just a few things getting to me lately.

Just crap talk

Everyone knows I have a family that includes 1 husband and 2 kids. All moms know that the work done by moms goes unnoticed, it is taken for granted, and not acknowledged in the slightest. In fact the work isn’t in the job description, or something agreed upon by the parties involved, it just happens. It’s something we just come to expect that ‘jobs’ will automatically be ours; when the dishes aren’t put away, the garbage needs to go out, the washing needs to be done, the ironing is piling up, the trailer needs to be packed, this, that, and the other thing too. I want to say we get the leftovers but we also get the majority of the main work too. It’s a matter of the choices we make in life of course. I have chosen in life to serve my family instead of a giant corporation, the pay sucks, but the benefits usually out weigh the negatives.

And then there are those days where you feel so loved, appreciated, and rewarded. My girls are very self-sufficient; they do their own laundry to an extent, make lunches, clean, etc. Of course being the age they are, reminders are a norm. I walked into Bing’s room after she was done cleaning it and I grabbed her laundry and said I’d do it. She looked up at me and said, “oh, thanks mom”. Now, this ‘thanks’ wasn’t the ‘oh-did-you-notice-i-used-my-manners-nicely-there-mom-?’ kinda thanks, but ‘i-thank-you-for-doing-that-for-me’ kinda thanks. I truly felt that she was thankful that I was washing her laundry. It’s not that it doesn’t happen often either, I do their laundry quite often (they always fold it), but that day was different. It gave me the sense that I am doing something right, I’m not completely screwing up my kids….well, not completely anyway. I gotta screw them up somehow, or I wouldn’t be human .

I’ve been in such a mood to not blog lately. It’s been weird. Normally, I am a write-aholic. I chatter on incessantly until the poor blokes reading this end up rolling their eyes and clicking the ‘next’ button on the top of the page just to move my blithering idiocy out of their sight. But lately, I’ve been grasping at things to write about. I don’t really like that, because then my blog becomes just this blabbering that is of no interest to anyone. Although you would think this is purely therapeutic, it isn’t, nor is anyone else’s blog. People may say they blog for themselves, but they’re lying or they’d just type in a word processing document on their computer and save it to their hard drive (with the exception of those that keep their blogs private, but then what’s the real point?).

I started out this blog last July, and my first few posts were that of ‘here’s what I’m doing today, isn’t it interesting?’, but has morphed into this venue for me to puke my opinions and thoughts upon unsuspecting readers. Frankly, it has slowly become interesting, even when it was monotonously about adoption it was interesting in the least to read what an idiot I was (still am). Now, I almost seem to be slipping back into that old ‘i’m going to the store gonna buy some milk’ kinda thing and I just don’t like it. I guess the difference being that I notice it now and can hopefully stop it.

So I drove today, drove to the city … shit.

I never knew hair colour could be such a hot topic

I’m part of a growing number of people on ~a website to connect to other people you know~ and it never ceases to amaze me the ridiculous topics that people will get passionate about.  I understand completely that things will inspire some but not others, but the colour of hair?  Come on now.

I dye my hair.  I dye it an awesome auburn colour that is so natural looking that people who knew me as a blonde have completely forgotten that I was a blonde.  Seriously.  We were talking about my kids’ hair colour and she said to me, “I’m so surprised neither of the kids got your red hair.”  Needless to say it took me a moment to reply and remind her that she knew me when it was blonde.   It just looks like I should have this hair colour, and my hair takes the colour well enough that I’ve had old ladies argue with me about it being fake.  Seriously.

So after procrastinating yet again on something I should be doing, I was perusing some of the groups on this ~a website to connect to other people you know~.  Spotted a group for red heads and checked it out.  Inside there’s a huge debate as to whether red heads should be ‘included’ in the group.  Of course I laughed my ass off considering this is an online group just for fun, and all these women were getting so serious; ‘i can spot dye jobs a mile away’, ‘the curtains have to match the carpet’, ‘dye jobs didn’t go through what we did as kids’, etc.  It was really sad actually that these girls actually though it mattered so much what their hair colour truly is.  Granted this is a ‘fun’ group supposedly (although it didn’t look like much fun to me), so it’s not going to be serious, but debating if my hair colour looks natural? or if my attitude matches my hair colour?  Girls, girls, girls…..crap, now I’ll have that song in my head today.

Internet, love it or hate it?

I guess it’s not as simple as that really.  But it stems from a note I got from my dh this morning.  Now, my dh is a sweet man, caring, loving, but not great with the pc (although he’s much better than he used to be).  The note says that he got this video and it’s of an intersection in our city last week where a storm sewer blew up, and a truck hit the concrete sewer head.  I was seriously skeptical when I watched it.  First of all, we don’t have sewer heads as big as what was on the video, second there are a bunch of trees around and this intersection has none, third, he probably got it sent to him from a ‘client’ another bozo who knows nothing about it, and fourth, the freakin date on it was from 1999.

It took me nothing to search for the real source, not even 5 minutes, especially considering the video itself had a note on it as to where it was from.  Why do people post shit like that and say it’s a local event?  It annoys the crap outta me, and then they send it on to all their ‘people’ who then forward it on as the God’s-honest truth.  It drives me nuts how much crap I get that isn’t true.  I check things out, I make sure they’re true, or close to it, and then I’ll forward on.  I think my brother does the same thing because he never sends me stuff that isn’t true.

Come on people, deodorant isn’t going to cause cancer in your breasts, tampons are not laced with asbestos to make you bleed more, swiffers do not kill pets, that child isn’t missing anymore, and dammit, online fucking petitions aren’t legitimate (they cannot be used as a legitimate form of petition as ’signatures’ can be created through the computer, so no organization will accept them at all, period).  Phew, I feel much better.

Think this’ll help the world not send crap on?  Hell no.

And the saga continues

I actually typed ’sage’ at first as if the story was about an herb and not a tale of a little girl whose shoes are ‘ugly’.

I am a woman no doubt, but not a very good one. I was, and am still, a tomboy. I spent almost all of my childhood as dirty as possible, playing within my own little world and didn’t care a whip about what my clothes were like, or my hair, if it were perfect. That didn’t come to me until grade 7 or 8, so why is it my eldest daughter is reaching this stage 4 years before I even though of it?

Last night she approached me timidly with pink sandals in her hand with a note covering them. On the note said, “mom, can I not wear these shoes anymore as my friends think they are ugly?”. How do I get it through to her that nothing else matters in the world but what she thinks of herself? Beauty and things will fade, but her insides must stay strong or it’ll fade right along with the passing of her looks over time. I guess I’m just frustrated, with all her wisdom I spoke of yesterday, she has none when it comes to her own ideals. Man, she’s only 8, I guess I could give her a break. I apologized to her this afternoon for my not understanding her grief in this. I guess that’s all I can do.

I love that child more than my own life, as most mother’s do. I dread the day she stops coming to me, I dread the day her friends mean more to her than I do, I hate that they will tear her away as my friends did from my mom. I don’t want to be the mom she tears from screaming, so I hope to be the one she slips from, smiling.