Trust Youself

someday soon and I don't know when
your little world will come crashing in
don't think twice I'll be around
turn your back someone's gonna let you down
you know that it's true
nobody led you on they left that to you now
you'll be alone when the sun comes up
with your tattered little dreams and a broken cup
then you'll have to trust yourself and don't believe in anymore lies
you waste your time think too much
really make a mess of the things you touch
poor little bird with a broken wing better look around
now you know your losing everything
it's just a game
thought you had it all lined up but somehow that's changed
now you'll have to run and not get caught
and you'll have to hide if you like it or not
then you'll have to trust yourself and don't believe in anymore lies
someday soon and it won't be long
you'll ring the bell but they'll all be gone
they took your jewels and your statues too
left you with a pile of things you never learned how to use
well here it comes again
you showed us where it all began well here's where it ends
and you'll be alone when the sun comes up
tattered little dreams and a broken cup
then you'll have to trust yourself and don't believe in anymore
trust yourself and don't believe in anymore
trust yourself and don't believe in anymore lies
yeah yeah yeah


Blue Rodeo

Vacation week

OK, well, it's vacation week for me, anyway. The hubs is still working. This is his busy time of year, so him getting time off is really slim.
I don't have any huge plans because it is just me and the kids. I have some odds and ends to do around the house, but no big project I can tackle on my own with 2 kids around to interfere. I think I am going to take the time to do some visitation. My friend has just had a brand new baby (congrats, Nancy and Jason!) and I'd like to see if my best friend has can slow down for a few hours so we can pop in to see her and her girls. We may pop down to my Dad's. I'd prefer to do that on a nice day so we can hit Queensland beach first.
The other thing on my agenda is getting the "back to school shopping" done. Yes, maybe it is a tad early, but I just want it done and out of the way. I also want to go through all the kids clothes and find out what still fits and what doesn't. I have a funny feeling I'll be sadly short on pants for the kids once I'm done. *sigh* Buying pants for them is never easy, beanpoles that they are. By the time something fits them in the leg, it's miles too big around the waist. We may be travelling to Old Navy to see what we can find.
My relaxation this week comes tomorrow. One of the women I work with has recently put in a hot tub and all the women in my department are going up tomorrow afternoon. Food, drink, and a massage therapist is coming by to give us all massages. aaaaaah. Does it get any better than that? I've already told Mike he'll be picking me up on my way home because I have a sneaky suspicion I won't be fit to drive. ;)

Bit and bites

So, I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on life again.
I've been accepted at Dal for the anaesthesia assistant program. Now that I'm in, I just want to fire through it and do it all at once. Too bad I can't take a LOA from work and do that, but unfortunately the bills do need to be paid. The nurses in ICU keep asking me why anaesthesia isn't paying to put me through. I dunno. You'd have to ask them that question. I still hold out some small hope, but I'm going to be registering for my class soon, so there has to be a firm resolution one way or the other soon. I'm really keen to do this. I hope that I'm surprised soon with a change of heart.
We had our summer vacation away last week. We rented a house outside of Shediac for a week with Sean, Anita and Liam. It was very relaxing to just be away. The weather sucked at the first of the week, but we kept the kids busy and they had a blast. Jessi did awesome. No meltdowns. It was hard coming home. I'm back at work this week. I'm not too bad about it because I'm back on vacation next week. No big plans for it, other than picking away at the house and chilling out with the kids.
Speaking of the house, we're getting the old siding ripped off and adding another layer of insulation and new siding. It will hopefully make a difference to heating the house this winter. It will certainly make a difference to how the house looks. The old siding is definitely on its last legs. I don't think painting it would even make a difference. We're getting an eco assessment done first. Once that's done then we qualify for a rebate if it meets standards (which it will) for increasing our insulation value. We have 18 months after the first assessment to make as many improvements as we want, then they come back and check the work has been done. Once it meets their requirements the send in for a rebate to both the federal and provincial governments. The plan is as well as the walls to add insulation to the attic, add insulation and barrier to the basement headers, and replace the exterior doors. In all, we may get as much as 3k back. Makes it worth the $150 assessment. Sure we wait to get the money back, but then we can turn around and reinvest it in the house. God knows there's plenty of places we can put the money.
I'm finally finding my age is catching up with my body. I'm 118 lbs. I haven't been that weight since just after I had Jessi. It's all being put on around my middle. Not pretty. Now that my knee is pretty much back to baseline, though, I'm going to get back to working out. All I have to do is look in the mirror for my motivation. Not that I didn't want to put on weight, but it's all in one spot and I didn't want to go over 115.
Last time I was in Wal Mart I saw they had all the back to school supplies out. I have to go through Kyle's stuff to see what he has and make a list of needs. Last year I spent over $100 on school supplies and he didn't use a lot of it. I won't be doing that again this year. I also have to outfit Jess this year. She's excited about going, but I don't think she realises yet it's a permanent change in her life. After the first week, life should get interesting...

