Man, I just don't even know what to say. There has been so much going on and so much to talk about but I never feel like doing the actual writing of this blog lately. Im all blah I guess. Seems to be a theme sometimes around here.
We move this coming Sunday. I am in love with my house, it is the nicest place that either Jason or I have ever lived in. Im beyond excited! We went there yesterday to get the key and while everyone else was inside, Jason and I were in the back garden talking about how this house feels too nice for us. It seems like a dream. Its a strange feeling, really. We don't own the house and are in fact just renting, but it feels like ours. We can stay there for the next five to seven years if we choose, and we are allowed to do whatever work we feel like doing in terms of upkeep. Jason is excited to paint the decks and fix the crown molding in the bathroom. Im excited to pick my own damn paint colors (which I already have, more on that later) and tend to my own gardens. It'll be amazing.
Before then though, we have a lot of work to do. I've bought paint for a couple of the rooms and Id like to get that on the walls before we move in. But we also have a lot of work to do around our current house before we meet the landlord for the final inspection. We've repaired the damage to the walls but we still have to paint over those spots. The carpet has a few stains that need an industrial steam cleaner (my job for today), one of the blinds in a bedroom has been broken and the new one has to be installed, the fridge/stove top/dishwasher have to be cleaned and I have to go over all of the walls with a magic eraser. Im tired just thinking about it and the fact that I want to spend every moment in the new house now, makes it all the harder. But Im happy in the direction that our lives are going so I don't mind putting in the hard work to get there.
All in all, Im happy and excited, but also tired. Hopefully I'll get around to posting a bit more in the next week before I loose internet for a couple of days.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
the planning begins
I've decided to do a lot of hand-made crafts this year for Christmas. Im not so sure I'll be able to pull that off for the boys but most of the extended family will be getting baskets filled with various hand made things. I've found a few really cute ideas that I can't wait to put together but I need a lot more. Im not super into crafty things, although I do enjoy paper crafts. So, um...HELP!
I know it's only September (almost), but you really have to be organised for this stuff. I will be doing my Christmas shopping for the kids and everyone else right after the move in early October, so I need a list of all supplies soon.
Example:
Yesterday Swistle mentioned the homemade vanilla extract and I fell in love with those cute little bottles. I know that Im going to include those in the baskets but I'd like to do a trial run first and they take a month.
Does anybody have any ideas? There are people of all ages, men and women and even dogs and cats that I can include things for. Any ideas or websites would be super helpful.
********only 116 days to go**********
That makes me a little sick too. Yikes!
I know it's only September (almost), but you really have to be organised for this stuff. I will be doing my Christmas shopping for the kids and everyone else right after the move in early October, so I need a list of all supplies soon.
Example:
Yesterday Swistle mentioned the homemade vanilla extract and I fell in love with those cute little bottles. I know that Im going to include those in the baskets but I'd like to do a trial run first and they take a month.
Does anybody have any ideas? There are people of all ages, men and women and even dogs and cats that I can include things for. Any ideas or websites would be super helpful.
********only 116 days to go**********
That makes me a little sick too. Yikes!
Monday, August 24, 2009
decisions, decisions
I've decided not to take the trip. At the moment, I just cant spend the money on something like that knowing that I have so many expenses. The cost of the trip is close to the same amount of all the extra-curriculars that kids want to take this fall. And when I think about it, I would love to spend those few days with my friend and visiting my family, but I would feel guilty if the kids couldn't take swimming or guitar lessons.
Maybe if I get a decent-paying job, I'll go to Ontario with a kid or two next year. I know that Rayden and I have talked about all the fun things there are to do there and maybe that is the better idea. We'll see.
