i am the diva

2011-12-21T16:05:00.002-06:00

oh man,

i just told Chewie that if he did not lay down on the couch and close his eyes, i would call Santa and tell him to take all his toys to someone else.

result? Three year old - who NEVER naps... snoring on the couch.

I wish this calling Santa thing could last all year...

Back in time

2011-11-18T10:00:00.001-06:00

If you could go back in time to any era, for one week, where would you go?

I'm not sure I could pin it down. There are so many interesting periods. Possibly I'd like to visit San Fransico in the mid sixties. Or maybe the late fifties early sixties in New York City. Is it terrible to choose a time frame based on fashion? Probably.

Whenever I think of these types of questions, I'm always forced to think of the time period I'd like to visit, then I ponder he status of women in that time frame... Inevitably I always come back to the mid-sixties. The world was changing, the music was awesome, women were finding their voices, free love, mind altering drugs were experimented with before the knowledge of "flashbacks".... I think being a flower child would have suited me. As much as I would live to visit ancient Egypt or 15th century England, the idea of being a slave or a man's property or having no rights and being not much more than a walking baby factory, a week might be a tad much. Give me free love in the sixties.

What about you?

RANT!! in G Minor

2011-10-29T23:47:00.002-06:00

Just now, in my facebook feed... i saw this posted as someone's status and i just had to drop everything:

HEY YOU... yeah, I mean you. If you have taken a minute to read this... God has seen YOU struggling with something. God says its over. A blessing is coming your way. If you believe in God send this message on, please don't ignore it, you are being tested. God is going to fix two things (BIG) tonight in your favor. If you believe in God... drop everything and repost.**

my initial response was to write some big OHMYFUCKINGOD response... but then i was like, no... no... i can't do that. not on facebook. i mean, i really don't want to offend anyone, but i CANNOT TELL YOU how much i was offended by this.

first of all.... "God has seen YOU struggling with something. God says it's over"... Great! so, what you're saying is, if i drop everything and repost this, God is going to magically go in with his 'magic' and repair all of Artoo's damaged cranial nerves? If i drop everything and repost this, will Artoo suddenly learn how to smile? "...please don't ignore it, you are being tested..." Really? REALLY?!? REEEEEAAAALLLY???? God is testing me, through facebook. Really. With Seth and Amy. Really. FUCKING REALLY!?? God is going to fix two big things tonight in my favour.... wow.

I really am not a big fan of those copy/paste status updates in general, you know the ones... with some random statistic about the percentage of people who know someone with (Insert disease/condition here) and how if you want to end said disease/condition, copy and paste to your status update, and if you don't, that obviously means you are a terrible person, cuz clearly you must like this disease and hope people continue to suffer. ENOUGH, they make me crazy, but this one takes the goddamned cake.

Does anyone honestly believe that God will make all their problems go away because they copied and pasted some random bullshit that they saw on someone elses wall? For Fuck sake. Or is it the oh-so-ominous: "IF you believe in God send this message on" that makes them think, "well, i don't want someone to think i DON'T believe!!" or perhaps the veiled threat of: "YOU ARE BEING TESTED" and maybe they're making sure that their bases are covered.

Also, this totally preys on peoples emotions... "oh my god... I AM going through something!! This status is for me!!!"

well.

i'll tell you one thing.

posting some prepackaged shit you saw somewhere else is not going to get salvation.
if i'm being tested by facebook, i hate to think what the hell all this other shit i'm going through is for...

God doesn't care.

if God exists at all (which i'm not entirely certain about, at least, not in the way that western christianized culture would have us believe...even more so now that i'm dealing with Artoo's health), i don't think that he's some grandpa in the sky who's sitting at his laptop checking to see if Johnny DoGooder passed his test by posting that 'status' on his wall.

Ranty rant rant rant.
This is why i have a blog. sigh.

i'm sorry. but that really bummed me out today. super bummed.

Also, if you're going to leave me some kind of preachy comment, don't bother. you're not going to convert me, just saying.

**I should clarify that it was the pre-written update itself that made me crazy, not the person who posted it.

my blog had a birthday

2011-10-26T10:26:00.001-06:00

Happy 9th birthday bloggity blog.
NINE YEARS!?!?

oh my.

Hey, if any of you have been reading since the beginning, holy crap! you are loyal.

and i love you.
I love this blog too. sorry, this blog has some serious neglected older child syndrome.

thanks for sticking it out, interwebs.
Love Laura

2011-10-20T02:14:00.001-06:00

it's 2 am.

quite frankly, i have not been up at 2 am for some time.

it sucks.

eff you, 2 am.

Artoo decided he needed a midnight snack, once he was back in bed Chewie started crying - i walked into his room, he said: "Mama, i'm sad. I'm sad because, i did a bad dream." so, we cuddled in his bed and he went back to sleep.

me? i have this 'feeling' in my gut. i don't know what it is. but i can't get back to sleep. My hands and feet are swollen, i drank a glass of water.

the house is too quite. sitting in the darkened kitchen, i can hear the wind outside the patio doors, a dog is barking somewhere.
my quiet crescent is full of sleeping people, and i'm pretty insanely jealous.
sigh.

2011-09-19T14:11:00.000-06:00

A. Age: 31
B. Bed size: Queen, big enough to be comfy - small enough to be close
C. Chore that you hate: dishes, the kitchen in general.
D. Dogs: not really a dog person, although i assume that we'll get one as the boys get older. Preferably, i'd like an older dog that's already trained.
E. Essential start to your day: Coffee. plain and simple.
F. Favorite color: Purple and Blue, also brown... and green, and orange, and red... essentially all colours except yellow. i'm not WILD about yellow.
G. Gold or Silver: white gold or silver
H. Height: 5'5"
I. Instruments you play: guitar, clarinet, piano, although none of them particularly well
J. Job title: stay-at-home mama, housewife, writer/blogger.
K. Kids: Two great little boys
L. Live: The Skatch
M. Mother’s name: Diana
N. Nicknames: Diva
O. Overnight hospital stays: Several - for various surgeries, and child births, and Artoo hospitalizations
P. Pet peeves: passive-aggressiveness and people who don't signal when they're driving
Q. Quote from a movie: and in the end, you turned into a great big fish.
R. Right or left handed: Right handed.
S. Siblings: one older brother, two younger brothers
U. Underwear: full bum, low waist, bikini cut.
V. Vegetable you hate: uhm, eggplant? but i've never really given it a try...
W. What makes you run late: two boys
X. X-Rays you’ve had: face for nose break, arm for arm break, gastro for gall stones
Y. Yummy food that you make: salads, various tasty salads
Z. Zoo animal: Panda

Seven Year Itch

2011-09-10T09:41:00.000-06:00

i've stood over a train grate, and that hot air smells like ass.

So, last week B-rad and i celebrated our seven year anniversary... Artoo had just come home that day from a 5 day stay in the hospital, so needless to say... i was pretty tired.

How did we spend our time together? well, we put the kids to bed... then... i slipped into something a little more...comfortable.... like yoga pants and a bunny hug (or hoodie, if you rather).... and we played a game of scrabble. and i won.

Then i was tired.

So we went to bed.

Perhaps that's not the best way to stave off the seven year itch... i probably should have had some kind of silky underthings under my yoga pants, and we probably should have rocked each others' worlds in the sack.... probably....

Honestly, where did the time go? I never really think about time, it's so abstract... until i think things like - Chewie is three... and we've lived in this house for almost 5 years...

i saw a pin on pinterest that said: "I still think that 1991 was ten years ago" yeah... totally! that's me.

So, the seven year itch... this is the psychological phenomenon wherein the fire goes out in the marriage and boredom sets in. Does the seven year itch only take into account the years of actual married life? Because B-rad and i have been together for 13 years, give or take. So, by those standards, our seven year itch would have been during our first year of marriage. WIN!

I've been told that B-rad and i have a great relationship. It's true though. I mean, our marriage is by no stretch of the imagination, perfect. but pretty damn near.

I'm not one to give advice very often... but here's a totally arbitrary list of things that have made our marriage awesome:

1.) if at all possible, try to do a long distance relationship before getting married. B-rad and i did this for 2 years. As much as it sucked, it was probably one of the best things for our relationship. By only communicating by phone and email (this was the dark ages before Facebook, or Skype, or FaceTime for iPhones...) we really had to actually talk. It was all we could do. That, and the phone sex. Lots and lots of phone sex. (Man, where was the FaceTime for iPhone then!!??) We really got to know each other in those two years, and it also helped us build our communications skills.

2.) Marry your best friend. Yeah. Cliche, i know, but cliche for a reason. Granted, B-rad was not my best friend when started dating, but by the time i knew we were supposed to be together forever he was. And still is.

3.) Inside Jokes. Honestly, inside jokes are one of the corner stones of our relationship. Sometimes it feels like we are speaking in some crazy elaborate code, because at any given time - one of us will say or do something that will trigger the other to response... be it movie lines, song lyrics, or just something that one of us did one day that the other one of us ran with, and now it's something we do all the time.... That "secret code" of inside jokes is very intimate. It's like, a reminder in the middle of the day that B-rad gets me and i get him.

4.) Share your fantasies. Everyone has 'em. I mean, even the ones that you think that make you a creepster. If you are in a loving and trusting relationship, then share. It has made our sex life phenomenal, and also - it's kind of nice to know that he trusts you enough to share EVERYTHING that makes him tick... y'know, more than just a blow job... allllll of it.... and it's nice for me to be able to share what gets my rocks off. Cuz, i mean, i'm a creative girl... sometimes my fantasies are a little...creative. and he's okay with that. and he gets into that. and WE get into that.

5.) Let the guy watch porn. honestly. lift the taboo. they're going to do it anyway, why make them feel guilty for it? I realize that this can be a very touchy subject... but if you can find a way to get past the porn (if it's an issue for you) you should really try. Why not see if you can find something to watch together? or buy an issue of Penthouse letters when you have a long car ride ahead of you (hopefully without kids in the back seat) and surprise him by reading to him while he drives. Or write him your own penthouse letter, and completely lay out your fantasies... i guarantee it will be a well read letter, and it will go into his spank bank... because maybe he IS watching porn, but he's likely imagining its YOU he's watching.

6.) Sometimes, dudes go 'solo'....if you know what i mean. Before you moved in together, he probably did it all the time, every night... so cut the guy some slack. In my humble opinion, unless i'm willing to give it up every night, i'm willing to let him blow off some steam on his own. This, of course, is also true for me... y'know, sometimes i wanna just rub one out quickly... ;)

7.) Laugh. Often.

8.) Share your interests - get interested in what he's interested in, and he should get interested in what you're interested in. I'm not saying you should learn how to rebuild cars or anything, but at least pay attention when he's talking about it. Likewise, he doesn't have to learn all the words to "The Music of the Night" but he should come with you to see the show when it's in town.

9.) Hold on to your self. The YOU that he fell in love with. Your role as a wife, partner, mother, caregiver, hommaker, breadwinner, etc., are all aspects of you but the core YOU is still in there. Make sure that you find time to stay yourself. Do things for yourself. That YOU like to do. On your own. Likewise, let him keep the HIM that you fell in love with.

10.) Whenever possible - remember to make out. Like you did before you were sleeping together. B-rad and i, as you may imagine, don't have a lot of the 'free time' that we used to have... but we try to get in a good make out session every once in a while... like, remember when you were in high school dating.... and you're watching TV with your boyfriend and your little brother runs upstairs to get a drink and you know you have, like, at least 2 minutes of smooch time before he comes back and starts talking about The Legend of Zelda?? that. It's hot. and it's awesome. and sometimes, we only have 2 minutes. But they are a SOLID two minutes.

So, there you have it. 10 Golden rules that have helped B-rad and i make it passed the 7 year mark.

a rant... about boobs and milk coming out of them...or in my case, not.

2011-09-06T12:01:00.000-06:00

this week, while Artoo was in the hospital (yes, again) i downloaded the new PostSecret app for my phone... and one of the first secrets i saw was about a woman who said more than anything, she wishes she could have nursed her babies.

I immediately felt a connection with her - know the feeling, but then saw a reply - someone who said; "I have devoted myself to nursing, and i judge other women who choose to bottle feed."

Now, i should say that before i had Chewie and Artoo - i felt all smug in my belief that breast is best. And to this day - i still believe that breastfeeding IS the best option. IF it's an option. In my case it wasn't. But it wasn't like we didn't try... and we tried so hard... when Artoo was in NICU i locked myself in a dark room every 2 hours, attached to that god-awful big yellow breast pump... just trying to get anything to happen.... when i did start producing milk it was a huge victory! I was able to supply my tiny infant with enough milk to sustain him while he was in the hospital... which, for the record, was forty days. When we finally did bring him home, i would spend my nights feeding Artoo a bottle, getting him back to sleep, then pumping.... try to get back to sleep - only to wake up 30 minutes later to feed Artoo his next bottle... i was stressed out, i was exhausted... it's no surprise the well dried up.

And for the record? I felt HUGE amounts guilt. I felt horrible that my body stopped producing, i felt terrible that i couldn't keep a baby in for 9 months, then on top of that i couldn't feed him.... things that are supposed to come naturally to women... i just couldn't seem to do.

I know a few girlfriends who are going through similar things right now - babies who wouldn't or couldn't or still can't nurse or even bottle feed.

God. I used to think that religious folks were the judgiest ones out there, but i stand corrected. Self-righteous-holier-than-thou-everything-is-organic-and-i-nurse-my-babies-until-they-were-8-and-we-never-have-the-tv-on-and-own-only-wooden-freetrade-non-plastic-toys-and-cloth-diaper-promoting-mommy-bitches....are the worst.

HEY LADIES!! GET OVER YOUR FUCKING SELVES!!

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you are not entitled to push your agenda on my any more than the Mormon Missionaries who keep trying to get me to come back to church! (dudes, it's been like 15 years, give it a rest).

Don't think that i don't see the way you look at me with distaste when i feed my baby...not only from a bottle (GASP) but with formula (DOUBLE GASP!)

sometimes its NOT a choice

and when my kid needs suctioning regularly to help him breathe, sometimes the only thing that will keep the 3 year old out of the way and safe is the TV.... and you try being 3 and playing with a wooden ball and stick on a string for more than 2 minutes.

So, when i hear or see someone admit that they judge me based on my ability or seemingly lack of desire to nurse my child, it throws me into a bit of a rage.

How dare you?

You don't know anything about me, or how hard it was to give up trying... but i have a healthy baby who is absolutely one of the brightest parts of my day... and he knows that i love him more than anything and that i did everything i could, and still am, to make sure that he is safe and loved and growing.

some artsy things i'm doing

2011-08-26T19:36:00.000-06:00

i have been addicted to reading about art journalling for almost 2 years. Books, magazines, blogs, articles, youtube videos, you name it... so then i was like... maybe i should do it...

I have my own little art journal, it's coming along, progressing as i progress... but i never really gave it much time or affection.

So, i decided to join a facebook group for a Traveling Art Journal. A whole bunch of folks signed up and we've all been mailing out our journals in a round-robin, until everyone has had a chance to work in everyone's journals.

this has been pretty fun.

i wanted to show the pages i've done so far.

click to enlarge

I'm really hoping i can win this GIVEAWAY - oh the things i could do with those fun things!!

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-24T10:35:00.000-06:00

G

Gspot...ohh yeah...
Grapes
Gravy
Goals
Granparents

on this day in 2009

2011-08-24T10:28:00.002-06:00

Chewie took his first steps... now the kid won't stay still for more than 3 seconds....

oh, what a world.

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-22T09:41:00.002-06:00

F

French Fries
Feathers
Forests
Friends
Freedom

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-19T09:11:00.000-06:00

E

eggs and bacon (i honestly can't believe i didn't say bacon back on letter B day)
Experts who share knowledge
Elevators
Evergreens - they smell so nice
Elastic - it makes my pants comfy!

for you crafty peeps, check out this big giveaway here http://scrappinforkenzie.blogspot.com/2011/07/100-follower-giveaway.html

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-15T10:21:00.000-06:00

D

Dad - he's great
dancing
driving
doodling
dreams - the good ones

Wicked Awesome

2011-08-13T16:12:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful diva named Laura who was granted a magical trip to Oz with her very favourite Italian sex machine, Saviabella.

Savia had scored free Media tickets to the opening night of Wicked: The Musical and she took me as her date!! i'm so lucky.

we both looked amazingly hot - according to Chewie, we looked like princesses.