I'm in a not happy with myself funk

I don't like going to work right now.
I don't like coming home.
My kids are driving me crazy.
I hate looking at myself in the mirror because all I can see is wrinkles, stretch mark, and the fat roll around my waste.
My house is in a perpetual state of needing to be cleaned.
My husband and I can't communicate no matter how much we say we are trying.
I am working on changing my career but am afraid I am getting in over my head.
I have a list of calls to make but can't even motivate myself to make them even though I know I will feel better afterwards.
My friends are either too busy or too far away, or moving away.
I am always tired and feel like I could sleep for days.

So, the next time somebody says "How are you?" and I say, "Fine," this is really what I mean. :(

Sorry, but...

I have things to write, but I'm not feeling like I have much I want to share with everybody. Remember my first entry when I said I have trouble blogging because most people only get the things I want them to know? We're at that point. Lots of stuff going on, not a lot of stuff I want everyone I know to know about.
So, I'm left with nothing. *sigh*

Crud

That's what I've been wiping off my eyes the last couple days. I have the luck of getting pink eye. Correction: pinks eye"s": more correctly, conjunctivitis. I'm so thrilled, I can tell you. I got drops from the doc yesterday and kept them going every 2 hours yesterday, but I still feel much the same, and it still took me 20 minutes to see properly this morning. While it's mostly just a nuisance, it a problem in that I work in a hospital around very sick people and I have a highly contagious disease so going to work is kind of a no no, at least, until I stop having active goop coming out of my eyes.
But worst of all? My brand new tube on Lancome mascara that cost me $30 is now garbage. WHY could I not have gotten this when I was using the cheapo mascara?

On being transplanted

So, an online board I have been a member of for almost 6 years has had some technical difficulties. The host failed and we've lost the board. Or at least, they can't seem to restore it. Anyway, no one can get on it. Ok, I know, so, whoopty do, but these women have been a daily part of my life for a long time. It's a big deal to me.
One member was wonderful enough to start up a quickie board so we can at least congregate SOMEWHERE while we figure out what's going on next. It's good to connect, but it feels WEIRD, ya know? We've gone through board changes before, but most things were moved as we moved, and it was a planned thing, and everyone knew where we were going. This time, everything is lost and we're all reaching out trying to find everyone. it's kind of like a house fire where all our possessions were lost, and in the chaos, everyone was separated.
I fear we may have lost some people for good. Some we don't have recent addresses for, as we can usually only see them occasionally on the board. Some have dropped out of sight for awhile, and may decide to just not rejoin.
Anyway, I feel a bit disjointed. There are so few of us together yet, and fewer still posting. we don't even know what to do about the board. Keep trying to have to old one restored? Stay where we're at? Find a different place to host our board?
I'm feeling very uprooted and disjointed and I'm not liking it one bit.

Earth Hour

Honestly, are there still for real people who think global warming is a myth? Can they not pay attention to what their own observances are telling them? When they witness weather occurrences that have never happened before, or note the very obvious seasonal shifts, or the distinctly measurable melting of the polar ice caps, how do they still say it's not happening?
Having read the paper this morning and the gazillions of comments left by people debating the validity of "Earth Hour" last night I am left confounded at the number of people who still deny there's a problem. In fact, deliberately INCREASE their consumption to negate other people's cutting back. How ignorant is that????
I see the point in not thinking Earth Hour is really doing anything. I get that. One hour a year is not even a drop in a very large bucket. People need to make daily consistent changes to decrease energy consumption. I think the symbolic gesture though is at least a starting point, and hopefully raises the awareness level of a few people so that they examine what they are doing and try to make a few changes. Instead of wasting time (and energy) criticising the effort, people need to do more to change what they, their business, and the people around them are doing. Obviously some people are going to stubbornly remain in their ignorance bubble, but reasonable people can still be reached if we just keep trying.