The other decision I've made is to get an evening job while I wait for something better and in my field. I haven't wanted to go this route because with paying for child care, I would need to make about 35 000 just to pay my share of the bills. Take off that child care and its more like 22 000. So if I take something that doesn't pay well but is easy to do and I can tolerate, then I think that is the best route for now. At least it will allow us to remove some of the financial stress and give me some time away from everyone. If I can find something where I work maybe 4/5pm to 12/1am, five days a week, I think it would be perfect for now. I could still be with the children during the day and have time to work on homework with them, while making supper. Then I can leave them with Jason for the evening/bedtime routine and be home early enough that Im not exhausted the next day. Now I mean I would be tired, but I might be able to work in a nap or two through out the week.
So that's the plan. Any advice or thoughts ladies?
Maybe if I get a decent-paying job, I'll go to Ontario with a kid or two next year. I know that Rayden and I have talked about all the fun things there are to do there and maybe that is the better idea. We'll see.
The other decision I've made is to get an evening job while I wait for something better and in my field. I haven't wanted to go this route because with paying for child care, I would need to make about 35 000 just to pay my share of the bills. Take off that child care and its more like 22 000. So if I take something that doesn't pay well but is easy to do and I can tolerate, then I think that is the best route for now. At least it will allow us to remove some of the financial stress and give me some time away from everyone. If I can find something where I work maybe 4/5pm to 12/1am, five days a week, I think it would be perfect for now. I could still be with the children during the day and have time to work on homework with them, while making supper. Then I can leave them with Jason for the evening/bedtime routine and be home early enough that Im not exhausted the next day. Now I mean I would be tired, but I might be able to work in a nap or two through out the week.
So that's the plan. Any advice or thoughts ladies?
Friday, August 21, 2009
What should I do?
Amanda moved out of province almost five years ago to be closer to her family. Last week she came back for a visit and made the quick decision to move back here to NL. Apparently this will happen in less than a month. Im pretty used to the spur of the moment decisions of Amanda, but this one caught me off guard. I'll actually have a good friend in town, something I've been lacking for a couple of years.
The best part of all of it is that Amanda has asked me to make the drive with her. The plan would be for me to fly to Ontario Thursday night and then spend Friday through Sunday driving east. I was immediately excited but now Im doubtful. The whole thing would cost me about $500 and with everything else right now (moving/back to school/Christmas/not working) Im not sure if that would be a wise idea. I feel like I really need the break and getting away for three days with a good friend to just recharge might be what I need.
The other perk of taking her up on her offer is that I would get a night back home. I've been in NL for 8 years and only visited home once. Ontario is still my home and probably always will be but I think Im bound to NL. My grandfather is 88 and may not be around much longer so a visit with him would mean a lot to me, not to mention all of my child hood friends that I would like to see again. The last time I was home, the whole facebook craze hadn't quite caught on yet so I didn't have contact with so many people.
Sigh. I'd love to go and do this but Im really not sure. Part of me wants to just book the ticket and part of me is saying no. What do you think?
The best part of all of it is that Amanda has asked me to make the drive with her. The plan would be for me to fly to Ontario Thursday night and then spend Friday through Sunday driving east. I was immediately excited but now Im doubtful. The whole thing would cost me about $500 and with everything else right now (moving/back to school/Christmas/not working) Im not sure if that would be a wise idea. I feel like I really need the break and getting away for three days with a good friend to just recharge might be what I need.
The other perk of taking her up on her offer is that I would get a night back home. I've been in NL for 8 years and only visited home once. Ontario is still my home and probably always will be but I think Im bound to NL. My grandfather is 88 and may not be around much longer so a visit with him would mean a lot to me, not to mention all of my child hood friends that I would like to see again. The last time I was home, the whole facebook craze hadn't quite caught on yet so I didn't have contact with so many people.
Sigh. I'd love to go and do this but Im really not sure. Part of me wants to just book the ticket and part of me is saying no. What do you think?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
sons and daughters
“But boys are so much easier!” They told me, “Why would you want a girl? It’s all drama, drama drama...” And so the conversations would go. Every time I mentioned my desire to have a girl, almost every mother in the room felt the need to fill me in on how lucky I was that mine turned out to be boys. I couldn’t argue with them, I am lucky to have four wonderful, healthy boys. But that shouldn’t negate my desire to raise a daughter.