After some minor drama of trying to find a place to grab a bite, finding a place, having my car backed into by another car (luckily no damage), we made it to the show in time to be schmoozed by a big-wig media type guy who treated us the same as he treated the other media types...radio personalities, newspaper journalists, etc., we were STARS!!

holy cow, we are smokin!

We grabbed a quick glass of wine and i was brimming with excitement. i have never seen the musical before, Savia saw it in London... i knew a few of the songs (from Glee...nerd) and mostly... I WAS OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE FOR A REASON BESIDES BABY HOSPITALIZATION!!! WOO!!

Contraband iPhoto pic - i'm a frakkin' rebel, man!!

The first half of the show was amazing. The cast was great, there was humour, great music, dancing, amazing sets and the costumes were fab!! seamless scene changes!! i loved the chemistry between Elphaba and Galinda. i feel like i should read the book now.

Wicked Drinks

At intermission, we had these tasty green drinks - anything with that much pineapple juice in it is a win in my books.

Wicked Shoes (mine) and Wicked dress (Savia's)

Not only did the show rock, but check out my shoes! yeeeeah!!

i had an amazing time, i'm so thankful she took me... then we went back to my house, where i proceeded to get accidentally drunk. i may or may not have flashed Savia my boobs... it's all kind of fuzzy....

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-13T15:56:00.000-06:00

C

calf tattoos (and by that i mean tattoos located on one's calf, not tattoos of baby cows...B-rad's is especially sexy - and by that i mean his calf tattoo, not his baby cow)
crayons (and the way they smell all waxy and schooly)
COFFEE (and the amazing people who roast and sell special Artoo blend coffee as a fundraiser to help us get to Philadelphia next year)
Cruiser (my little gold PT)
cheese (in it's many forms, in it's many uses)

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-12T09:06:00.000-06:00

B

baby snuggles
blue
bagels
bananas
and of course, saving the best for last - b-rad <3

Alphabetical Gratitude

2011-08-11T10:24:00.000-06:00

i saw this meme going around on facebook; every day post 5 things you're grateful for - each day a new letter - and i wanted to play too... so, alphabetically - i'm thankful for:

A:

asparagus - baked with olive oil and parmesan...mmm....
awe - the way it feels to be in it.
accents - all of them, but especially scottish and austrailian
accountants - i'm useless at math
abode - without my abode i'd be homeless

what the?

2011-08-03T22:10:00.000-06:00

it's august.

it's mutha fucking august.

i have left my house less that 10 times in the past month.

Saskatchewan summers only last 2 months, and mine's practically over.

wtf?

Every activity is weighed against the possibility of Artoo going to the hospital - and in most cases, staying home and out of the hospital wins.

sigh.

how's your summer?

listy mcgee

2011-07-28T15:21:00.001-06:00

things that annoy me, in no particular order

1. zits. seriously, face! i'm 31 years old. enough already.
2. mosquitoes. Thanks, you've ruined my summer - jerks.
3. medical professionals who speak to me like i'm six.
4. my hair right now. honestly. the words "rats nest" come to mind.
5. Javier Colon winning The Voice - he didn't annoy me so much as the fact that it was apparent that he would win from the get-go.
6. Cilantro. bleh. why this is used at all is beyond me. tastes like BLEH.
7. when a business does not have a website in this day and age.
8. when i don't get called back after leaving a voice mail.
9. PEOPLE WHO ONLY KNOW HOW TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS ON FACEBOOK - (WHO ARE FRIENDS WITH MY MOM) WHO WILL NOT STOP SCREAMING IN INTERNET-SPEAK!
10. random shrimp - in dips, on pizza.... shrimp should not be a random ingredient. :(
11. those people who, when with a group of friends, have to monopolize the conversation at all times - those people are often one-uppers, which also annoy me...

things i enjoy in no particular order

1. drinking wine and writing open letters as facebook statuses.
2. Puppets
3. new journals and the feeling of possibilites
4. Coffee
5. beautiful slobbery face kisses from Artoo - and his older brother's random hugs and spontaneous i love yous.
6. stripey knee high socks
7. art journals - i love looking at them as much if not more than making my own.
8. MY GOD! CURRY!!!
9. online shopping. maybe a litte too much...
10. hot yoga...i miss you hot yoga...
11. New tattoos
12. Warm cozy sweaters/scarves.
13. actual mail in the actual mail.
14. Pinterest - maybe a little TOO much

sometimes i drink wine and write facebook statuses...

2011-07-28T14:31:00.000-06:00

Dear Business Owners,
if, by this day and age, you STILL do not have a website for your business, you are losing business...case in point? me.
Love Laura

Dear Pizza Pops,
Maybe it's all the wine i drank half an hour ago talking - i know you should taste like pizza, but you kinda taste like pie. It's kinda weird. But i kinda like it.
Love Laura

Dear Red Wine,
I love you. Don't tell White Wine. He wouldn't understand.
Love Laura

Dear B-rad,
mat leave + you on holidas + me drunk + you mudding the drywall = a pretty sweet Wednesday night.
Love Laura

Dear Burt Reynolds aka The Bandit,
You have the most bad ass mustache.
Love Laura

Dear Walmart Greeter,
thank you for giving ceddy two "happy smiles" stickers even though he was bringing the crankypants. You are someone's grandpa, aren't you?
Love Laura.

Dear arm,
You feel hurty. But you're so beautiful.
Love Laura.

Dear Human Race,
How any of us made it through the "why" stage without being murdered in our sleep is beyond me.
Love Laura

Dear Shiraz,
I am amazed at your incredible ability to make me a better whistler. Thank you, Shiraz, thank you.
Love Laura

Dear Early 80s Genesis,
Thank you for so many whistle-able tunes.
Love Laura

Dear Steve Miller
.....what the hell is a pompitous? You can't go around just making up words willy nilly. That's just redinkuloush. See? It doesn't work! Unless, of course, you're James Lipton. Scrumptulescent.
Love Laura

Dear Facebook
Are you sick of this yet?
Love Laura.

Dear Tooth #4
i see you peeking from that gum, just get out here already!
Love Laura

Dear Facebook,
I'm drinking wine again.
That is all.
Love Laura

please vote!

2011-06-27T12:09:00.003-06:00

Local Saskatoon band The Sheepdogs are in the finals to be on the cover of The Rolling Stone... please vote for them! kai thx bai!

The camera loves us

2011-06-16T12:11:00.002-06:00

I'm not the only one who had a photo shoot recently....

check out this amazing photo of my little Artoo... so cute!!! LOVE HIM!!

Blue eyed boy

just a quickie

2011-06-13T12:43:00.000-06:00

hot mama

I did a photo shoot on the weekend.... holy shit.... do i look hot or what!?

oh holy crap

2011-06-09T09:12:00.001-06:00

some of you may be wondering how we are recuperating since our week long stay at the hospital...

the short answer??

It's been shitty.

The long answer? It's been REALLY shitty...

and i mean that literally AND figuratively

Poor little Artoo was given these antibiotics to get rid of the pneumonia - which damn near killed him!! (MELODRAHHHHMA!!!) Every time we got the drugs inside him, he'd puke. This isn't good... so while i was away for the weekend with my mama, my amazing sexy husband was in charge of keeping Artoo alive - and for the record, he did!!

He actually ended up, after a lot of running around, taking the poor kid back to the emergency room just so he could get a new prescription that wouldn't make him barf.

so, new drugs - but they weren't much better.

These new horrible drugs went right through his system resulting in COPIOUS amounts of shit. We were changing diapers constantly, sometimes 3 or 4 in less than ten minutes!!

What happens when a baby poops out 3 times more than he intakes? i'll tell you

His skin turns grey, his eyes are so sunken that he physically cannot close them cuz they won't meet at the bottom, he becomes lifeless and sleeps all the time - the time that he IS awake he cries his pathetic little whimper cry cuz that's all he has the energy for and his fontanelle is visible it's sunk so far into his skull.... that's what.

And the scary part was - he seemed "fine" in the morning....and in the afternoon he looked like a fucking zombie, i kid you not. It was the worst thing i've ever seen (and i've seen nurses almost jab a needle right through his forehead skin while trying to put in an IV).

This was Tuesday afternoon - i called Artoo's pediatrician and waited impatiently for her to call be back. in the mean time i looked on the internet (MISTAKE) to see that artoo had SEVERE!! SIGNS!! OF DEHYDRATION!! CONTACT HEALTH PRACTITIONER IMMEDIATELY!!

i called my mom to come over when she was done teaching, and started packing for what i was sure would be another week long stay at the hospital, assuming they'd be able to start an IV, cuz they have a hard time finding veins on this poor little kiddo....

then my doctor called back and i told her what was happening and she said: "Stop the antibiotics, he's had them for over a week. start giving him pediatlyte and if you don't see significant improvement in the next 3 hours, bring him in..."

after one bottle of pedialyte it was amazing the change in him. He still had sunken eyes, but he no longer looked grey.

a few more bottles and he started staying awake a bit more

now, he's sitting in his chair cooing and singing. Best...sounds...evarrrr!!

he's still shitting. but it's getting better....

so that's how we've been.

Oh, and also, Artoo cut his first tooth - nothing like having pneumonia and vomiting and the poops and then throwing teething on top of that. good. times.

and now, here's a hilarious internet video - she's my new favourite person of all time....

DRUNK!! KITCHEN!!

makes me wish i had thought of that....

home

2011-06-03T15:12:00.002-06:00

so nice to be home

a dream

2011-06-02T05:24:00.000-06:00

I woke up from my cot this morning - terrified. I dreamt that while i slept someone entered our hospital room and stole Artoo from his crib.

Realizing i was now awake - i peeked into Artoo's crib and didn't see him. Instant panic!! i felt instantly sick - but then relaxed when i heard the tell tale slurping of a babe eating from a bottle.

The night nurse had decided to feed him, and was holding him in a chair on the other side of the crib... she's so short that i didn't notice her right away...

It's all good now. Baby is sleeping peacefully (?) or at least, he would be sleeping if he would stay above 90% saturation.

Here we go again

2011-05-31T09:11:00.001-06:00

Nervous sweaty palms? Check
Anxiety? Check
Tired beyond belief? Check
Aches and pains in every part of my body? Check...

This can only mean one thing.

We are back in the hospital. Again.

Having a kid with an extremely rare neurological disorder has really pushed me into being involved in the world of medicine. Much more than i would have ever thought when i would be when i was growing up. I never would have known what a Cranial nerve was, let alone what it was in charge of doing. I wouldn't have known how to use a suction machine let alone have one in my house. I wouldn't have known the terms hypotonic or used words like nebulizer or aspirate or baseline. I wouldn't have been able to decipher charts and medical shorthand and decipher MBS as Modified Barium Swallow test.

When we bring Artoo into the hospital we are the experts because often the doctors haven't even heard of Moebius Syndrome. I have been asked if i'm a medical professional, myself, and then i say: Far from it, just a mom who reads...

Back into the same old routine. The smell of the hospital linens, the dryness of the air, the sounds of nurses talking about their weekends at the nurses station...

Then there's the melody of the medical equipment - the beeps from the monitor, the whir of the IV pump, the constant hum of the oxygen tank and the hiss of the suction hose.

If you've spent any time at all in an intensive care ward, you know what i'm talking about. Every monitor has their own beep and every one goes off at a different time... at first, when you're just new to the situation - every beep, every sound terrifies you.... Then you start to learn what they mean... RR - Respiratory Rate, HR - Heart Rate, BP - Blood Pressure, SAT - Oxygen Saturation - and which leads tell which machines what... and you start to notice when it's okay to just silence those machines when the waves are erratic cuz it's likely just a lead out of place or a yawn or something that's not baseline... and you start to learn when it's something important.... you learn that one pretty damn quick.

I waffle between having grace and patience to wanting to scream and flip the universe a big old bird.

It's so easy to get fall into "Why me?" and "Why us" and "For the love of all that's holy, why can't my body have a normal fucking pregnancy??" It's easy to look at my life and try to decipher what i did to 'deserve' this.... all the late sleepless nights, the cranky nurses, the shitty hospital cots, the guilt of leaving my almost 3 year old with relatives...again.... then i look at Artoo - and i think, "What did i ever do to deserve this?" You remind yourself then that you have to just keep on keeping on, because he's counting on you to be there, to be his strength, to comfort him when he's scared and panicked.

He is so precious and sweet. Even now with hoses coming from all over his body, he looks up with those big blue eyes and those ridiculously long eye lashes and he says "mummummummummummmm" and you think "he can't really be saying Mom, can he?" but you smile and then he gives a little smirk... and you think: Okay. I can do this.

2011-05-20T17:20:00.000-06:00

just in case tomorrow is the end of the world - its been swell knowin ya!

The current date for the Rapture is May 21, 2011, and Mr Camping believes, according to Thessalonians 4:15-17, that this is when "the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord".

so... zombies??

good luck, everyone.... those of us still here tomorrow - party at my place??

The aftermath - Image Heavy

2011-05-18T22:40:00.001-06:00

Truth be told, i spend a lot of my time these days in a blurry haze.

There are things that i can control, and lots and lots of things that i can't - and it would appear that control is something that is very important to me.

I may not have discovered this were it not for Artoo.

Sleepy

When i get the chance to interact with adults, i honestly can't remember how to have rational thought based conversations that don't end in: "Because i'm your mom and i'm the boss"

Do people still have those?
Conversations?

The Doctor is IN

I know that eventually this will all be just a memory... Just tonight while getting ready to eat supper i looked over at Chewie who was sitting on the kitchen counter talking to B-rad about his trip to the Backpack store where he got his NEW!! BACKPACK!! and i thought: "I can't believe that he used to be so tiny once"

Every day is kinda like the day before, and it doesn't take much before you realize that we're almost half way through the year... sorry, someone had to say it. With the outing of our baby with Moebius - it's been sort of a bleary fog of answering questions and kind emails of encouragement... which all have the same theme... "If anyone can handle something like this, it's you guys" What does that even mean? it's confusing to us, because there really isn't any other option. We deal and we cope because we MUST deal and we MUST cope. It's as though it's implied that if we weren't us we wouldn't be doing everything we could to help our baby.

it's just a weird thing to say.

I'd like to know where you got your medical license...

I read somewhere, once, that a good at-home remedy for anxiety is to watch Television. It shuts off the need to think if you can focus on someone else's story line for a little while.

I watch a lot of television.

I did before all this went down, just now i watch an incredible amount of pre-school shows. Good times.

I think the children's channel is making me stupider.

Everytime the lyrics to some theme song become embedded in my head, the lyrics for something cool gets shoved out.... i no longer know the words to Bohemian Rhapsody... just kidding. I still totally do.

I start each day just hoping that everyone in the house stays healthy.

i have great gams

Sometimes, i'm lucky enough to get out of the house - like last weekend when i worked the Man Show (a local trade show geared at men) at my sister in law's booth for a bra/lingerie shop just out of town... i got to get dolled up and sexified and had a very inebriated man in his mid sixties oogle my breasts as he slurred "you have a bodacious....BUSTline..." (bodacious bustlines = name of the store)... creepster...

I was also told by some dude that i belonged in Charlie Sheen's porn family.... WINNING?? sigh.

Don't get me wrong, i found both incidents hilarious, and i had a pretty fun time getting out of the house - but the guilt... there's always the guilt...

I feel pretty, oh so pretty....

So, i pretty much just take each day as it comes because that's all i can do. I'm not brave, or strong, or capable... I'm not "hangin' in there"...i'm numb. And the numbness makes it bearable.

And the only thing that gets me through the hard days is the knowledge that time keeps marching on, whether i want it to or not...

So, here's my latest Tattoo on the inside of my left wrist. To remind me that the shitty times won't last forever, but neither will the adorable, cute, or happy times. The only thing i can do is live in the moment....

Original calligraphy done by Maria Thomas at Pendragon

Easier said than done. But i'm trying.

2011-05-13T13:45:00.001-06:00

blogger ate my birthday post!!

Thirty One is One more than Thirty

2011-05-12T08:43:00.000-06:00

It's my birthday today.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it finally feels like spring and it's the middle of May.

I walked Chewie to daycare about 45 minutes ago, and on the walk back with Artoo i took this picture to send to B-rad with the words: "I am 31."

OFFICIALLY in my thirties, and i have it on good authority that 30s rock... so there's that to look forward to.

I started thinking about my life, especially since a good friend of mine and i were reminiscing about the first birthday party i had here in the skatch, 16 years ago today. We've been friends ever since...

But this isn't going to be one of those posts where i ramble about my own mortality and what ifs, cuz frankly - it's still early and there isn't enough coffee in the world for that right now.

Still... here's a list of things. random things. 31 of them.

