Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Irony

How ironic that on a day when I actually have the car at my disposal (I usually do not), and I actually have some money in my bank account (I usually do not), and I have places to go and things to do and errands to run - that there would be a monsoon rain storm outside preventing me from leaving my house.

Oh if it were just me, I would totally go anyways. But the thoughts of bundling up Ruby and making sure she's dressed properly and then carting her in and out of stores and loading and unloading her stroller in the torrential rain - just not appealing to me.

So.... once again I am trapped inside my house.

On the bright side: the house is tidy, the laundry is done, dinner is cooked, etc. etc. etc. blah, blah, blah.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

That Season

I have a secret.

Well... I have a few secrets, but there's one I'm gonna let you all in on right now.

Ready?

I'm kind of excited about Christmas this year.

I know. I'll wait for you to pick your jaw up off your lap.
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If you know me at all, you're probably a little shocked. But really you shouldn't be. So much has changed for me over the past year or two. Not only do I have the coolest little girl in the whole world, but I am more at peace with myself and my life. Maybe the two are related. Probably.

The stores nearby put up Christmas lights recently. And when I saw them I got strange happy and excited feeling inside - instead of the usual burning urge to go all Grinch and rip them down in the middle of the night.

I bought some new pyjamas for myself the other day. They are flannel and they have reindeer on them. Shocking because I would NEVER wear seasonally inspired anything before, and also because it's still NOVEMBER!!!

I've got some of my Christmas shopping done already - and this year it's not because I'm pressured into doing it early for fear that I will go into labour before my shopping is done and everyone on my list would have to get scratch tickets from 7-11. This year I willingly started shopping early because I was excited about it.

I have been itching to go out and get some new decorations. Last year I decorated my tree in all black decor (hey, we should all just be happy that I actually had a tree in my house). This year I'm looking for some serious red, sparkly shit.

I don't have much money this year - but I don't really care. I don't feel like I need to spend a lot to make it good.

And yes, a big reason for all of this is my baby girl. Having her puts everything into a new light and a new perspective - one that I never thought I would ever get to see. So I'm pretty excited and happy and looking forward to all of it this year. I think we're going to have fun.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

"Is it a girl??"

Really, Lady at Save On Foods? REALLY???

Thursday, November 12, 2009

T.I.L.T.: Things I Love Thursday


* I love the feeling that I get from getting in my car... alone... and driving into the city with the music blaring as loud as I care to have it and not having to worry about damaging anyone's hearing except mine. And being free to yell at other drivers while using "industrial" language to describe how I feel about the guy who is driving 65km on the freeway while he sends a text. And then arriving at my destination, which happens to be my hairapist and being able to sit in the chair and relax while she works her magic on me and not having to be on edge, hoping little fingers don't grab ahold of the curling iron cord and yank it to the floor, or for a little mouth to start whining - causing my hairapist to rush through my hair cut (I suspect this is why my last haircut was not so flattering on me). And then after my haircut, being able to browse through the snooty, gourmet supermarket and take my time. And then driving home again in traffic, in the dark and not having to worry about the idiot who is turning left on a green light, waiting for 7 miles of clear space before he feels safe enough to turn while I wait impatiently behind him with white knuckles and gritting teeth because someone is crying for a bottle from the back seat. And then arriving home to have dinner almost ready to eat and the baby almost ready for bed.


* I love the attitude of my good friend Holly. Holly was diagnosed with a chronic illness at the young age of 16. She has been through many, many, many medical procedures including numerous hip replacements, a shoulder replacement, thyroid surgery, chemotherapy and a kidney transplant. She has had to adjust her lifestyle completely. She takes a pharmacy of pills everyday. And she is now facing yet another major surgery to replace a broken hip. And through all of this, she has never, ever had a "poor me" attitude and has always been the most perky and positive person that I have ever met in my life. I feel ashamed of myself to think of the wussy little things that I have whined and complained about in my life when I have never had to deal with a fraction of the shit she's been through, and all without feeling sorry for herself and usually with a smile on her face and always with a positive attitude. This is not to say that she never has bad days, I know that she had some really bad days - but it's how she deals with them that is different from most of us (me, anyways). Holly has a fantastic sense of humor and is truly a special person whom I love dearly and am thinking of on a daily basis lately. If we could muster up even half of the positive attitude that she has always held, we would all be better people.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Final Countdown

I've been slogging along lately, feeling kinda... meh... I consulted with my calendar yesterday while making a hair appointment (oh thank goodness, I can give the hat a rest) and I realized that yesterday was exactly 4 weeks until I am to return to work full time. Well I'll be damned if that didn't slap me in the face with a big dose of reality.

Wow. That went fast.

It feels like just yesterday I was gloating and being a smart ass about leaving all those schmucks at work behind and going on to live the glorious life of a stay at home mother.

And now, all too soon I will be back in the Land of the Schmucks. I will be one of those schmucks.

But in all honesty, I think I'm ready. I love my baby girl more than... well... there are no words to describe it - but I think it will benefit us both to get out there into the world and see different things and converse with different people, play with new toys, bite new people, put our brains into use for more than figuring out if that rash requires diaper cream or what to make for dinner or how many Cheerios you can throw on the floor before your mother loses her mind.

Not to mention a decent pay cheque. That will certainly benefit all of us.