Boys and girls are different, just as one child is different from the next. All four of my boys have different personalities and dispositions that have nothing to do with their gender. My oldest is thoughtful, skilled in spatial thinking and hyper. My second son would rather play video games then eat and is as cuddly as a teddy bear. My only niece is a rambunctious two year old that loves to dance and has a firey temper. None of these personalities are tied to the gender of the child that owns them. Just imagine the description of my niece’s personality, had I said she was a boy. It wouldn’t make a difference, would it? Any child could be rambunctious, love to dance and have a temper.
So why do we hold on to this stereotype that girls as a group, are harder to parent? Why do we think that our sons will love their mothers deeper than our daughters will? Parenting and raising children is so much more than the everyday struggles that those flawed arguments focus on.
My longing to raise a daughter has nothing to do with the frilly dresses or pink barrettes (though they are adorable!). I want to be the mother of a girl because I want to raise a woman. I want to teach her everything that I was taught and everything that I wish I had been taught. I want to give her confidence and teach her humility; show her her worth and teach her to love; embrace her sexuality and teach her not to be ashamed; give her the tools to become anything that she wants to be and the courage to find her path.
I want to be the mother of a daughter so that I can be a part of that mother line. We come from our mothers and we live on through our daughters. We connect through our shared experience of being female and being mothers. As women we share a special strength and I believe that the relationship between mothers and daughters is an expression of that strength.
I am a mother, and I am lucky to be one. In time, I may be granted the honour of raising a daughter or I might not. If that is the case then I will continue to raise my sons to be the best men that they can be and through them my granddaughters will come. If I teach those same skills of worth, love, confidence and courage to my sons, they will pass those on to their daughters.
I may not be a part of the mother line, in the way that I had always hoped I would be. But with my sons, I am still a mother and I have the same job to do.
Boys and girls are different, just as one child is different from the next. All four of my boys have different personalities and dispositions that have nothing to do with their gender. My oldest is thoughtful, skilled in spatial thinking and hyper. My second son would rather play video games then eat and is as cuddly as a teddy bear. My only niece is a rambunctious two year old that loves to dance and has a firey temper. None of these personalities are tied to the gender of the child that owns them. Just imagine the description of my niece’s personality, had I said she was a boy. It wouldn’t make a difference, would it? Any child could be rambunctious, love to dance and have a temper.
So why do we hold on to this stereotype that girls as a group, are harder to parent? Why do we think that our sons will love their mothers deeper than our daughters will? Parenting and raising children is so much more than the everyday struggles that those flawed arguments focus on.
My longing to raise a daughter has nothing to do with the frilly dresses or pink barrettes (though they are adorable!). I want to be the mother of a girl because I want to raise a woman. I want to teach her everything that I was taught and everything that I wish I had been taught. I want to give her confidence and teach her humility; show her her worth and teach her to love; embrace her sexuality and teach her not to be ashamed; give her the tools to become anything that she wants to be and the courage to find her path.
I want to be the mother of a daughter so that I can be a part of that mother line. We come from our mothers and we live on through our daughters. We connect through our shared experience of being female and being mothers. As women we share a special strength and I believe that the relationship between mothers and daughters is an expression of that strength.
I am a mother, and I am lucky to be one. In time, I may be granted the honour of raising a daughter or I might not. If that is the case then I will continue to raise my sons to be the best men that they can be and through them my granddaughters will come. If I teach those same skills of worth, love, confidence and courage to my sons, they will pass those on to their daughters.
I may not be a part of the mother line, in the way that I had always hoped I would be. But with my sons, I am still a mother and I have the same job to do.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
more blahness
It's been two full weeks now but it feels like an eternity. except for a few times when I lost my balance, I haven't put any weight on my right foot since I hurt it. Which means no driving, walking or standing. Basically I either crawl or hop around the house and the two times that I had to go out were nightmares with the crutches. It royally sucks.