1. I have some amazing friends who i've known for a long time who still want to hang out with me. That's pretty awesome.
i have been in love with the same man for over 13 years.
I accumulate a lot of things. I don't know, sometimes i worry i'm going to become a hoarder, but then i think "at least my things are nice and i'm not keeping bits of twine and old coffee filters". Taureans like to have things. We're material possessors. this makes it tricky to declutter cuz the tendency is to want to keep everything.
my ear is ringing....right now. Someone, somewhere, is talking about me.
I tend to think things are always about me. this is a fault.
i hate it when people tell me what to do. This is also a fault, i'm extremely aware of it, and i try not to let it happen, but ask my husband and he'll tell you i'm not trying very hard.
i love to write. Often it's the first thing i think of when i wake up, and the last thing i think of before i go to sleep - i just have trouble finding the time to do it....
mainly, because i really like to sleep. Like, a lot. My bedtime, if i had my way, would be 9:30 every night. One time i fell asleep in a bar at a metal show and i wasn't even drinking.
looking at that last sentence, i kinda wonder if i may have some kind of sleeping problem.
i made these from scratch, and they're frakking awesome:
I suffer from anxiety, and a lot of that stems from the impending apocalypse that will inevitably take place in the foreseeable future... but not for the reasons that you think.
Aliens scare the ever loving bejeezus out of me. See number 11.
I'm not afraid of death. Just those i love dying or me dying and leaving others behind. As for myself, i'm pretty sure i'll be fine wherever death takes me.
One time i had an amazing psychedelic ~~trip~~ meditative experience wherein i found myself in what i can only describe as a beautiful pink Love factory... where Joy and Love were being manufactured in swirls of light and colour... and i heard the voice of God and she said "Why do you guys gotta fight all the time, just be nice to each other." Take from that what you will, but she was pretty passionate. Pretty much what i've always thought about religion in general.
i'm not religious. at all. but i do have Faith in the power of prayer and the exchange of energy. "Today, a young man on acid* realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather." - the late great Bill Hicks (*i have never done acid)
When i was 15 i met the man of my dreams. When i was 24 i married him. When i was 31 he made me coffee and left me a note wishing me a happy birthday.
I can sing, like, really sing. But somewhere along the lines, the thought of singing for people made me terrified. Maybe i thought that i had nothing to say.
Artoo makes me want to sing again.
Growing up, i thought my family was ca-ray-zee. it wasn't until i was an adult that i started to realize how very fortunate i have been to be born to such amazing parents who, after over 35 years (this October) are still in love and actually enjoy each others company. They have so much fun together... they are my role models.
I have three amazing and wonderful brothers who are so very alike and yet each so very different with great talents and strengths. With the exception of a few years of teenage angst between me and my older brother, we have always gotten along. I used to think, when i was a kid, that it was because we were Mormon and we had some kind of special Mormon Family Magic - but then i grew up and realized that there PLENTY of Mormon families who are fucked up and who don't speak or can't stand to be in the same room together... my conclusion is that we were just REALLY that awesome. WIN.
i think my best feature is my eyes. They're a pretty colour.
My mom and i have the exact same laugh, which i love, and when we both get going - we laugh so hard that we cry - it's kinda funny to watch.... cuz we really can't stop.
sometimes i think i would have fared better being in my 30s in the late 40s... the cars, the clothes, the lifestyle, the music... but then i think about things like Equal Opportunity and the fact that my grandmother had to ask her husband's permission before she got her driver's license to cart their 6 kids around.... and i'm fine.
making a list is harder than it seems.
one of my greatest fears is that i will run out of things to say and be boring and stagnant... and worst of all, not funny. apparently being funny means a lot to me.
i worry about things like: "When am i officially too old to be getting/having facial piercings and tattoos?"... i hope the answer is never, cuz i really like my tongue ring and my labret and i think about piercing an eyebrow or my nose sometimes.
i hope i don't screw my kids up.
i'm not a smoker, but sometimes - i just really want to sit in the sun and smoke a cigarette and think about stuff. I honestly feel, sometimes, that smokers get to take a time out from their lives that non-smokers don't... because non-smokers feel silly just standing outside for 10 minutes every few hours staring at the clouds.
My favourite flowers are lilacs.
When i turned 30 i thought i'd feel like an adult. Most of the time i still feel like i'm barely 20 years old.... and i wonder who these little humans are who keep calling me "Mama".
Today is my birthday, and i am 31.

The Most Beautiful Smile

2011-04-24T15:15:00.000-06:00

Nothing about the way Artoo was born was how i planned it. With Chewie being born 8 weeks early, i had every intention of having a calm and relaxed home birth in a pool in my rumpus room surrounded by soft lights and music that i liked, lavender scented massage oils, my midwife coaching me through delivery, my husband in the pool to catch our baby and then the three of us resting... in our own home, with our new bundle of joy nursing like a champion.

And life took my plans and stomped on them.

Instead, i went into a fast and hard labour 7 weeks before my due date - dilating from 4 -10 cm at a quick pace, 3 pushes and Artoo was born five hours after we arrived at the hospital. They whisked him away to the NeoNatal table to check him out, as they do with any early delivery... and the first thing the nurse said to my husband was not "congratulations" - but: "I see some slight facial deformities here." And then she proceeded to tell him everything bad she could find on him. I hadn't even seen our baby yet, and i remember thinking it was taking longer to see him than it did when Chewie was born... and when she eventually did bring him to me to hold, she said the same thing about the facial deformity... i kept thinking: "What is she talking about? He's perfect!!" (this woman would turn out to be the most annoying and brash nurse in the NICU staff... everything about her irritated me.)

Artoo, only hours old.

It didn't take long to get back into the NICU routine. The coming and going, getting to know which nurses you loved and which ones you HOPED weren't taking care of your baby that day. And in those first few days, Artoo had many doctors and residents to see him. Over the course of the first week or so we learned that Artoo has club feet and would have a long stretch of casting followed by boots and bars to correct the condition. We learned that he is a bit tongue tied, which may or may not be an issue. We will have to wait until he starts learning to talk. We learned that he has a weak suck/swallow/gag reflex and because of this he had a difficult time learning to bottle feed.

Mama and Artoo - kangaroo care

Then, when Artoo was only a couple of weeks old, they told me that it was likely that we would never see our baby smile. That they thought he had Moebius Syndrome.

When i heard this, i mentally shut down. It felt like one thing after the other and this was the straw that broke MY back.

It was completely overwhelming.

Never?

Artoo's doctors had mentioned Moebius Syndrome a few times during rounds, but no one ever really explained to me what it was in great detail until the Geneticist came. Moebius Syndrome, he said, is an extremely rare neurological disorder, present at birth, that affects (but is not limited to) cranial 6 & 7 nerves. These nerves can be underdeveloped or weak or missing altogether, and it affects 2-20 cases in a million.

WHAT?
Seriously?!

I very naively asked him if there was treatment, like surgery... and he sort of laughed in what i felt was a very condescending way and said; "There is no treatment. If the nerves are missing, they are missing and there's not much we can do about that." psh. Like i went to medical school. I'm still pissed about that. (Honestly, some doctors have absolutely NO bedside manner)

So, we moved forward with this information. As much as it sucked, it was better to finally put a name to it. I felt like if i could call it SOMETHING then i could learn about it and find out what the next steps would be.

But we weren't ready to talk about it yet. We told a few people here and there, testing the waters with their reactions, but for the most part i was like an ostrich with my head in the sand. If i didn't think about it, it wouldn't exist - I couldn't even write or blog about my little baby because just thinking about it filled me with anxiety...

...until Artoo got RSV and bronchiliatic pneumonia in February and spent 5 days in isolation on the Paediatric ward. We spent the first few days repeating ourselves over and over again to doctors and nurses explaining; "No, that's normal for him, he has Moebius Syndrome." to almost everything they said. And on the last few days i even had one student nurse who told me he was excited to meet Artoo because he heard there was a baby with Moebius on the floor and had spent the night researching it and it how cool it was "cuz it's super rare" - and when he saw him, he almost looked disappointed that he wasn't as facially deformed as he thought he'd be. (Fucker.)

Artoo loves his big brother Chewie

When we were finally able to bring Artoo home and things were starting to get back to normal, it seemed like my sand had finally all blown away and i couldn't ignore it any more. One night i turned to B-rad and said: "So,... i guess Artoo has Moebius Syndrome."

Acceptance.

We decided it was time to for Artoo to 'come out'.

so. there it is.

But before you all scamper off to do your own research on Moebius - let me say this. Don't.

Moebius is a spectrum disorder, which means that not every case is the same. He may have some symptoms/issues but not others and he may have less severe symptoms/issues than other cases. One of the things that has been frustrating (to me, at least) is that as i have started telling people about Artoo the first thing they do is run to Wikipedia and suddenly they're experts and they start asking questions about his condition. Questions that I either don't know the answer to yet, or questions that i'm not ready to share the answer to. And also, if you Google Moebius syndrome you're going to get a lot of pictures of severe facial deformities that Artoo just doesn't have.

So.

Let ME break it down for you, and know that the information i share with you is information that we KNOW or think we know, and information that we're ready to share. If something is NOT shared in this post its either because a) we don't know the answer or b) we don't want you to know. B-rad and i ask that you respect that.

Moebius Syndrome's common affected nerves are 6&7 as i said, it does NOT affect intelligence.

Cranial 6 Nerve is a Motor nerve that controls the outward movement of the eye. This means that Artoo cannot look to the side without moving his head. Essentially, he has tunnel vision - but he can and does focus if you are looking right at him and are far enough away that he can see you (about 6-8"). He can move his eyes up and down, but he tends to be cross-eyed a lot of the time, or one eye will move in while the other doesn't. Also, he doesn't blink very often or at all. (it's hard to tell cuz i don't watch his eyes every second) This means that he will likely have to have eye drops for the rest of his life so that his corneas don't get damaged. (We met with eye specialists in the hospital but have yet to hear back from them for his follow up appointment....) However, Artoo is still physically able to close his eyes when he sleeps, so he can learn to blink voluntarily as he gets older.

Cranial 7 Nerve is a Sensory Motor nerve which controls the movement of the face - so sucking, swallowing, facial expression - all these functions live in this nerve. What does that mean? Artoo has very little sucking ability, but a little is better than none. He has difficulty swallowing, a weak gag reflex, and drools. This is the main reason he stayed in the NICU as long as he did. He couldn't suckle so he couldn't nurse. but not just nursing, he couldn't take a bottle and was fed with an NG tube while we tried different things. Cup Feeding, spoon feeding, syringe feeding, even an NG tube attached to a finger... it didn't seem like anything would work and we were THIS close to having a Mic-Key button, which is essentially a feeding tube directly into the stomach completely bypassing the mouth. i fought long and hard but eventually we found a special bottle called a "Habermarn" feeder (also called a Special Needs feeder) which worked and we avoided the button. YAY! Thank you nurse Lois (last name unknown) for not giving up and trying different things. So you see, not ALL nurses are terrible.

Beautiful Blue Eyes

People with Moebius can also have low muscle tone. This means that the muscles are on the loose and floppy side. Artoo will have to work longer and harder to get to the same place a regular kid would. Currently he's a bit behind as far as holding his head up and neck control, but he will get there. He may also be less coordinated and be a bit behind in movement and motor skills. Right now it's too soon to tell how that will play out.

Likewise, he may have delays and troubles with speech due to his facial paralysis - but we won't know for some time.

Some cases of Moebius include some abnormalities in the body such as Club Feet - which also runs in B-rad's family. So, it's not certain if the club feet are from genetics or from the Syndrome, not that it matters much at this point. Because the syndrome is so rare, it's hard to tell whether or not this is a genetic condition or a random occurrence. The research i've read so far has basically said there's not enough information to support either theory.

One thing is sure, though. This syndrome had nothing to do with him being early. Had he stayed inside the full 9 months, he still would have had Moebius Syndrome.

Maybe its a good thing that Artoo came so early - so that he was surrounded by medical staff who caught his condition early. 2-20 cases in a million; that's such a big window because often kids aren't diagnosed right away.

Luckily, because of an amazing NICU doc (Dr. Sankaran) we have been fast-tracked - and Artoo already has a great "team" working with him. He has the best Paediatrician in the city, he has a neurologist, a geneticist, a opthamologist (even though we haven't heard from her since November), a speech pathologist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, facial/orthodontic specialist, dietician, and social worker. We are in the system, we have been watching Artoo's progress, checking milestones - all things considered, he's doing amazingly well.

He's since moved from the Haberman feeder to a cleft palate nurser (his palate is fine, it's just an easier bottle for us to handle.) He's quite vocal - generally happy, he pretty much only screams when he's hungry or needs a clean diaper... which is lucky because i don't know if i'd be able to handle all this and colic too.

He's growing like a weed, at his last weigh-in he was 17lbs 13 ozs, a far cry from his birth weight of 3lbs 15oz. He's nice and fat, just the way babies should be. He's meeting his developmental milestones, for the most part - but he IS a little behind. He won't be forever.

So, there's a long road ahead of us. This, we know for sure. With so many uncertainties, B-rad and i rely heavily on each other and have had such wonderful support from our friends and families that we sometimes feel overwhelmed, but in a very good way. The future is unknown, i think at this point the hardest part will be dealing with people's general reactions when they meet him for the first time. Just the other day i took Chewie and Artoo to get their Spring pictures done and the photographer asked me: "Can he look this way", "No, not really. Pretty much just straight ahead" then later: "Does he smile at all?" "Uhm, nope. That's about as good as you're going to get."

Smiley Boy

But the truth is, he has an amazing smile. He has such expression in his eyes, you just know when he's happy. And he laughs and coos, just like other babies do. But if you can catch him in the right mood - he has the teeniest tiniest hint of a smirk - and i'll tell ya, it brings me close to tears each time i see it. Because for someone i was told would NEVER smile.... his little smile is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Big Smiles for Daddy

Thanks for reading.
Love
Laura and B-rad

30 days of music - Day 21

2011-04-24T13:54:00.003-06:00

30 days of music - Day 20

2011-04-23T13:46:00.002-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez!

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 20 - a song from your favourite album
I don't really have a favourite album, my favourites are generally compilations that i've made - but this song has made it onto several of my mixed cds, and i also like the album "Homogenic"

What's yours?
(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One - your favourite song
Day Two - your least favourite song
Day Three - a song that makes you happy
Day Four - a song you listen to when you're angry
Day Five - a song that makes you sad
Day Six - a song that reminds you of someone
Day Seven - a song that reminds you of somewhere
Day Eight - a song that reminds you of an event
Day Nine - a song you know all the words to
Day Ten - a song that makes you get up and dance
Day Eleven - a song that makes you fall asleep
Day Twelve - a song you have performed a dance to
Day Thirteen - a song from your favourite band
Day Fourteen - a song that is your guilty pleasure
Day Fifteen - a song that no one would expect you to love
Day Sixteen - a song that describes you
Day Seventeen - a song from the first CD/Tape/Record you ever owned
Day Eighteen - a song song from one of your favourite movies
Day Nineteen - a song you like from a genre you don't.

30 days of music - Day 19

2011-04-22T21:53:00.000-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez!

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 19 - a song you like from a genre you don't

as a general rule, i'm not really a fan of top 40s music. I think, mostly, this is because any schmo can be a star with the amount of auto tuning they use these days. it's terrible... and don't get me started on all the song taking. But, thanks to Glee i know and like this top 40 song.

What's yours?
(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One - your favourite song
Day Two - your least favourite song
Day Three - a song that makes you happy
Day Four - a song you listen to when you're angry
Day Five - a song that makes you sad
Day Six - a song that reminds you of someone
Day Seven - a song that reminds you of somewhere
Day Eight - a song that reminds you of an event
Day Nine - a song you know all the words to
Day Ten - a song that makes you get up and dance
Day Eleven - a song that makes you fall asleep
Day Twelve - a song you have performed a dance to
Day Thirteen - a song from your favourite band
Day Fourteen - a song that is your guilty pleasure
Day Fifteen - a song that no one would expect you to love
Day Sixteen - a song that describes you
Day Seventeen - a song from the first CD/Tape/Record you ever owned
Day Eighteen - a song song from one of your favourite movies

30 days of music - Day 18

2011-04-21T21:33:00.000-06:00

30 days of music - Day 17

2011-04-20T21:24:00.003-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez!