So the countdown is on, with less than 4 weeks left to enjoy my current glamorous lifestyle. I am going to try to pull myself out of the little funk that I've been in and enjoy every last minute that I have with my girl before we both go out into the Big Girl World and live the life of the regular working Joe.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

T.I.L.T.: Things I Love Thursday

I'm bringing back the TILT. Although I can't make any long term commitments, I am doing this in an effort to bring back my blogging mojo and/or break through my writers block.


*My new diaper bag satchel/overnight bag. Found this in a little boutique and had to have it. Love the colors and the size and the pockets. It's reversible to black and it came with a matching cooler bag for baby bottles keeping your beer cold and a plastic lined bag for puke saturated onesies your toiletries when you are out on the town for the night.



*This scarf. It was totally inexpensive and helps to hide baby slobber dress up my overworn black hoodie already very fashionable wardrobe.



*This hat. A very fashionable way to hide the fact that I desperately need to see my hairdresser, ASAP. (Yes I do realize I'm not fooling anybody but myself.) In my defence, a complete stranger in the grocery store gave me a lovely compliment about the hat. At least I think she was complimenting me, her english was not so good...

*Shiny, sparkling clean floors. Unfortunately I could not post a picture of my floors in this condition because... they were so sparkly clean that the shine was preventing my camera from taking a good picture. Yeahhhh... riiiiight....

*Bumble Bees. We had a serious hornet problem here this year and spent much of the summer trying to terminate them. But Bumble Bees are different. Especially this one. I also really like when I take a kickass picture like this.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Boom Boom Pow

I had a hard time falling asleep on Halloween night. The fireworks in the neighborhood had me on edge. I hate loud noises as it is and when they are coming from next door and are loud enough to shake the walls of my house, getting to sleep is nearly impossible for me.

In Steve's case, all I had to to was turn on a movie (Rocky Horror Picture Show! - little did I know I would have my own horror show in a couple of hours) and he was out in 15 minutes. Must be nice. Jerk.

So I lay in bed, skittish and jumpy and nervous at every BANG! SIZZLE! BOOM! POP!

Throw in nervous barking from our tenant's dogs in the basement (who are usually non-barkers, but they were scared like most animals during fireworks) and my chances of sleep were slim.

Throw in a street lined bumper to bumper with cars from the party going on next door and people wandering around the street yelling and shooting fireworks off at passing cars, and hooting and hollering coming from the neighbors back yard and I was one pissed off old broad. (Did I ever feel like an old broad) Even Sleeping Beauty Steve woke up from his usually dead deep sleep.

Finally around 11pm, things quieted down enough for me to fall asleep.

Ahhhhh....

But then the phone rang at midnight. That's never a good thing.

And it was our downstairs tenants. Oh god, I thought, what the hell do they want. This can't be good.

Steve took the call. Seconds in, he flew out of bed and ran out of our room into Ruby's room. From there he yelled out, "OH MY GOD!!"

At that point I was pretty sure that my worst fears had come true and someone had crawled through the window in the night and stolen my baby, or they were still in her room holding a knife over her body, or some other horrible scene. I flew out of bed grasping my heart saying, "What's wrong?! What's wrong?!"

It was then that I could smell the burning and saw the orange glow coming from outside.

Steve said, "Grab Ruby and get out of the house!!!" He then yelled out the window to our male tenant and told him to meet him in the front of the house. He then said something about getting the garden hose to start spraying down our roof.

I scooped Ruby out of her crib (while she laughed because apparently this was all hilarious to her) and ran out the back door. That is where I was greeted by a huge towering fire lighting up the neighborhood. The neighbor's 25 foot cedar hedges were ablaze. It was HUGE and bright and it was loud. Fire really does roar.

And the embers were floating over our house.

I am thankful to our tenants who I would have previously complained about for keeping late hours - but thanks to their late hours they were outside for a cigarette when they first heard, then saw the fire. They called 911 and then went and pounded on the neighbor's door and phoned us to get everyone out.

The fire department were there way faster than I could have imagined. They were able to get the fire under control within a few minutes. (Unfortunately it took much longer for me to get my anxiety attack under control). We were able to go back in our house and try to settle down and get back to sleep. Not easy for me since I was sure that there were embers sitting on my roof smoldering.

Now, I love a man in uniform. And firemen are probably my favorite. But I would prefer that maybe they come by in the daytime when I'm not in my pyjamas with my hair up in rollers (oh it might as well have been!), and when I could get a better look at them (two truckloads of them to be exact). And I would also prefer that they stop by to perhaps help a kitten out of a tree, instead of because the idiot neighbors who some years previously, had been unable to live in their house for two years because IT CAUGHT ON FIRE, had a fireworks party and were too stupid to clean up afterwards and make sure all sparks were out and therefore just about burned down the neighborhood.

I did however, very much enjoy watching the policemen in uniform showing up the next day to have a "discussion" with the neighbors and to take pictures of the damage.

I wish I had thought to get pictures of the fire while it was burning. Bad blogger that I am, I could only think of getting my baby out of the house safely. I did get a picture of what was left of the neighbors back yard the next day. Doesn't really do it justice - but those pretty green hedges to the right? They used to go right across. And those ugly, black, charred sticks poking out of the ground? They used to be pretty cedar hedges.

I hope the neighbors are on good terms with their neighbors behind them. And I hope they don't mind sharing their yard with the pit bull that lives behind them who is now going to enjoy his newly expanded roaming area.

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