I am fully aware that the summer is passing me by. Where I live, you have to take full advantage of the nice days because they will be gone very soon. In fact, we had planned to go camping this weekend and my biggest concern was the weather. Now Im stuck home with a foot that I cant use and it's absolutely gorgeous outside.
The kids have been suffering too. I've let them play outside a little but mostly Im afraid that something will happen and I wont be able to get to them on time. There are no windows where I can sit with my leg up and keep an eye on them either. It's just frustrating. School starts again in three weeks and I may be going back to work full time around then as well. I need this foot to heal but damn it, I have no idea when that will be.
When I was in emerg the second time, the doctor went back and forth as to whether or not to put a cast on my ankle. She knew there was a crack in one of the bones but I had already gone 6 days without a cast and there was no change. From that I got the impression that it wasn't that bad. In the end she decided to cast it and told me that I would hear Monday when I needed to come back to see the orthopedic doctor. He could then decide if I needed a cast or not. So when I got home that night and there was a big crack in the cast as well as a large area that didn't set properly, I thought the whole thing foolish. But then the pain set in. I've never had a cast before but I didn't think they were supposed to be painful. If I didn't keep my leg completely straight, the cast would shift and put pressure on all the wrong areas. Before long, I cut that damn thing off.
But now Im wondering. I didn't hear about my appointment until Thursday and now Im forced to go in on Monday, the day that I have an interview on. I don't know if taking the cast off was the right thing to do, but I don't think I could have made it 10 days with that thing anyway. All I want is an idea of how long this is going to take to heal and instructions on how to make that happen. I need to know if the small stretches that I've been doing to keep it loose are OK or if a little weight on it would break it worse. I have absolutely no idea. If the first doctor that I saw hadn't decided to send my x-ray to the radiologist as an after-thought, I would never have known of the break and I would have been putting weight on it now.
Im at the point now where Im considering having someone come in to clean the house. Jason can do some things but his idea of clean is well below mine so I am continually frustrated with the state of the house. My bathroom hasn't been cleaned since the day before I hurt my ankle, that's 15 days people! Jason will spend a couple of hours doing a few things around here every day or two but what takes him an hour, I could do in 15 minutes. He talks about it never ending and all I can think is well, duh! We've been very, very low on food lately and so I have to send Jason out to pick things up every night for supper. The thing is, he spends way too much money on a single meal and never picks up anything else. I even went through the effort to compile a complete list of everything we need, including brands, sizes and prices. Then I set it on the desk with my points cards for the various stores and waited for him to come home from work so that he could go get the stuff. But then the man decided to stop by the grocery store on his way home and spend another $40 on a single meal to save him the effort of going out again, even though I TOLD HIM that I needed him to do a full grocery shop that night.
Don't even get me started on all the errands that I have to run. I cant leave it to him either. I have a cheque sitting here that needs to be deposited into my account but he keeps forgetting to do it and I cant even find another way because he hasn't remembered to give me back my bank card from two weeks ago! I have a bunch of things I need to mail and I have to do the kids' back to school clothes shopping this week.
If only I knew how long I had to stay off my ankle. If it's one more week, then I can deal. I can plan everything for the following week and I can make a reservation at one of the camp grounds for another weekend. We aren't doing any other vacations this year so camping was supposed to be our treat. I can plan out my packing schedule and start buying the few things we'll need for the new house. I can actually envision my house being CLEAN again, and to my standards! We could go to the beach a few more times and check out a few playgrounds. I could show the kids the new house and community we'll be living in.
In the mean time though, Im left to sit here and fret about maybe having to stay like this for another month or two. Then that brings all the worries about how I'd get the kids to school or actually get my house all packed up and cleaned. We have a few repairs around here that need to be done before we leave and a few things that need to be replaced and if I leave it all to Jason, we just wont get it all done. Sitting around and thinking about all of these things is crap for my anxious, obsessive personality and Im sure Im driving everyone nuts.