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 17 - a song from the first CD/Tape/Record you owned

I think that the first Tape i ever actually owned that was ALL MINE was the New Kids on the Block Christmas Album. "this is a very serious message... so ALL of you... PLEASE listen." Ah, my tween years....

the first Tape that i ever purchased on my own, with my own money was the Right Said Fred album..... ahhhh yeeeah...

the first CD i ever purchased all on my own was Shania Twain... i am so ashamed, and it's only because i love you that i'm sharing this with you - cuz honestly? KNOTB and Right Said Fred i'm PROUD to have owned compared to Shania. sigh.

What's yours?
(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One - your favourite song
Day Two - your least favourite song
Day Three - a song that makes you happy
Day Four - a song you listen to when you're angry
Day Five - a song that makes you sad
Day Six - a song that reminds you of someone
Day Seven - a song that reminds you of somewhere
Day Eight - a song that reminds you of an event
Day Nine - a song you know all the words to
Day Ten - a song that makes you get up and dance
Day Eleven - a song that makes you fall asleep
Day Twelve - a song you have performed a dance to
Day Thirteen - a song from your favourite band
Day Fourteen - a song that is your guilty pleasure
Day Fifteen - a song that no one would expect you to love
Day Sixteen - a song that describes you

30 days of music - Day 16

2011-04-19T21:10:00.000-06:00

30 days of music - Day 15

2011-04-18T21:10:00.000-06:00

30 days of music - Day 14

2011-04-17T11:23:00.001-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez!

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 14 - a song that is your guilty pleasure

those of you that know me, or who have been followers of this blog for any amount of time know that i'm a big lover of music - pretty much everything... except for country music and Gangsta Rap. But i've been known to make exceptions to this rule... and i tend to do just that for pretty much any early Garth Brooks.

This is largely because i used to have very limited access to music when i lived in BC... and Garth Brooks was in his prime. My BFF Chrystal had all of his tapes, so i got all of his tapes. all of those old songs bring me back to my formative preteen years in some form or another.

I would post some videos, but it's apparently impossible to find one that isn't some dude doing a "cover" version of the song i want... and who wants that? not me.

anyway, the song for this prompt is: The Change by Garth Brooks.

When i first heard this song it was after the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. I was 15. Garth's video was just him standing in a dark room, with images of the bombing and the rescue efforts playing all around him. To this day i can remember some of those images, and the emotion in his face as he sang. It still gives me goosebumps... and one of my favourite lines in a song come from this one: "It's like trying to stop a fire with the moisture from a kiss..."

and the rest of the chorus:
"...and i hear them saying you'll never change things. And no matter what you do it's still the same thing. But it's not the world that i am changing. I do this so this world will know that it will not change me."
phew.

Goosebumps even now just writing that.

At any rate, i can't find the Oklahoma City video, only 9/11 ones and more people feeling the need to cover it. This is a NIU tribute.

Don't get me wrong, i can belt this song like a mutha frakker, but i just don't put it on the internet and call it: "Garth Brooks The Change Official Music Video".

What's yours?
(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One - your favourite song
Day Two - your least favourite song
Day Three - a song that makes you happy
Day Four - a song you listen to when you're angry
Day Five - a song that makes you sad
Day Six - a song that reminds you of someone
Day Seven - a song that reminds you of somewhere
Day Eight - a song that reminds you of an event
Day Nine - a song you know all the words to
Day Ten - a song that makes you get up and dance
Day Eleven - a song that makes you fall asleep
Day Twelve - a song you have performed a dance to
Day Thirteen - a song from your favourite band

30 days of music - Day 13

2011-04-16T11:11:00.002-06:00

30 days of music - Day 12

2011-04-15T09:31:00.000-06:00

::shudder::

What's yours?
(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One - your favourite song
Day Two - your least favourite song
Day Three - a song that makes you happy
Day Four - a song you listen to when you're angry
Day Five - a song that makes you sad
Day Six - a song that reminds you of someone
Day Seven - a song that reminds you of somewhere
Day Eight - a song that reminds you of an event
Day Nine - a song you know all the words to
Day Ten - a song that makes you get up and dance
Day Eleven - a song that makes you fall asleep

30 days of music - Day 11

2011-04-14T09:12:00.001-06:00

30 days of music - Day 10

2011-04-13T14:35:00.000-06:00

30 days of music - Day 9

2011-04-12T14:27:00.009-06:00

30 days of music - Day 8

2011-04-11T11:38:00.000-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez!

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 08 - a song that reminds you of a certain event

When my dad moved my family from BC to the Skatch in 1994 so he could go to University, we moved into our house in October, and for the first time in my life, we had access to FM radio. A fact i was not aware of until pretty much almost Christmas time... all i had ever known was the muffled sounds of AM radio - so when we moved here, i found the local AM station (which used to play oldies, but is now a Talk Radio station)....

One day, my older Brother asked why i wasn't listening to FM, to the local top 40 station... i swear, i was like a kid in a candy store. We could only ever get FM radio back on our farm in BC from a very specific corner in the kitchen, with the antenna positioned JUuuuUuuuUuuuuuUsst so... and it was pretty staticy at best. But, we could get a teeny bit of Spokane.

So, to be able to turn the dial and get not one, not two, but THREE FM Stations (there are more now) was like a dream come true. I immediately set the dial on my little tapedeck and my clock radio to C95... and just around Christmastime of 1994 is when Ms Cheryl Crow was high up in the charts with her tune: "All i Wanna Do is Have Some Fun" - so over and over (as most top 40 stations do) i heard this song... as i was putting christmas lights on the banister, as i was wrapping christmas presents, or eating candy canes...

This song is now forever a christmas song in my head. It's just not Christmas unless i hear it at least once. So... All I Wanna Do reminds me of my first Christmas in the Skatch.

What's yours?
(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One - your favourite song
Day Two - your least favourite song
Day Three - a song that makes you happy
Day Four - a song you listen to when you're angry
Day Five - a song that makes you sad
Day Six - a song that reminds you of someone
Day Seven - a song that reminds you of somewhere

30 days of music - Day 7

2011-04-10T11:20:00.001-06:00

30 days of music - Day 6

2011-04-09T21:54:00.001-06:00

30 days of music - Day 5

2011-04-08T11:49:00.000-06:00

30 days of music - Day 4

2011-04-07T13:34:00.003-06:00

30 days of music - Day 3

2011-04-06T22:15:00.002-06:00

30 days of music - Day 2

2011-04-05T12:07:00.000-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez! (hee hee)

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 02 - your least favorite song:

I had a tricky time coming up with one particular song that i dislike - without going into the realm of saying that every song on top40 radio is utter crap! (Back in my day, you actually had to have some talent to be a singer...autotune....i'm looking at you)

but one thing that really gets my goat - is when pop stars feel the need to put out a christmas album... but more than that, when pop stars feel the need to record the classics with their own "twist" on the song, which 9 times out of 10 means a twist of Ca-Ca Poo-poo!!

Case in point:
Jessica Simpson singing Silent Night - I actually really enjoy the song Silent Night, especially singing it in German. So pretty. Jessica, as usual, ruins Christmas music for me.

Grrrrrrr....

This is not a new rant on my blog, read the original RANTIER version here

(this post is part of 30 days of Music Meme)
Day One

30 days of music

2011-04-04T05:56:00.000-06:00

so, this is one of those internet memes that's going around on Facebook - but i'm-a-gonna-post it here cuz that's how i ride, yo!! bitchez! (hee hee)

For each day for the next 30 days, I will post a link to the song that corresponds to the list below:

Day 01 - your favorite song:

"Come on Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runner

This has been my favourite song for probably 15 years or so. It's just one of those songs that will make me happy no matter what state i'm in... who could be happy with that fiddle or that banjo going?? The fact that i've been singing this song for over 15 years and i still have absolutely no idea what the lyrics are is kind of funny to me... but i usually just sing whatever gobbledygook comes to mind when the tune hits the speaker.

Not that i haven't tried to learn the words. The internet has been such a lovely tool for learning the lyrics to songs, but no matter how much i try, they never stick and i always end up singing: "Sy-a-blunda whools and peffer... things round here have changed"

good times.

What's yours?

The post in which i blab about keeping a journal...

2011-03-28T10:33:00.000-06:00

A while ago, i received a message on facebook from a close friend asking about my experiences with journaling... i thought i'd share it here.

Oh, Laura! I have been wanting to talk to you and ask you some questions about journaling because I know you have kept journals for years too.

Specifically I wanted to ask you how you deal with certain things - for instance, I have kept journals over the years but I inevitably end up being ashamed of what I've written or embarrassed that someone may find and read it and that I might hurt them when really anything I write is just a reflection of my thoughts or feelings at a moment in time (which is subject to change).

I always end up burning my journals in the end. But I really don't want to do that anymore or worry about what other people think if they happen to find or read it, even after I've passed away.

How do you deal with that?

Do you censor yourself in your journals?
Do you just word things carefully?

I tend to use my journal a lot when I am stressed or emotional and hate to think that someone could read it and think I was negative all the time or needed some mental help.

So how do you deal with this stuff? Does B-rad read your journal?

My husband once read mine and I wasn't sure if I liked that since sometimes I write things after he did something to annoy me. But I also write about his family's and my own family's treatment of me and many times it is not positive stuff (or otherwise I probably wouldn't have felt the need to ponder it in my journal).

But then I think it might be nice for him to have my journals if something happens to me.

This stuff really sends my head spinning so I'd love to hear anything you could share about your experiences and lessons learned. Help!

Love,
Your Friend

Woo Hoo! i love this topic!

I guess the first thing you have to ask yourself is: Why are you writing, and who is your audience?

I mean, if you really are only writing to vent and get things off your chest - maybe its not important to hang on to your journals. I know a few people who are writers/burners and only use their journals for emotional dumping, then they let it go once the journal is full.

Me, i like to go back and read my journals. A lot of the time, it's overly sensitive emotional crap, but every once in a while there's a nugget of something cool.

I have pretty much always kept a journal. From the first diary that my mom and dad gave me for christmas when i was nine, all the way up to present day where it's kind of a mix of blogging/journal writing. And in that time, my writing has changed - in that i have shifted the reasons for writing, and i've also matured and grown as a person.

i mean, yeah, it is STILL filled with the sentimental garbage, and the hurt feelings, the rage....but i'm also making more of an effort to find something that i enjoyed about each day.

I have always thought (at least for the past 15 years or so) that my journal writing was research for my biography that someone would write about me someday... perhaps a tribute to my enormous ego. ha!

I don't think i write with much censoring in my journal, if anything i censor more now than i used to - but i really try not to. I mean, i censor myself enough in my blog, so i try to "Let it all hang out" as it were, in my private journal.

Then we move into the realm of privacy.

I think every journal writer struggles with the fear of being discovered. And if you are primarily using your journal when you are in a state of distress, emotional, physical, mental - that fear can be greatly intensified. I just asked B-rad with a Truth-Gun, if he's ever read my journals (i don't know if you ever watch Cougar Town, but in that show, if you get asked a question with the truth-gun you HAVE to tell the truth, no matter what) he said yes, that he's read snippets of notebooks i leave lying around but he's never sat down and read them. I guess the onus is on me with that one, because i left them out.

With B-rad, it's no secret that i write. I've always written, for our whole relationship. I guess i feel like if he crosses the line and reads my private journal and he comes across something he doesn't like, that's his own damn fault for reading it.

If you're worried about what will happen to your journals should you pass away, this is really simple. Just because you're no longer around doesn't mean that everyone and their dog has free license to read your journals. (unless you become incredibly famous and your journals get published ;)

Leave all of your journals to someone that you trust to honour your preserved thoughts...

You could add into your will or leave a note saying: "These journals were a testament to the thoughts and feelings that i had at the time. They shaped me into the person that i am, but they didn't own me. Please be kind with your opinions of me as you read them." or something along that line.

Say you leave your journals to a family member that you're particularly close to?

Imagine how your words could inspire her, or help her if she was going through difficulties of her own, or how they could comfort her if she is missing you.

Also - think about your own life, and about who YOU WISH would have written a journal. Maybe a parent, or a grandparent, or a favourite uncle or aunt? Wouldn't it be nice to have something to look back at, to gain understanding? To gain wisdom, or learn through their experience, or even just to feel close to that person?? You can be that someone for someone else.

Another solution, which i do from time to time, is to have a few journals going at once. For example, you say that you might like to leave something behind for your husband should, god forbid, something happen to you. Well, you could write him a journal - something that is separate from where you emotionally spill your guts.

What i've learned through the process of journaling for the last 21 years -

1) Someone will always read it. Let go of that and say "fuck em, it's their own fault"

2) being able to go back and re-read your life can increase your awareness of your present. How you dealt with things when you were 12 vs 18 vs 24 vs 30... is kinda neat to see that evolution.

3) Everyone's life is worthy of leaving a trace behind.

4) Everyone's life is interesting.

5) Emotional journaling has kept me off of many window ledges

6) Gratitude Journaling has helped me see the beauty in every day

7) Goal Journaling has helped me to clarify what i want and to try to achieve it.

8) Daily Journaling helps me document what life is like in Saskatoot, SK in 2011. Maybe it's not that interesting now, but maybe in 100 years it will be.

9) Journaling is a private Ego-Stroke

10) it's my very favourite personal indulgent behaviour.

♥

eep

2011-03-15T08:12:00.000-06:00

i'm trying not to get too excited, because The Skatch has this nasty habit of making you think that nicer weather is on its way.... and that spring COULD be coming, and then you get smacked upside the face with a blizzard or something.... but i am REALLY diggin' the plus weather.

the sun is shining, the snow is melty and slushy.... you can almost remember what the colour green looks like!

HOT MUTHA FUGGIN' YOGA BEEYOTCH!!

2011-03-08T10:51:00.001-06:00

So, at the beginning of this year i decided to try going to Hot Yoga at the new studio in town... This --> is just what i look like.... only bigger, but definitely this sweaty!

It's HOT HOT HOT in there, so it's not just a clever name. They keep the studio 38C with high humidity (That's 100.4 for my Yankee friends) and the first time i thought i was going to die!

When your instructor tells you that it's NOT unusual to feel sick, or faint... or to hallucinate.... that's crazy intense.

I've been going for almost three months now, and some days i feel fantastic, and some days i feel like i might barf at any moment.

But i have a goal in mind... and it's that woman's arms and shoulders and back, and boobs, and probably stomach, butt and legs.

Since Artoo was born, he's had a bunch of issues with eating so i haven't been able to nurse - and any woman who's nursed knows that THAT'S where the weight loss kicks in... and i haven't had that... so it was time to kick my own ass into gear.

So i've been doing the watchers of weight thing, and the yoga thing, and B-rad made me a treadmill desk which i used religiously until the skin fell off my foot (but i will get back on the bad boy!!)... since January i've lost 13 pounds. I know, that's not really a substantial weight loss, but it's pretty kick ass.

This could easily turn into a post about body image, how i feel like a size 8 until i look in a mirror and then i remember, shit, i'm totally NOT a size 8.

Here's the thing, with Artoo's rocky start and his continuing challenges, i had an overwhelming sense of LOSS of control. I couldn't control Artoo's stay at the hospital, i couldn't control the fact that Artoo would never nurse, that he would require a lot of special help eating, i couldn't control Chewie's behaviour, much as i tried. I can't control the amount of appointments, the fact that b-rad had to go back to work... i started feeling despair. Then one day i decided that the only thing that i can control in this world is me. I could control what i did with my body and what i put into it.

That realization alone has been the only thing keeping me from stress eating. I've been hanging onto this idea of my own self-control like a life line, some days the only thing keeping me from drowning.

anyway, hot yoga tonight!! once a week is just enough to make me forget by tuesday how much work it is...

what the?

2011-03-02T08:53:00.000-06:00

What happened to February?

i was driving to Hot Yoga with my sister in law last night and i was telling her how it seemed like just yesterday that i was making fish for supper (i don't eat fish, but B-rad and Chewie love it, so i make it for them on Tuesdays when i go to yoga) just the other day... and then when i thought about it, i realized that the week HAD passed... but i'm having a hard time deciding whether or not the week has gone by really fast, or really slow and i've just lost all concept of time.

i think it's the whole concept of time thing.

The two boys keep me crazy busy.

I knew that life with 2 kids would be a handful, i guess i wasn't expecting the hand that i was dealt.

I've been really busy with my Zentangle® blog - it's really crazy busy over there. good times, though.

I feel like i'm on the precipice of something big, but i'm not sure what. That's kind of a thrilling feeling and an ominous one at the same time.