This touched home.

I think everyone who has ever come acrossed someone with a chronic illness should read this:
http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/navigation/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf
Although I fare better than this woman, reading the article put a lump in my throat because I know exactly what she's saying, even if I do have more spoons than she does.

Is it just me?

I dunno. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to me we're having a hell of a time getting a decent Easter anymore. Last year we were quite literally snowed in and it seems to me the years preceding that i was still wearing my winter coat as well. This year, 10 to 15 cm of snow today and nothing above zero for the entire weekend.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as a kid I remember Easter being in the spring. Spring clothes, spring jackets. Rubber boots instead of winter boots in lousy weather. We walked from the church to our grandfather's house after the Easter service for dinner with our jackets dangling under our arms. We swung from his tree swing and didn't think about being cold. There were daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths....
I understand this is the earliest Easter we've had in ages, but even so, April Easters of late have been no better. Has global warming robbed my kids of ever having an Easter egg hunt without having to wear winter mittens?

Money money money money

I worry about money.
Ok, who doesn't? I can't remember a time I didn't worry about money. (Y'all are saying, "Yeah, and...?") Granted, my money woes are nowhere near as significant as they were a decade ago. Hell, I'm the poster child for Virginia Slims right now. (Anyone else remember those ads? You've come a long way, baby.) However, I still fret whenever I sit down and look at our funds. It seems like there is forever more money going out than coming in. We've been increasingly digging ourselves a large hole of debt. Respectfully maintaining our scrupulously clean credit record (haha, I know. How did that happen?) by paying our bills and monthly payments, but slowly increasing our debt load at the same time.
Recently, I've really grabbed the bull by the horns. I've grown tired of the battle cry from the hubs, "I have no money." and the bottom line of my CC statement that just keep getting larger, even though I dump money on it every pay. I created a budget.
We're into a month of it now. Granted, it needs some tweaking, but I have a nice 4 day weekend to sit down and look back over the past month at where our money has gone and reallocate the appropriate funds. The payoff so far has been 2 credit card statements that for the first time in ages are lower than last month's. Sadly, the budget also showed us how tightly we must live to stay "within our means" and still start to pay down our debt. But it also kick started me into making some bigger changes to try and control the debt as well, beyond spending less. We're changing banks so we have no banking fees. We've gotten lines of credit with a lower interest rate. We're going to use that to pay off the credit card debt. Mike has started an RRSP. Yes, I know, more money out, but it's necessary. He's 22 years (max) from retiring and has not 1 red cent put aside. Plus, it looks good on the tax return.
We've got a few dollars coming in as well. Tax returns, for example. Unfortunately it contributes to my anxiety as I think about how many different places we could put it. All debt? Use some to finish paying off our bills? (We got a $380 oil bill yesterday. Ouch.) Put some towards our summer vacation? Dump it all on the house for improvements/renos? Pad our "emergency" fund?
It feels good to know we're being proactive in regards to our finances, but my GOD it keeps me awake at night thinking about it.

Passwords

I have password issues. I never seem to be able to keep them straight. I end up having a bazillion accounts for things because I can never remember what the hell the password is for an account. I try to keep it simple. I have basically 4 names and 4 different passwords that I rotate through. Usually I can sort out the combination thereof of something but every now and then you hit a site where my "preset" passwords don't meet their rules. IE. you must have 2 caps and 3 numbers and be no less than 5 but no more than 6 characters. Then I run into trouble because I will NEVER remember what I picked.
Yesterday I tried to access my Wal Mart online photo account. After multiple permutations of usual names with passwords I was still denied access. Either the site is screwed or I was drunk when I set up the account and I'm pretty sure I wasn't drunk.
In the next couple weeks I'm going to have to try to wrack the depths of my brain for the names and passwords for access to our tax information from the government website. It's been a year. This should prove interesting.

OK, this is a leap for me

Blogging is something I enjoy reading, but gernerally suck at doing, so other than being bored at work at this particular moment in time, I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this. I'm a pro at not sharing all the details of my life, or leaving certain specifics out, based on the individual(s) I may be communicating to. This doesn't bode well for maintaining a deceent blog, as I'm sure every post will be whitewashed for all potential readers, known and unknown.
Hell with it, though. I'm game to give 'er a go.