The whole world of possibilities is stretched out before me, as the B-rad and i try to decipher this new world we're living in, and what we want to do with it, and where we want to take it.

yes, i am deliberately being vague.... with one of those grand sweeping "Alllllll will be r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-reeeavealed"

i miss the old blog.
i miss you!

i miss grown ups! (ha!)

kiss kiss!

Singing Teacher

2011-01-30T21:19:00.000-06:00

I don't wanna go so far as to say "Comedy GOLD"....but it's pretty damn funny

Also, these dudes are my brother's rommates.

january schmanuary

2011-01-16T20:01:00.000-06:00

it's been a pretty crazy january.

having artoo at home is certainly a relief, but having another preemie with appointments to get to with 2 year old in tow is a little overwhelming.

Little Artoo has clubbed feet, so we're dealing with casts every week - then boots and braces constantly for 3 months, then 12 hours a day for next 3 years... so, it's a bit of a long haul ahead of us...

Friday morning, Artoo had both of his Achille's Tendons cut, and his legs casted, so that when the tendons GROW BACK (!!) they will grow back longer.

It's amazing.

It's like, babies are magical.

Magical human beings, with Wolverine-like healing powers.

Happy Belated FestivusA

2011-01-09T13:07:00.000-06:00


So Frikkin' Adorable

Happy Belated Festivus and Holiday Season to y'all - love from all of us here at Casa Diva: Laura, B-rad, Chewie and Artoo.

2010: A Year in Review

2011-01-02T19:59:00.000-06:00

It's time for my annual Year in Review Meme post wherein i post the first line from the first post of each month of the previous year. And hey! I realize that sometimes i posted more than the fist line, but this is my meme, and sometimes i'm hilarious, so i'm allowed to break my own rules. Got it? okay. Ready? Here we go:

JANUARY: This year before 2009 came to a close, B-rad and i took our little ~~angel~~ demon spawn to get some family photos done.

FEBRUARY: So i have been 'OFF LINE' the last few days, dealing with what seemed to be the great baby sickness of 2010.

MARCH: SNAP!!

I don't watch a lot of hockey, in fact - the last time i watched an entire hockey game was probably back when the Calgary Flames barely lost the Stanley Cup to the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2004. But, i did watch the Olympic Men's Gold Metal match while at my mom's for supper last night - the Canucks vs Yanks... it was intense.

APRIL: Dear universe,

Hi. I've been meaning to write to you for some time now, but with work and life and all that other shit, i just haven't been able to get my crap together y'know?

MAY: Dude,
it's totally snowing.

It's totally May.

something is totally off here....

JUNE: I boarded a plane for the second time that day, and was happy to find that i had a seat all to myself, again!

JULY: Just an update: The Skatch is continually being hit by Tornado Warnings, some tornadoes hitting ground (not by my house, thankfully) We are also being relentlessly pelted by thunderstorms...

AUGUST: psst... hello?

is this thing on??

I am NOT at BlogHer. Are you?

SEPTEMBER: I was 12 - going on 13 (going on 30) when i first saw it.

OCTOBER: saw this video online a few days ago, and i can't stop thinking about it.

NOVEMBER; I'm not really niave enough to try to do the whole novel in a month thing this year.

DECEMBER: i have no motivation to do anything these days... my world revolves around diapers, bottles, sanitizing, pumping, cat naps, etc...

Totally unmotivated

2010-12-07T19:52:00.002-06:00

i have no motivation to do anything these days... my world revolves around diapers, bottles, sanitizing, pumping, cat naps, etc...

no one in this house is sleeping except Chewie... he's the only one getting a good night sleep around here.

I do one thing, and one thing only, per day.

Today i loaded the dishwasher.

Tomorrow i may empty it.... we'll see.

Due Date...

2010-11-28T13:25:00.000-06:00

Today is Artoo's Due date, and i'm happy to say that he's been home with us for five whole days! YAY!

both my boys were at least 7 weeks early.
both were born on Saturday mornings.
Chewie spent 18 days in NICU, Artoo was there for 40 days.

damn, its good to be home.

November Fifteenth

2010-11-15T17:25:00.000-06:00

It's quiet here.

Here being the NICU waiting room. In the 4 weeks (and counting) that Artoo has been in Intensive Care - this is the first time that the computer in the waiting room has been working.

Here is much quieter than there.

There being inside NICU where Artoo is sleeping in his basinette.

The NICU consists of 6 bays, and in the bays there are various numbers of Isolettes, Bassinette, Cribs, and other baby holding contraptions.

The 'unofficial' word on the NICU street is that the farther away from Bay 1 you are, the closer you are to going home.

We are in Bay 2.

We started in Bay 2, then we moved up to Bay 4 for a week, only to go back down to Bay 2.

But i'm not too concerned.

I remember from when Chewie was here that often the nurses will pair a 'healthy' baby with a 'sick' one, so that the nurse can give more attention to the sick kid and not worry about the 'healthy one'.

Judging by Artoo's past and current roommates, he's the healthy one.

Bay 2 is THE WORST bay in the entire unit and i'll tell you why...

It's right next to:
i.) the door
ii.) the Unit's reception Desk
iii.) the main wash station
iv.) the nurses station

It is the busiest and noisiest area of the unit. And Artoo is right in the thick of it... sleeping away, oblivious to all the sounds and bustle around him. I, on the other hand, find his location on the unit to be very stressful.

Because:
i.) people are constantly coming and going from the unit
ii.) the phone rings all the time
iii.) everyone washes at the main washing station
iv.) the nurses either stand around the station and discuss the details of every baby in the unit at great detail, or they stand there and talk about sports, their husbands, the new car they want to buy, oh my god did you hear what becky did last weekend at the bar, or in the case of one extremely annoying Nurse Practioner - they just have no volume control on their extremely annoying and nasal voice... and they are too...*ahem* large....*ahem* to get up off the chair they are sitting on to answer questions or give direction, so they just 'shout' at whoever they're talking too....

Every day it feels like 1 step forward, 2 steps back... and that's stressful enough to deal with without the general hubbub chaos of Bay 2.

Bay 2.
It sucks, dude.

November Eleventh

2010-11-11T10:49:00.000-06:00

Does this commercial disgust anyone else?

I saw it for the first time the other day, and was instantly like: WTF? is this a game ad?
Sure enough, Call of Duty.

The first thing i said to B-rad after was: "How do you think ACTUAL soldiers feel about this ad?"
I feel pretty disgusted and i've never been to war.

Dear Soldiers who fight when other won't/can't;
I'm sorry that the staff of Call of Duty is full of insensitive fuck heads.
Thank you for defending the countries you defend.
Laura

November Tenth

2010-11-11T00:34:00.000-06:00

BREATHE!

the weight seems lighter today.
Still no end in sight, but i'm breathing easier.

November Eighth

2010-11-08T22:27:00.000-06:00

Writing Prompt: Write a letter to someone you greatly miss

Dear 18 year old Laura's body,

Dannnng girl, you are FIIIIIIINE!!! Do you have any idea how sexy you are? I mean, really. You should stop obsessing about your weight because you look great. By the way - your tits are perky and firm still, you should really flaunt them more... don't be self conscious, wear those low cut tops with pride.

Also, my advice to you - let go of your inhibition... the sex gets so much better when you do.

Love,
30 year old Laura - who just had a baby 3 weeks ago and can't have sex for 3 more weeks but thinks about it all the time....

PS - i asked B-rad what he would say to you... and he says he wants to taste every inch of your body (too bad for you - it doesn't happen for another year, hang in there, it's worth it.)

November Seventh

2010-11-07T10:26:00.000-06:00

Waiting sucks.
I mean, it's never really fun - but in my case right now, waiting really REALLY sucks.

November Sixth

2010-11-06T20:26:00.000-06:00

Baby Mine, don't you cry
Baby Mine, dry your eyes
Rest your head close to my heart, never to part,
Baby of Mine.

Little one, when you play
Don't you mind what they say
Let those eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear, baby of mine.

If they knew, sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too
All those same people who scold you
what they'd give just for the right to hold you.

From your head down to your toes
You're not much, goodness knows.
But you're so precious to me
Sweet as can be, baby of mine.

November Fifth

2010-11-05T23:38:00.001-06:00

Pay it Forward

I mentioned, just briefly in my last post, that B-rad was in a car accident last week. It wasn't anything serious... well, no one was hurt - anyway.

What happened was this:
B-rad was taking Chewie to daycare and it had just snowed/freezing rain the night before and he hit a patch of black ice and slid through a stop sign into traffic. He rammed into another car. He wasn't going very fast and everyone was okay, Chewie didn't even register that anything had happened.

Luckily, the woman he hit was very nice. She said "it's just a car"... really, it could have been some young punk asshat who got out of his car screaming... instead she was really good about everything. It was dangerous driving conditions, as they were exchanging information someone else got rear ended at that intersection.

B-rad took Chewie to daycare and then came home, taking a personal day. It had been such a stressful couple of days, he really needed the time off.

Fast forward a few days later to Halloween afternoon, we were getting Chewie into the car to go trick or treating at grandma's house. B-rad was already in the car and i was just putting something into the back seat when a woman walked up my driveway holding a gift basket asking: "Is B-rad in that vehicle?" To which i replied; "....yes..." i had no idea who she was.

B-rad got out of the car and realized who it was - it was the woman he hit.
She said she felt so bad that she never even asked if B-rad or Chewie were okay, she said: "I know you were upset, and i just wanted to come by and give you this and let you know that it's just a car and i wanted to see that you were okay."

We were floored. B-rad hit HER car, and SHE gave US a gift basket??

I don't think that lady knows how nice her gesture was. She had no idea that we are in the middle of one of the hardest times of our lives with Artoo in the hospital, she just decided to do something nice for us.

It was so nice.

I couldn't stop thinking about her gesture of kindness. I told Saviabella about it yesterday and she said:

Wow - what an amazing story. It kind of gives you back some faith in humanity. Maybe she could tell that you guys needed a little bit of extra love right now. Good karma comes back in little ways sometimes - here's hoping that you get a whole truckload of it in the next while.

PS Artoo is perhaps the most adorable baby ever.

which in turn got me thinking about karma and good turns etc., and how if i want more good things in my life maybe i should do something nice for someone else...

it's no secret that i have been feeling pretty shitty as of late. It's very stressful to have a baby in Intensive care without any kind of idea as to how much longer they'll be in there, on top of having a family at home... and i just wanted to feel GOOD for a bit.

I mean, other than when i'm holding Artoo in my arms, of course.

So, i decided that today was my good Karma day - and when i went to visit my little dude today - i stopped at Starbucks and bought one of those enormous coffee travelers and a big box of Two Bite Brownies for the nursing staff at NICU.

The head nurse at the desk took the coffee and treats from me when i walked in, cuz i couldn't bring them into the ward, which was understandable... but she said she'd but a note on it.

Then, slowly, nurses would walk by and smile and say thanks for the treats.

Not that the nurses were particularly mean or unkind - just sometimes the nurses treat the moms like they're in the way - I have a few stories of some jerk nurses...

but for the most part the nurses are great...

after the coffee though, even the crusty receptionist who never smiles came over to say hello and told me that Artoo was adorable. The mood definitely shifted.

It felt really good, although i do find the thank yous to feel uncomfortable, but that's just my own social awkwardness.

Note to self: Must make a point to do nice things for people.

Here's hoping that one of those nurses pays it forward to someone else. Who knows? Maybe the lady B-rad hit had a shitty day and someone did something nice for her, and she in turn payed it forward to us.

November Fourth

2010-11-04T07:11:00.001-06:00

Day 19 in NICU, still no end in sight.

I kinda wanna talk about it, i kinda wanna scream from the rooftops; WHY ME? i kinda wanna crawl into the fetal position and hide in my basement until artoo comes home...

I want to tell you everything, and i want to tell you nothing.

I want to cry, and I want to stop crying. Every day, i'm so sick of fucking crying!

B-rad and i are keeping a lot of things to ourselves right now, because there are a lot of uncertainties - and mostly i don't feel like fielding the same questions every time i see or talk to someone.

My mother in law came by the other day because Chewie was sick and couldn't go to daycare, so when she arrived, she looked around the house and said: "What's bothering you the most?" and i said: "That Artoo's not at home."

My house, it's a disaster.
My body is tired. My heart hurts. I feel, everyday, like a part of me is missing, because a part of me is in a little plastic box in NICU.

I want a break.
But i can't take a break. I can't justify not going to the hospital when i'm perfectly able to. But also, not seeing Artoo for even one day would be more painful than i can bear. So, every day i drive 20 minutes across town, battle all the construction in the hospital parking lot, walk up the stairs to the 3rd floor because i can't be bothered to wait for the SLOWEST ELEVATORS OF ALL FRIKKIN TIME!, and then i sit. I sit and i hold Artoo for as long as i can stand it before i have to either pump or leave.

And he's so little that there's really not a comfortable way of holding him for that long... so my back aches from the chair, my butt hurts from sitting so still for so long, my shoulders hurt from holding him close, my neck hurts from straining to look at him while i'm holding him... my breasts and nipples hurt from constant pumping - and or waiting too long to pump because i just can't put him down and think "Just ten more minutes....just ten more minutes" until i'm about ready to burst.

Then i come home and give all my attention to Chewie who is super clingy right now because he's been sick...again.... And i'm doing everything i can to not get sick myself because staying home is not an option for me...

B-rad is working, being superdad, and trying to put the house back together now that we finally have our carpet in our rumpus room... and on top of everything our car is probably going to be written off because B-rad had a bit of an accident last week when we had all that freezing rain... because we don't already have enough on our plate.

We made the decision to try to find Kozmo and Cinda new homes, and neither of us wants to actually think about putting them up for adoption, but Kozmo is not adjusting to life with children - he took a few unprovoked swats at Chewie in the past little while, and we're starting to wonder if Chewie might be a bit healthier without the cats around. Now with TWO preemies to think about, it's time to part ways with our feline babies. SAD! CRY!

November, so far, has been full of mostly suck. I would like some goodness please, universe, and i would like my baby home.

November Third

2010-11-03T07:43:00.005-06:00

What the?
I totally missed my Blogoversary last month - what with all the craziness of work, my Zentangle® retreat, having a baby, dealing with my life....

Happy belated birthday little Blog. You're now Seven!

November Second

2010-11-02T07:33:00.000-06:00

Today is Election Day... in the States...
But Laura, i hear you say, aren't you Canadian? How do you know it's election day?

Same way any of us Canucks know, we all watch American television.
Frankly - i can hardly wait for this day to be over... i am totally sick of the American Smear Campaign commercials. Maybe it's all that Canadian Politeness, but this kind of thing doesn't exist in Canadian election campaigns... at least, not in the same way. I actually end up feeling embarrassed for those candidates. Do they really think that they look any better after an ad like that?

anyway, whenever i think of Smear campaigns, i think of one of the most brilliant shows on the planet that never made it past the first season, Clone High. This clip is pure gold from start to finish, but it really gets hilarious at the three minute mark.... you can either watch the whole thing or jump to the 3 minute mark, i leave that choice up to you.

So there you have it, baby. Now - let's all get this god awful day over so i can watch TV without being subjected to those stupid fucking ads.

November First

2010-11-01T21:21:00.000-06:00

I'm not really niave enough to try to do the whole novel in a month thing this year.

I'm not even going to REALLY try to do the whole blog post every day for a month thing either.

I have a confession to make: I am trying very hard to handle everything, but i don't think i'm doing very well. Artoo is STILL in NICU. I know that every baby is different, and i really shouldn't be comparing Chewie's time in NICU to Artoo's, but it's hard not too.

Chewie seemed to have it all together, he was just small. He was out of NICU after 18 days, and here we are with Artoo - on day 16 with no end in sight.

I know that the hospital is the best place for him, but my heart hurts every time i leave him there... I'm usually there for five to six hours, but it seems like it's not nearly enough! like i could be there more, even though i can't do much but hold him, or stroke his head.

This go around - it just seems like there are so many more things to deal with... And on top of a teeny tiny baby we have a very confused two year old - who kinda gets that his little brother is here, but it's tough because he can't go in to see him. He's seen pictures, but that's about it. It's tough. All he really gets is that he's being dropped off at grandma and grandpa's more than normal, and that his mama time has been seriously depleted. And that breaks my heart - i know that i have TWO little boys to take care of, and its hard not to feel like i'm letting one or the other down.

Mostly, right now - i am sick of talking about it. I feel like everyone i talk to expects me to break into tears, and they all ask the same thing, i've almost got it down to a science of not actually talking about it:

"how's Artoo doing?" and i always say the same thing: "Oh, y'know... sleeping, growing"
"How are YOU doing?" "Oh, y'know, as good as can be expected"
"How are you guys holding up?" "Pretty well."

it's not that i don't appreciate all the thoughts and concern, i really do. But repeating the same story over and over again, with someone new every day, it's just too hard.

A busy busy weekend

2010-10-18T22:00:00.000-06:00

Artoo was born this Saturday at 11:31 a.m.

He was 3lbs 15oz.

He will be in Neonatal intensive care for a few weeks, but he's off the breathing tube now. No telling when he'll be home at this stage. Will keep you posted.

The post where i ramble about hugging and junk

2010-10-08T10:46:00.000-06:00

I saw this video online a few days ago, and i can't stop thinking about it.

You know the dude from 30 Rock

It got me to thinking, in my life i am blessed with a LOT of human contact. My son is very ~~clingy~~ affectionate, he loves to give hugs and kisses and cuddles...

My husband - he is a GREAT hugger. Lots of people have told him that they love hugging him because he's such a great hugger. I know i love hugging him. We're not all over each other in public, but we don't shy away from holding hands or being affectionate when it's appropriate.

Outside of my son and husband, the one who hugs me the most in my mother in law. She's a hugger. I think that's where B-rad gets it. She hangs on and goes for the long haul, complete with the hug sway - y'know, the hug that sort of turns into a little dance of swaying back and forth. Even after over 10 years of being hugged by this woman, i never know how long to hold the hug, and i usually try to end it before she's ready and then i'm like: "WOOPS!" and the hug goes on... don't get me wrong, it's not uncomfortable or anything, i'm just kind of amazed that i still don't know what her standard rate of hugging is yet.

In my family - it sometimes feels like the hugs are implied. It's not that we never hug, its just that we don't hug, like on a regular basis. SO sometimes when Dad goes in for a hug, or mom, it's more of a surprise. A nice one, but still a surprise.

Do you know what i mean?

it wasn't always like that though - remember when you were a kid; hugging your best friends when you were excited? or holding hands with your BFF on the playground? Not just the girls...even the little boys!

Humans crave contact.

Then, somehow along the line, we become adolescents i guess? and our bodies get awkward, and start doing things without our consent (i'm thinking boys in junior high, holding their big text books in front of their pants as tehy walk down the hall - honestly, guys, i don't know HOW you live with those things....) Or maybe it's how oversexualized our society is now and people are reluctant to give a platonic hug due to the overtones they fear they might send? Or maybe it's just that we're such an isolated society now...

So many of our 'meaningful' relationships are online now.

How many times do i type "Hugs!" to a friend, or fellow blogger - and then wonder if i would actually hug them in real life?

anyway,
i can be really skittish when it comes to hugging. As in, i'm not usually the one to offer up said hug. I'm slightly uncomfortable with hugging people...but - i secretly love hugs. Ah, a paradox.

I just never know how to go about it.
Some people are bear huggers, and when they hug you it's like they're trying to completely envelope you in their arms...
Some people are just all about the hug/back slap...
Some people are lingerers and hold the hug for a long time
Some people are In and Out.
Some people hug hello, some people hug goodbye.
Some people Do.Not.Hug.At.All

where am i going with this...
oh yeah, the video.

I was thinking about what it must be like to live alone - to be completely isolated... to never get hugs... at what point would the craving for human contact become so great that i would go into the street and ask random people for hugs?

The part that i love in the video - is how by the end of it, people are running up to him to hug him, and that random strangers are hugging each other... but most of all - how every person has a big smile on their face after hugging.

Hugs feel good.
Everyone loves a hug.
i know i do. Who will you hug today?

Numb.

2010-09-27T10:11:00.000-06:00

If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you may know that i had a very shitty relationship with a dude in highschool who i have dubbed Dickface. During our varied stints at attempting to date each other, i went on a Crazy Mormon Roadtrip where, in my absence, Dickface began spreading rumours about a faked pregnancy and systematically destroyed all of my friendships while i was not there to defend myself.

It got so bad that i was sick with (what i now know to be) anxiety about returning to my small home town for my senior year. Like, literally sick. I felt like i was going to be walking into a den of snakes, instead of the hallways of my high school.

I felt pretty fucking lost.

It felt like starting all over again, as my core group of friends at the time (the ones that had been lied to all summer by Dickface) were a year younger than me - so i had to find ways to connect to people in my own grade. It's not like i didn't talk or hang out with my year mates, i did! But, as i say, they were not part of my core group.

Looking back 13 years (HOLY SHIZNIT) to the beginning of my senior year, i'm still not entirely sure how it happened, but i started hanging out with this one girl, Stacy, quite regularly.

She became my life line that year. She probably never knew it, but she was the reason why i actually enjoyed my senior year. She liked me, and i liked her, and before long we were inseparable.

We arranged our schedules so that we both had the same spare periods, and in the last semester we had 3rd period spare (right before lunch) and 4th period spare (right after lunch) and that meant that we could drive out to her acreage and have lunch and spend a good long time perfecting Rainbow Road on Mario Kart. In fact, i can't even count how many times we strolled into English late - to much Eye Rolling from our English Teacher, with the words: "Sorry, we were playing Rainbow Road!" as our excuse.

B-rad, at that time, would sometimes join us for lunch - which was more often than not some kind of Lipton's Sidekicks Noodles... or maybe a delectable cream cheese brownie made fresh by Stacy's mom that morning.

She was my rock. Some nights, when we had nothing better to do, we would get dressed up and then drive to the city to just drive around with music blaring, talking about boys and sex and the BackStreet Boys, as you do when you're 17....

She got me my first job at Burger King, and some of the night shifts we spent there working together were priceless. I loved working late shift... the dining room was mostly empty most of the night, and the majority of our "work" was doing the Drive Thru, and amusing ourselves by pretending that i was an Australian Exchange student - complete with a somewhat convincing accent.

We went to city parties with her city friends - who i tried to get close to, but i'm pretty effin' shy.... how i became friends with Stacy, i'm still not so sure.

Look at that big beautiful smile!

She was always there for me, even when i started (STUPIDLY) dating Dickface again that year (but for the last time, thankfully) and i was there for her too. One night, while hanging out in her room her dad came home, and i don't know if he was drunk or just really really angry (i hardly ever saw him, to be honest) and he got into a big loud and scary fight with Stacy's mom... and when the screaming and yelling spilled into Stacy's room it got very real very fast.

He called her a stupid slut, just like her mom, and a lot of other scary things - completely oblivious to the fact that i was sitting on the bed, terrified... when he finally left the room - i grabbed Stacy and held her while she cried and said: "Just pack a bag!"

She stayed with my family for almost 3 weeks.

When things got scarily stupid with Dickface - which may or may not have led to me to a position of sitting outside my house with an unopened bottle of painkillers contemplating downing the whole thing... i ran across the street to the gas station and called her from a pay phone. She was there within minutes.

There are many MANY photos like this... in her car, naturally

We went to grad together, with our escorts, in a limo - in true Stacy fashion. She was bigger than life! Always a step ahead of our small town, it seemed like she was destined to get out there and do things.

The summer after high school, while she went to Ontario to visit her boyfriend who was working on a pipeline, i moved in with my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, in a very secret and covert operation called: "Move in with Pam before Stacy gets back!" Don't get me wrong, i still loved Stacy and loved hanging out with her, but she could be a tricky friend. She often exaggerated things, not lying per se, but close to it... and she was always, seemingly, searching for attention. Which is fine if you understand that she's like that - it's easier to take in small doses... But before graduation she had been dropping hints about moving in together, and i was pretty sure if we lived together, i'd kill her in her sleep!

So, she came home - and eventually got over the fact that i was living with Pam. I was going to University at the time, and she was still working at the Burger King - now as an Assistant Manager or sorts...

We still hung out a lot, going bowling, going to parties, drinking, partying... she was over the moon when B-rad and i finally started dating (after months and MONTHS of me talking about him...)

and then one day, that winter, she informed me that she and her boyfriend were going to have a baby, and were to be married that summer. I was to be a bridesmaid.

I know, it's horrible, but when she married Taylor and had her daughter - i became that friend who really WANTED to stay friends, but i was living a completely different life. I was still partying and staying out late, and doing things on the spur of the moment... and she was a mom now. And married. And our interests shifted and she found other Mom friends and i started hanging out more and more with my new friends from University.

Plus, i really didn't like her husband, so it was hard to go over to visit... they were still babies themselves, and to see the way he treated her and his daughter was too much for me. it was hard to see the pattern of Stacy's parents being repeated right in front of me.

After graduation - at some party or other

We kept in touch for a while, but eventually we grew apart - as you do when you're growing up and trying to figure out who you are.

I eventually moved from our small town, and moved in with B-rad in Calgary. Then i heard that she and her husband and their two kids had bought the house next door to my parents place. So, sometimes when i would come home to visit, we'd catch up. She was never very happy in her relationship, but she LOVED LOVED LOVED her kids.

In all those years after we drifted apart, i would hear things through the grapevine, and sometimes they'd be met with a head shake and a "well, that certainly sounds like Stacy"...

She got and beat Thyroid Cancer, she wanted to be a cop, she was taking flying lessons... her and her husband were not doing well...

So, it wasn't much of a surprise when we heard that she and Taylor were over.

During that time, i hardly saw her anymore. I would run into her here or there - she became a Zumba instructor, she was SUPER skinny, but still very smiley. We just weren't the same people we were in high school, so there was never really much to talk about when we DID run into each other.

Then, through the magic of facebook - we reconnected a bit, just at the end of June. I sent her a message saying that he looked so happy in her profile pic with her new man. We had a brief exchange catching each other up on our lives... her kids, her job, her man... my kid(s), my job, my man. It was nice.

Then i went back to my normal life and didn't think about her again until yesterday afternoon, when i found out that she had been killed in a two car collision just outside of the city on Saturday night.

I honestly don't know what to think or how to feel.

Mostly i feel....weird. Numb. I said to a friend yesterday afternoon that i hoped it was just shock and not that i'm an emotional zombie.

I mean, it's so surreal when someone your age dies. Even though i'm 30 now, i still feel like 'm in my twenties and we're all invincible. That death is something that happens to much older people, or to people that i don't know.

I spent the majority of last night in a kind of haze. We went out to B-rad's parents for a family supper, and i didn't want to think about Stacy, or her family, or her kids... or how she died, or what may have happened... but it was ALL i could think about... and i started to wonder why i wasn't feeling *more*

it wasn't until we were driving home, when i started remembering the beginning of our relationship. Not the parts where we were drifting apart, or how we just eventually stopped talking... but the parts where she was my best friend in the world for almost two years. I remembered all those things i talked about at the beginning of this post.

I still haven't cried.

I feel like i'm in grieving limbo... not sure where to begin.

I didn't know the 30 year old Stacy.

Goodbye, old friend. You'll always have a special place in my heart.

But i remember and deeply miss the 17 year old one.

Conversation Videos

2010-09-13T10:51:00.001-06:00

Because Earl suggested it - i made this conversation into a video...

then i had fun making this one... but if you haven't seen THIS POST, it might not make sense. Still kinda funny though...

(Videos created at http://www.xtranormal.com)

A funny Conversation

2010-09-13T08:14:00.000-06:00

I had this little exchange with Suzi over at Eat, Bitch, and Whine last Friday afternoon, and i thought it was cute... so now you get to read it.

Suzi: Oh! I got your anniversary card back in the mail, I guess with the embellishments I used it needed more postage! So I'll just give it to you when I see you. Sorry!

Me: Seriously??
That’s hilarious.

Suzi: Yeah I already had 57c on it and they want another 65! I wanted to write a note on the back of the envelope that Canada Post was a bunch of bastards and then re-mail it to you - is that a felony?

Me: I don’t think so… although I’m not 100% sure…
And holy crap – a regular stamp is 57c now??

Suzi: Yeah! Sorry your anniversary just isn't worth $1.22 to me! : )

Me: LOL….

I’m just touched that you cared enough at all to send a card with insufficient postage. :)

Curse Words - a Writing Prompt gone on too long....

2010-09-10T11:37:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, in a place far away, a young version of The Diva lived the happy life of a child.

She was raised by a loving family - taught to be a 'good girl' and to behave like a young lady...

and then...

she hit puberty - and all hell broke loose... (Yet another reason to be happy to be having boys!)

Seriously, folks. I used to be a goody goody. I KNOW! you can't even imagine it, can you? well, it's true.

I was brought up in a very warm and caring Mormon household. I dreamed of my Temple Wedding to a returned Missionary... sort of.

I remember standing next to the fridge in our little farm house, my mother baking or canning or something at the counter, and us having a lovely chat - when the topic of conversation changed to who i would someday marry - i was probably about ten or eleven years old.... and i said very matter-of-factly: "I'm not going to get married in the Temple, mom." when she asked why not i replied: "Well, i'm not going to marry a Mormon." Dun Dun DUNNNNN!!!!

It seems that, even at that early age, i was pretty sure that an Eternal Celestial Marriage was not for me.

Annnnnnnnd it was all down hill from there.

I started hanging out with some of the 'bad kids' in the 8th grade... i snuck out of the house, i tried smoking cigarettes (and promptly barfed), i dated before i was 16, i may or may not have been involved in a midnight break and enter into the outdoor pool to do some skinny dipping....

but one thing remained true through the tumultuous time before i moved to the Skatch.

I did not swear.

Seriously.

I may have been breaking laws, smoking cigarettes, and fooling around with boys... but the harshest word i uttered was "Crap!" and maybe "Dang"... or the occasional "DAMN" if i was REALLY steamed.

"So, what the fuck happened?" i hear you all saying...

I trained myself to swear. I KNOW! it started in my last few years of High School... Dammit became part of my vernacular - the gateway curse. Before i knew it, i would slip in a 'shit' here or there... but i was so Overly Cautious of ever letting one slip at home that it wasn't until i was out on my own, living in my apartment before i ever started cursing with any regularity. Even so, the F-Bomb was still off limits... unless i was really really mad - or feeling particularly dirty in the bedroom. Wink.

Eventually, it all became part of my vocab. I had a really hard time uttering the word "God" before "Dammit" - and it wasn't until i went through my 'spiritual' revelation of my early twenties and realized that i wasn't going to be struck down by a man in the sky for saying Goddammit. I tell ya, 18-20 years of "Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain" was hard to shake. But - whatever my own personal relationship with any whatever kind of Deity there was, i was pretty sure that god, if there was one, couldn't care less what i said - as long as i wasn't a dick of a human being.

Today, it's not like i swear all the time. I don't really. I type swear words more often than i speak them.

I really feel it's important to have an arsenal of stress relieving words... even though - relatively speaking, my arsenal is still quite small and tame. Yes, the odd F-bomb will find its way out of my lips, but you're more likely to hear me utter "Shit!" when i drop things on the floor (mostly cuz it's so damn hard to pick things up now) - i don't even register "damn" as a curse word anymore. And Studies have shown, now, that swearing can be good for you.

So, all this is well and good - but now we have small ears living in our house - and those small ears are attached to our Two Year Old son... who, every once in a while, starts chanting - with perfect diction: "Ffffuckk! Ffffuckk! Ffffuckk! Ffffuckk"

Okay, i'm going to be the bad parent here and say that it's actually kinda fucking adorable.

BUT - i'm also aware that my kid is going to have to eventually join polite society, where the word fuck is generally frowned upon.

SO.

What to do?

As i said, i think it's important to have words to express emotions of extreme anger, or pain. And screaming out "FUDGE!" when i stub my toe just doesn't cut it, when i know that a loud resounding "FUCK!" will make me feel so much better.

So how do i, as a parent, teach my child that some words are appropriate and some words aren't - and how do i teach him to know the difference?

I never really liked the idea of disciplining for the use of an expressive word. It sounds like some kind of censoring gestapo... and also, i remember the taste of that bar of Ivory Soap.

In a way, i guess it was different because growing up i never heard my parents swear. Ever. There was one time, when i was about 10, when my dad hurt himself fixing the car and i heard him say: SHIT! but i was in such a state of shock, i didn't know what to do so i ran into the house!

Now that i'm an adult, he swears a bit more frequently - but always in the form of a joke.... as a punchline.

The first time i heard my mother swear i was probably already married, or at least living with B-rad, and my mom said that someone was being a 'real bitch!', which just about made my brain explode.

Chewie is growing up with swearing being the norm. B-rad drops the F-bomb from time to time, and shit and damn, sunovabitch, and bastard can be heard in casual conversation.

Now, before the hate mail starts, we have been making an effort to clean up the language in our house. But i don't want it all to be gone, for the simple reason that expressive words are not necessarily bad!

I think that maybe the way is to teach him about respect for other people, how some people would be offended by that kind of language, how it's okay to use those expressive words AT HOME and as long as they are not directed specifically at a person, because then the word becomes hurtful. I guess we'll learn as we go; i don't want my kids to be spewing out f-bombs just cuz they can, but i don't want to be standing over them with a bar of soap when they slam their fingers in the door and say: OUCH! FUCK!

For now, when Chewie starts his Fuck-chant, B-rad and i just try to not laugh and distract him with something else. Without any kind of attention, negative or shocked or whatever, he'll just stop on his own. And he does.

Oh, and the only swear word i DON'T LIKE or use (not including all racist and discriminatory words - those are bad, m'kay?) is the C-U-Next-Tuesday word. It's the only word that will get a reaction out of me because it's hateful, derogatory, and it makes lady bits seem dirty and unpleasant - and we all know that my lady bits are a land of rainbows and unicorns and smells like cotton candy and flowers.

Grace in Small things

2010-09-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

1.) someone to bitch about work with
2.) my brand spanking new to me Typewriter - i shall name her Daisy.
3.) feeling vindicated
4.) long hot showers
5.) knowing that there's only 2 more months of work until i'm on mat leave.

Dancing at the Movies

2010-09-09T09:57:00.000-06:00

I saw this video this morning over at Farmer's Wifey and i had to share it. After watching it, i have come to a conclusion that i think you'll all agree on...

1.) Jamie Lee Curtis is frikkin' hot.

2.) John Travolta is frikkin' creepy.

3.) Water makes dancing better... and splashier...

4.) Billy Elliot is the cutest little dancer of all time, it's like Electricity!

5.) No one moves like Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire...

and perhaps my most controversial point:

6.) Every movie... EVERY ONE... should end with a big group dance number!!

Could you imagine it?? Like, at the end of The Matrix, after Neo finds out he's the one and blasts the Smith to Smith-erines... and comes back to the real world.... suddenly the music starts and Neo, Trinity, Tank, and Morpheus start dancing!! That would Rock.

Or what about the end of Terminator an exhausted Sarah Conner gets out of her Jeep and dances with the gas attendant - the Tango...

At the End of Shawshank Redemption, Red walks along the beach to see Andy workin's on his boat - then the beach is filled with islanders wearing bright feathered costumes and they all dance the night away....

i think i need to call Hollywood.

I'm pretty sure i'm on to something here.

ugh - and what we've been up to this summer

2010-09-07T19:57:00.000-06:00

My big beautiful buddha belly

it's getting kinda tiring carrying this thing around all the time.

Can you believe it's been 6 months already? half a frikkin' year? Not only that - but in 4 weeks i will be at the same stage i was when i had Chewie - that's scary. But don't worry, it's not going to happen that way this time... i hope....

We are arse deep in the ever continuing saga of our home renovations from the flood. We are making progress though, slowly but surely.

work work work

Here's some shots of the repaired dry wall and paint...

looking good

We did take some time off this summer - and made a trip to Winnipeg to visit some family (hello Janell!) Chewie got crazy sick while we were gone, like - he got pink eye + a sinus infection + ear infection + some kind of weird heat rash... but he was very happy boy considering.

sun baby

Here he is playing on the beach at Lake Winnipeg.

we also went to the Zoo in Winnipeg.

looking at the Tiger

to go to the lake with my family - it was mostly relaxing, kinda crazy with all my brothers and their kids...

got this cool shot of this old cabin in the water

this was at about 6:30 in the morning - beautiful

B-rad has been hard at work building our new den/studio/guestroom in the basement. I help by being his sounding board and listening to his ideas and adding my two cents...

it will be awesome. in time.

some framing in the basement

This labour day weekend B-rad and I celebrated our six year anniversary - which happens to coincide with the Fireworks festival!

As Chewie says: "Fireworks go... BOOOOM BOOOOOM BOOOOM!"

So i think we're all caught up now.

How was your summer?

Baby art

2010-09-03T08:59:00.000-06:00

He's only two.... he's a genius. ;)

Third Trimester...already?

2010-09-03T08:56:00.000-06:00

Closed Eyes - Self Portrait...

2010-09-02T09:39:00.000-06:00

Kissing

2010-09-01T11:35:00.002-06:00

I was 12 - going on 13 (going on 30) when i first saw it.

Where i grew up in my small town in B.C., i went to a country school from Grades 3-6, then i was bussed into the town for Grade 7 before moving up to the 'big leagues' of the local high school in Grade 8.

It was early September, and i remember wandering through the enormous (to me) High School library over lunch - mostly hiding out because i wasn't one of the popular kids who hung out in their cliques and i wasn't one of the bad kids who hung out in the back parking lot smoking cigarettes... i was just me. Shy, awkward, uncertain, terrible at making conversation... so i retreated to the quiet safety of the library.

I was sitting in the big yellow chair next to the magazine rack, leafing through magazines waiting for the bell to ring so i'd at least be able to go to my next class and get the day over with.

I don't remember what magazine i was looking at, but suddenly in the bottom left corner was this piece of art. I sat there looking at it, the bright colours, the intensity, the eternity symbols and flames combining the two lovers at the heart and the mind... and i remember thinking: "I would give anything for someone to kiss me like that."

I was mesmerized.

I took the magazine to the huge cream coloured Xerox copier in the corner by the sign out desk and made a terrible black and white, grainy copy and slipped it into my binder as the bell rang and went off to class.

I hung it in my locker.

I looked at it every day.

I was entranced by the art, not fully knowing why. I had no idea who had created it, i had no idea where to even begin to look.

When school ended that year, i carefully peeled it from my locker and took it home and hung it on my wall where it stayed until my dad announced that summer that he was packing us up and moving us to The Skatch.

When i was unpacking my new room, i found the grainy photocopy - and i hung it on my new wall in my new room - next to the light switch where i would see it every day. Still thinking: "If only someone would kiss me like that."

Years went by, i found my way in my new school - made some great friends, even dabbled in love... but still never found that amazing kiss...

You know where this is going, right??

B-rad and i had a very rocky dating history. But since the first time we kissed in the ninth grade, i compared every other kiss in my life to his.

As our relationship grew after high school, and we became more and more interconnected, i realized; HE made me feel on fire, HE made me feel connected... He made me feel like the woman in the painting.

In my first year of University - I moved out of my parents house into an apartment in the city with my soon-to-be sister-in-law... sadly, the worn photocopy did not come with me.

at this time, B-rad was just getting into TOOL and was pushing his music on me, as he does. And as i do, i resisted - until i started listening to A Perfect Circle and fell in love with my Boyfriend Maynard.

In 2001 TOOL released their 3rd studio Album Lateralus which heavily featured the artwork of one Alex Grey.

I looked at the intense inside booklet, which was designed like those old anatomy text books with the clear sheets overlapping showing each section of the body, only every level got deeper on a more spiritual level.

There was something familiar about the style. I didn't grasp it at first... and just left it alone.

Then one day i spent some time on the Alex Grey website looking at some of the artwork, likely shopping for gifts for B-rad... and i saw it.

Kissing, Alex Grey, 1983

oil on linen, 66 x 44 inches

I couldn't believe that after 10 years, i would be led back to this piece. I immediately showed B-rad and told him about the magazine, the photo copy, the dream that someday someone would kiss me like that - and how that someone was him.

It felt like a miracle to me. Of all the artists in the world throughout history, i never thought i would ever know who had created the piece that meant so much to me through my formative years.

That year B-rad surprised me and ordered the print of Kissing for me for Valentine's Day. We were newly weds.

It is framed, and it hangs over our bed, where he kisses me - and makes me feel that love, that passion, that intense connection that i longed for from the age of 13. I'm still amazed at the journey that that painting has made with me. I look at it, and now i say: "I'm so glad that HE kisses me like that."

Kissing, without a doubt, is my favourite work of art.

30 random things...

2010-08-31T08:00:00.001-06:00

ecause no one really wants to read 30 random-ass facts about a random-ass person...

Boredom is quite the killer isn't it?

Also, if you don't know what to do when you're tagged in this, it's easy: Write 30 facts about yourself and then tag some people. Easy, eh? (except i'm not tagging anyone)

1. I used to kick some serious ass in guitar hero... and then i had a baby. i doubt i'd be able to pass on HARD now...

2. I am writing a novel, slowly.

3. I sometimes dream about being a morning person, like those people i see in Starbucks - just sitting around chatting, drinking coffee with no apparent place to be... then i remember that i love sleeping, and will probably never be a morning person.

4. In the Sexy Vampire war, i'm Team Eric all the way. Twilight Vampires are harlequin romance for 12 year old girls, which is fine if that's all your expecting... Give me Eric/Bill/Sam any day.

5. I've forgotten how fun it is to colour with Crayons. Thanks Chewie!

6. I feel like there needs to be at least six of me to get everything i want out of life... i want it all and i want it right now.

7. My hips are double jointed! but not in any way that makes it fun in the Boudoir... :(

8. While most days i'm pretty cool with how my body looks, sometimes i think i'd like to be size six...with A cups... GASP!

9. I think my best feature is my eyes... and my eyebrows are pretty kick ass too.

10. I am debating getting a sleeve tattoo... i think tattoos are hot.

11. My husband is going to Vancouver in December to see Roger Waters do "The Wall" in concert... and while i am super happy for him - i am uber jealous and may cry when he leaves. :( (sorry honey!)

12. I have read the book "Lamb: The Gospel According Biff, Christs' Childhood Pal" about 5 times. It's one of the only books to ever make me laugh out loud.

13. I'm pretty easy going, but have practically ZERO tolerance or room in my life for close mindedness. The world is too big and too beautiful and too full of wonder to conform to whatever box you're stuck in. *gets down off soapbox*

14. I love autumn because i love sweaters and scarves and warm drinks.

15. I want to visit Lillydale, NY.

16. I don't really care for the colour Yellow.

17. I have never chewed my nails (can't get over the idea of germs under them to put them in my mouth) but i am a chronic hangnail/cuticle picker/ripper/cutter...

18. Generally speaking, i get along better with guys than girls... but i did grow up in a house full of boys.

19. I am a Taurus, and i put a lot of stock into people's astrological signs. Not so much what the horoscope predictions say, but more what personality traits are generally associated with signs.

20. I am a spiritual being, but i don't believe in Religion as a means to live spiritually. If that works for you, that's cool... but the minute you start preaching is the minute i lose interest/respect for you. Your way is what works for you, it is not the ONLY way.

21. When i was about 3 i got one of those Giant Barbie heads for Christmas, the ones you can practice doing hair and make up on... anyway, i remember dropping the sponge eye shadow applicator down the heat register in the upstairs hallway Christmas Day - and i felt so guilty that Santa brought this toy JUST FOR ME and i already wrecked it... i cried. I also was terrified of the monster in the furnace who was surely eating my sponge eye shadow applicator. This memory has haunted me for years. It is the farthest back i can remember. Nice first memory, Laura.

22. The house where i spent my formative Teenage years was haunted. Now its a big hole in the ground, i think they guy that bought it is turning it into a car dealership. I hope the spirits found their way somewhere... if not - don't buy a car from there!

23. Things like random flying shoes, footsteps overhead (through walls), names being said when there's no one home, Visions of dark figures at the foot of the bed, the feeling of a dark heavy presence in my bedroom, crying babies, laughing six year olds... all these things and more - happened in my haunted house.

24. My current house is not haunted. Instead, it flooded and it's currently in a state of repair. But progress is happening!

25. I like dress up parties. as in, costumes - not fancy dress...

26. I have been blogging for almost seven years.

27. I have kept a journal for the most part since i was 10 years old.

28. Even though i had a pretty good time in high school, you couldn't pay me to ever go back.

29. My favourite number is 27.

30. My favourite yoga position is Downward Facing Dog.

spaced out

2010-08-30T08:37:00.000-06:00

Last week B-rad and i had the week off from work, so we spent quite a bit of that time working on the house - finishing up the paint in the rumpus room where we had flood damage, heading to the store time and time again to look at carpet samples, pick up more supplies, get some brain storming ideas...

it's hard to believe that we're actually getting somewhat closer to being finished... well... there's still a LONG way to go - especially in the basement where B-rad ripped down walls and is now re-framing our office/den. I'm constantly amazed at how smart he is, cuz if i was doing this all by myself - i think our house would fall down. ha!

anyway, we did take one day off during the week when the weather was nice, and took our little family out to Pike Lake to play in the water. It sure wasn't the vacation we were thinking we'd have when we booked the time off at the beginning of the year, but i think we got a lot accomplished. And our new office/den will be kick ass!

must try to remember to take some pictures... i'm already kicking myself that i didn't take a before picture.

ah well.

So, i'm back at work now - and while i catch up on work emails - check out this awesome video of the Skies in the Skatch. One of our provincial logos is "Land of the Living Skies" and i think after watching this, you'll see why. Go SKATCH!

Land of Living Skies from Two Brothers Films on Vimeo.

The last day in Boston

2010-08-18T11:15:00.000-06:00

Teeni, TGH, and I spent my last day in Massachusetts wandering around Hah-vahd Yahd and Boston.
This meant that i got to ride on my very first Subway. I mean, there are trains and stuff in Canada... not in the Skatch, but in Calgary i used to ride the C-Train, which was, i guess, a subway - for all intents and purposes.

They picked me up from the hotel and we drove to station and rode the rest of the way in. When we arrived in Cambridge we wandered the grounds of Harvard University. I had my picture taken with John Harvard, rubbing his toe for good luck...

Harvard is a very beautiful campus. If only i had any desire to excel in school. ha! The buildings were beautiful and the grounds were exquisite! Here i am, looking saucy by a fountain!

The more we wandered around, the more we realized that it must have been Graduation day! There were hundreds of chairs set up in one of the courtyards, and there were miscellaneous tents set up around campus. I took a bunch of pictures of ivy and buildings, and also the iron work on the fences, the patterns i saw all around me. I'm sure they thought i was a looney, but what can i say? I had just spent a bunch of days learning about repetitive patterns. ;)

We took a subway a few stops down and walked past THIS building at M.I.T., mostly because i wanted to take a picture of it to show B-rad when i got home. It's a crazy, zany building.

More walking and a quick lunch before we found our way back to the trains and rode into Boston and meandered through a most beautiful park. We really had no plans, other than walking. And that was just fine! The weather was gorgeous, the company was FABULOUS... and the Giant Park Pretzels?? Not so great. I did, however, buy a bag of roasted nuts from this vendor, which made up for the awfulness of the giant pretzel.

After a long hot day in the sun, and some light shopping and a GIANT comic book store, and a picture at CHEERS - i was ready to call it a day. So we headed back to the trains and rode back to the car - and TGH and i had a good private moment when this big burly Bostonian who made and sold crocheted hats said to a random passenger: "Man, it's wicked hot out today!"

THRILL!

See, TGH and i had been talking about Boston-speak, and how everything is wicked... so to see it in real life action was pretty awesome. And funny. And i'm glad i got to share that with Teeni's hilarious Hubby... (we have very similar senses of humour, it was a fun time!)

For supper we dined at a lovely Italian restaurant that was in another state! I don't remember which one, though. It's so very odd for me to think about driving in and out of state-limits just to go shopping, or to have dinner. In Canada - the Provinces are very very big. Like, it probably takes a good 14 hours to drive across The Skatch from Alberta to Manitoba.

Anyway, those JERKS that i was hanging out with would NOT let me pay for supper... and AFTER THAT they ordered me birthday cake! (THE NERVE!!) which was tasty, but also embarrassing. Honestly, why do they do that in restaurants? It's some sort of cruel prank...here's some cake but FIRST we shall SING HORRIBLY to you! grrr.... just kidding, i love you guys.

Back to the hotel for my last night in the U. S. of A....
and in the morning, we met one last time for coffee at Dunkin' Donuts - and took one of the only pictures of Teeni and i together. I was super excited to be heading home, missing my man and my baby like crazy, but i had such a great time really getting to know Teeni and her husband - (Teeni, by the way, can curse like a sailor! I was SHOCKED!! hee hee)

In the past, Teeni and i have joked in emails about being sisters from different families. I think it must be true. We must have known each other in a previous life, because being with her was so easy and familiar and not at all scary or intimidating (i'm super shy, i know - hard to imagine, but it's true) and they were both so welcoming from the second i landed to the second i left. My family on the East Coast. Love you both! Thanks for the memories... hugs and kisses.

update, schmupdate

2010-08-06T08:59:00.000-06:00

psst... hello?

is this thing on??

I am NOT at BlogHer. Are you?

Summer = hard to get into the blogging spirit. All i want to do is sit in the sun with a good book - bleh.

Also, there's not much to report - B-rad is slowly but surely getting the basement fixed, which is very exciting. I am continuing to get as big as the house we're fixing, cooking a baby is hard work, even more so when toddler-wrangling.

Every day is a new ache or pain, i currently have a little fetus bum trying to escape from the right side of my belly.

Artoo is a ninja baby - and by ninja i mean, he is Stealthy and is hard to be felt on the outside, a complete switcheroo from Chewie who was always up front and centre and kicking for anyone who put their hand on my buddha belly.

Summer is almost over - even the nights are getting cooler and the leaves on my georgia creeper are starting to turn red... eep!

Our backyard is a frikkin' jungle, man. I can count, on one hand, how many times we've been out there this year, because of the flood we lost our lawn mower and we haven't replaced it yet, so the grass is a foot high and the mosquitoes have morphed into SuperMosquitoes and they love to prey on Chewie's supple and tasty baby flesh. No amount of repellent works on them, they're immune. A new super race.... vampire bugs.

but the upside is that it's stopped raining, mostly. (knock on wood) and we've actually had some warm days... and as i type this i can feel my hands swelling... so it's time to go have a big ol' litre of water.

hope everything's well in your parts of the blog world.

cheers.

20 weeks??

2010-07-13T16:00:00.000-06:00

Holy cow, i'm already 20 weeks pregnant... that's halfway people!!

Incidentally, we are finding out the sex of the baby this Thursday! Do you think it's a BOY or a GIRL??
Go here to cast your vote

also, i will try to post some kind of preggo belly photo in the future.

MacBook....Pro.

2010-07-09T22:15:00.000-06:00

Well, i did it. I bought myself a new computer yesterday - a MacBook Pro... for those of you who don't know, i lost my FIRST macbook when our home was broken into, and my last macbook was accidentally left on the floor when our basement flooded last week. so sad.

I took my little Fiona II into the Mac dealer in town to see if anything could be recovered. They called and left a message on Tuesday - my hard drive could not be saved. It was devastating.

The first time i lost a laptop - yeah, i had pictures and stuff on it... but this time - i had pictures from the day Chewie was born.... and videos of him in Neonatal Intensive Care.... and i had drafts of the novel i was sometimes writing... and i had a folder of Blog posts that i had started, or that i had saved. Sigh.

The second loss was much more painful. I felt like i was going through the stages of mourning...

denial - i didn't think about the loss of my hard drive, it didn't seem real to me... like i though, it can still be saved...

anger - when it finally hit home that everything was lost, i felt like i had been punched in the gut... and i got mad. I was so frustrated with everything, my house - the flood, the party who left my laptop on the floor accidentally, b-rad for not being as angry as me... i left the house at 9:45 pm. i had to get out. I went and filled up the car and then drove around for 45 minutes - fuming, until i calmed down.

bargaining - i don't know how this one applies, but i'm sure i must have done some bargaining with the hard drive gods...

depression - knowing that the documentation of the first two years of Chewie's life was gone forever, i cried and found myself staring blankly ahead for who knows how long.

acceptance - i knew i had to start over. I needed a new laptop. Once i had one, i felt the healing could begin.

Goodbye Fiona II... you will be missed...

For those of you who are new here (hello!) i have a tendency to name the things i own... hence Fiona Apple, and Fiona Apple II...

it was suggested to me by my dear friend Saviabella that maybe this time around i shouldn't name my computer Fiona... seems like that name is cursed. I think she may be right!!

So, i'm feeling out some new names right now - trying to find the one that fits just right.... when i named my first Macbook Fiona - it just felt...Right. That's what i'm looking for.

These are the suggestions i've had on facebook:

1) Gwyneth via Savia
2) Granny via Wenchwire
3) Pink Lady via Kristina
4) Fuji via my Aunt Jennette
5) Northern Spy via Mika
6) REXNOR THE DESTROYER (via my bro Willy Billy)
7) Johnny (as in Appleseed - via Teeni's husband TGH because i stayed in the town he was born in when i visited New England in May)
8) "try something cool....like Steve" via my very sexy hubby B-rad.

I was playing with the name Paltrow... so good on Savia, but i also like "Rizzo" as in the chick from Grease, cuz she was a Pink Lady.... and Pink Ladies are also apples...

Do you have a suggestion?
or do you like one of the above names better than the rest?

I've always considered my laptops to be girls, but i'm not opposed to a boy's name - as long as it fits...

give me whatcha got!!

yet another quickie

2010-07-06T20:47:00.002-06:00

if you want to see a few pics of my flooded house, check this link out.

update: Tornado Watch 2010!

2010-07-03T13:53:00.000-06:00

i feel like it's been ages since i've seen a computer... gah.

Just an update: The Skatch is continually being hit by Tornado Warnings, some tornadoes hitting ground (not by my house, thankfully) We are also being relentlessly pelted by thunderstorms...

As a result of Tuesday night's thunderstorms - we woke to find our 3rd floor and basement of our 4 level split had flooded. The storm water came up the patio doors and into the 3rd level, then diverted down the stairs and filled our crawl space with about 2" of water.

Our backyard was completely under water. The high water mark at the back of the yard was 4 feet up the fence. it had drained out by the time we got up, but we have been working pulling out carpeting, tearing out drywall... cleaning out the basement... by "we" i of course mean B-rad. I'm not much help, being preggo and all. But we've had some help. My parents, B-rad's dad, my brother...

it's a very slow work in progress, and as much as it sucks, we are very lucky. Some people had waist deep water in their basements...

the worst part, for me... is the loss of Fiona II, my second macbook. :(

I took it in today to see if the hard drive can be saved... we'll see.

Part Five: TEENI and Salem!

2010-06-29T11:10:00.000-06:00

Preamble: Why I went to Boston (click here) Part one of my Adventure (click here) Why Teeni is such a peach (click here) Learning the craft (click here)

The Friday of the Zentangle® seminar - i was nervously watching for anyone that might be Teeni and her husband TGH. When i finally saw them pull up i ran out to meet them. I recognized her immediately - because she's short. ;)

She said she recognized me because of my glasses. HA!

I quickly ran back inside to say a farewell to all my new found Zentangle buddies and fellow CZT™s and we were on our way! I was a little bit worried about our meeting, even though i reassured Teeni several times by email that it was going to be awesome... i thought - what if she thinks i'm not cool! GASP! What if it's really awkward and we have nothing to talk about! GASP!

Well, i certainly didn't have to worry about that last thing. We hit the highway and we were babbling like school girls on their way to summer camp! It was so relieving to have the connection in real life that we have in the virtual world. I was 100% comfortable from the moment we hugged in the parking lot.

I'm not sure what TGH thought of me, at first. ha ha... he was probably thinking: MAN, this Canadian girl can talk!! tee hee. just kidding, he was also really great - and FUNNNNY!!!

I'm was so lucky to have these two to show me around their beautiful state. We drove up to Salem, Mass to check out the witches - and on the way there i marvelled at the difference between New England and the Skatch. So...Many....Trees!! I tried to convey to Teeni and TGH how the highways are different here. I still have a thought to go out in the middle of nowhere and take pictures...flat. Flat.... flat...FLAT!! Lots of sky, though.

In the Skatch, i pride myself on having a pretty good sense of direction. I generally know where i am all the time, y'know - some people get disoriented when they walk out of malls or movie theatres, not me. i usually know which direction to go. In Massachusetts i was TOTALLY disoriented. I had no idea where i was MOST of the time.

The roads all turn and twist, but that's not it. I figured it out - there's not as much sky! it's hard to see the sun. I never realized how i took my bearing from the sun, but it turns out that i do! LOL - if i didn't have TGH and his GPS, i would STILL be wandering around Salem trying to get back to the car. (or CAH, in Boston-Speak)

I found Salem to be adorable. Well, i found most of New England to be adorable!! How can it not be? it's the New World! There's so much history there, and as we were driving along the country it's not uncommon for houses to have plaques on them declaring the year they were built! 1700s!! some as early as the late 1600s! amazing.

Salem is also very touristy. It reminded me of being in Cancun - where there's all those shops and they all sell the same stuff - only instead of seashell magnets and tequila shooters, Salem is full of shops selling Witchcraft stuff. Most of it was pretty hokey, a lot of the stores carried Harry Potter stuff and Twilight stuff... weird.

We decided to stay away from the tourist trap museums, the ones that really played up the hysteria of the witch trials - claiming: "This is what we THINK MAY HAVE HAPPENED!!! OOooOOOOOOOOOOOOooOOO...."

As we were only there for the afternoon, we decided to check out the Witch House. The only building in Salem that had anything to do, historically, with the trails. Not that any of the witches lived there. It was the home of a judge who served on the trial.

here i am, all Vanna White and junk.... VOILA! the Witch House!

I was surprised to learn that the Hysteria really only lasted about 9 months. I don't know, i assumed it was years of women being killed. For all the hype it's gotten, a person WOULD think it was a longer deal. Although, if i was living at the time of the trials, it would probably have FELT like years. Scary.

They think that all the weird 'demonic' type behaviour shown by those poor girls may have been caused by Ergot poisoning - a fungus that grows on rye. So, can you imagine eating a piece of bread one day, and then writing on the ground and foaming at the mouth - and then being sentenced to die?? Gahd.

here we see the ever elusive, and seldom photographed, yet infamous, Teeni.

TGH can also be seen here.

The house was really interesting, and there was a lot of information to take in. For example - the wife of the judge had, like, a 16 kids or something - yet only a few of them made it to adulthood. Small Pox, Fever, and death from infection were the leading causes... and judging on the form of modern medicine at the time - i'm be surprised if the "Cures" didn't do more harm than good. Seriously. According to them, Pee fixes everything. And urine from varying sources! Humans, horses, small animals... witches... PEE!!!

Here is a replica of a dress that Mrs. Judge may have worn at the time.

I can't imagine wearing all those layers, plus petticoats, plus stockings, plus HEADGEAR everyday. HOT HOT Summers, Cold and Miserable winters... with no streets or pavement... i imagine mud and water weighing those skirts down....

After the Witch House, we wandered over to the Cemetery where i had planned on doing some Gravestone rubbings.... HOWEVER - posted on the gate was a big sign that said: NO RUBBINGS! Dammit. I didn't want to be a rebel, so i took pictures instead.

Here's a photo of me and an amazing tree in the graveyard.

We wandered through the Witch Trail Memorial... it was very sad to see the names of all those girls who were murdered. A few men, too! The majority of them were hanged for their "Crimes"... one guy was "pressed to death" whatever that means... torture?

Carved in the stones on the ground entering the memorial were the last words of each of the victims... and it's heart breaking. Each of them declared their innocence to the end. I wish i would have taken a picture.

By now it was getting close to supper time, so we headed back to Teeni's hometown. We went to an amazing Mexican Restaurant for supper... i'm still dreaming about that delicious guacamole, guys, i'm serious! And also, this delicious pink drink of FANTASTIC...it was like a mouth-gasm.

I would also like to bring this photo to your attention:

my lovely hosts!

Please note: The size of Teeni vs the size of her Margarita!!! Oooh yeah, it was GOOD times!! lol

We ate, laughed, talked, had a wonderful time - and then it was off to beddy bye for me... us preggo's get tired - don'tchaknow.

Next stop: Hahvahd Yahd, and Boston!!

2010-06-28T16:32:00.000-06:00

Well, my first ever foray into the world of Zentangle® teaching starts tonight... it's been such a whirlwind month!! and i still haven't told you all about Teeni!! GAH!!

hang in there... it's coming.

Learning the Zen of Tangling...Zentangle!

2010-06-18T23:15:00.000-06:00

The first official day of my Zentangle® get-away, we all piled into the classroom one by one - Maria Thomas - one of the founders of Zentangle and a renowned Lettering Artist - was waiting at the door to give us our little mini-kits to work with and writing each of our names in Beautiful Calligraphy as we filed past.

Day 1 - Maria adding our names to our mini-kit boxes

I found a seat at the front of the class, and i was reminded of my University days - i did the same there too, especially if i was in a class by myself. Maria and Rick Roberts (The other founder) filled our heads to the brim with information, we learned how to do some tricky tangles (patterns) we talked about the legal stuff of being a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) and we were very well fed.

This was my first Zentangle of the course!

It was funny, even when there were things going on in the evening - games being played, hand/arm massages from the massage therapist that Rick and Maria hired to pamper us - each night a majority of us ended up back in the classroom working in our various workbooks. We couldn't get enough of the Zentangle goodness.

One night, we were very fortunate to be treated to a Zentangle session with Lois and Earl Stokes who came all the way from Hawaii to take the class. They brought with them leaves from the Autograph Tree for us to tangle on. The leaves were big and as we drew on them with bamboo sticks they turned a beautiful golden colour where our lines were. They also gave off a delicate fresh scent. This is one of my leaves.

As the leaves dry, the image stays on them and the leaf turns brown around them. I had to leave mine behind because i didn't want to have to deal with customs on my way back into Canada.

There were people from all over at the class. Lois and Earl from Hawaii, there were people from various parts of the U.S., including one woman who came from Alaska. Then there was myself and Margaret - the other woman from the Skatch - and Deb from Toronto, the three Canucks... and one woman who made the trip from the far away lands of Denmark!

I was just amazed at how nice everyone was. We were all so happy to be there together, learning from Rick and Maria, anxious to get started teaching when we got home. It was a very awesome feeling to be connected to so many people by the same cause.

When the sun finally came out (cuz it rained the first night and the first full day), i went for a walk around the yard and was all touristy on the trees there. I took so many pictures of Trees! New England has beautiful trees...

This tree, in particular, was so big. It doesn't really translate in the photo, but that bottom branch sticking out on the left side was probably a foot and a half or more in diameter. perfect for sitting on.

annnnd, here i am, sitting on it.

We did have some homework over the course of the course... :) One was to tangle the back of our nametags, here's a few:

and another was to find a pattern and figure out how to draw it from our surroundings... i was bad and never actually did my homework the second night - but i did take some pictures of awesome patterns in the conference center!

like the windows in the dining hall, for example.

It was tough being away from my two boys for so long... B-rad and i would text each other each night, i'd ask how things were going, he'd tell me about how Chewie was standing at the top of the stairs shouting: "MAMA!! WHERE AHHH YOOO!??", and how Chewie asked about me every day.... it was tough. This was my first time away from him...and B-rad for that matter, for longer than a night or two. As much fun as i was having, and as nice as it was to have some Me Time, i missed them. a lot.

On Friday we met in the classroom and spent the morning learning some more difficult and focus driven tangles - and our party got smaller and smaller as people left to catch flights or drive to their homes. I was waiting anxiously, because Friday was the day i had been looking forward to - as much as i loved the conference, i would be meeting Teeni that day!! EXCITED!!!

stay tuned for the Teeni Tale!

"Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world" - Maria Montessori

2010-06-11T14:02:00.001-06:00

Okay, at some point i promise to get back to details of my trip and stuff, but first i wanted to share something truly fantastic with you.

When B-rad and I were living in Calgary, we met a whole mess of really fantastic people. One family consists of Anni and her partner, Dug, and their daughter Aurin. (They've since added another family member since we moved away, a little girl who is almost 4!) Anni is the designer and creator at Conscious Alterations. You may remember when i did a review for her and a giveaway of one of these fantastic Wrap Caps!

Anyway, the reason i'm writing this post right now is NOT because of the great work that Anni does, but because of the amazing work her daughter is doing...right now.

Please go check out Aurin's Etsy site Hand Made 2 Save and take a look.

from her site:

Come enjoy the world of Hand Made 2 Save !
All the goods you browse here are made and or designed by me, Aurin. I am 10. I get some adult help with quality control testing, putting finishing touches on, shipping etc. (thanks mom)
Through supporting this shop, you will be giving back to animal charities in the foothills and rocky mountain regions of Alberta. we donate to the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation;
www.aiwc.ca

As of June 2010, I am donating 80% of what I sell to help the wildlife affected by the Huge Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico!
- The International Bird Rescue Research Centre
- TriState Bird Rescue and Research

If you have any suggestions of groups to send money to for this, I would love to know what u think.

To date I have made donations to the following animal charities with the help of shoppers like you!:
•Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation
•For Animals Inc
•Tristate Bird Rescue and Research Centre

As it says, Aurin is 10! At the Lilac Festival in Calgary this year, Aurin raised $70 to be donated to those helping the Wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. Let's help her do even more!!

I've ordered my bracelets! You should too!!