Until I see the orthopedic doctor on Monday, Im going to continue to make my lists and browse decorating web sites for the new house. I pretty much have everything decided already but maybe there's something I haven't seen yet but would just love. All I know is that I have to keep busy with other things or Ill go insane waiting to walk again.
I am fully aware that the summer is passing me by. Where I live, you have to take full advantage of the nice days because they will be gone very soon. In fact, we had planned to go camping this weekend and my biggest concern was the weather. Now Im stuck home with a foot that I cant use and it's absolutely gorgeous outside.
The kids have been suffering too. I've let them play outside a little but mostly Im afraid that something will happen and I wont be able to get to them on time. There are no windows where I can sit with my leg up and keep an eye on them either. It's just frustrating. School starts again in three weeks and I may be going back to work full time around then as well. I need this foot to heal but damn it, I have no idea when that will be.
When I was in emerg the second time, the doctor went back and forth as to whether or not to put a cast on my ankle. She knew there was a crack in one of the bones but I had already gone 6 days without a cast and there was no change. From that I got the impression that it wasn't that bad. In the end she decided to cast it and told me that I would hear Monday when I needed to come back to see the orthopedic doctor. He could then decide if I needed a cast or not. So when I got home that night and there was a big crack in the cast as well as a large area that didn't set properly, I thought the whole thing foolish. But then the pain set in. I've never had a cast before but I didn't think they were supposed to be painful. If I didn't keep my leg completely straight, the cast would shift and put pressure on all the wrong areas. Before long, I cut that damn thing off.
But now Im wondering. I didn't hear about my appointment until Thursday and now Im forced to go in on Monday, the day that I have an interview on. I don't know if taking the cast off was the right thing to do, but I don't think I could have made it 10 days with that thing anyway. All I want is an idea of how long this is going to take to heal and instructions on how to make that happen. I need to know if the small stretches that I've been doing to keep it loose are OK or if a little weight on it would break it worse. I have absolutely no idea. If the first doctor that I saw hadn't decided to send my x-ray to the radiologist as an after-thought, I would never have known of the break and I would have been putting weight on it now.
Im at the point now where Im considering having someone come in to clean the house. Jason can do some things but his idea of clean is well below mine so I am continually frustrated with the state of the house. My bathroom hasn't been cleaned since the day before I hurt my ankle, that's 15 days people! Jason will spend a couple of hours doing a few things around here every day or two but what takes him an hour, I could do in 15 minutes. He talks about it never ending and all I can think is well, duh! We've been very, very low on food lately and so I have to send Jason out to pick things up every night for supper. The thing is, he spends way too much money on a single meal and never picks up anything else. I even went through the effort to compile a complete list of everything we need, including brands, sizes and prices. Then I set it on the desk with my points cards for the various stores and waited for him to come home from work so that he could go get the stuff. But then the man decided to stop by the grocery store on his way home and spend another $40 on a single meal to save him the effort of going out again, even though I TOLD HIM that I needed him to do a full grocery shop that night.
Don't even get me started on all the errands that I have to run. I cant leave it to him either. I have a cheque sitting here that needs to be deposited into my account but he keeps forgetting to do it and I cant even find another way because he hasn't remembered to give me back my bank card from two weeks ago! I have a bunch of things I need to mail and I have to do the kids' back to school clothes shopping this week.
If only I knew how long I had to stay off my ankle. If it's one more week, then I can deal. I can plan everything for the following week and I can make a reservation at one of the camp grounds for another weekend. We aren't doing any other vacations this year so camping was supposed to be our treat. I can plan out my packing schedule and start buying the few things we'll need for the new house. I can actually envision my house being CLEAN again, and to my standards! We could go to the beach a few more times and check out a few playgrounds. I could show the kids the new house and community we'll be living in.
In the mean time though, Im left to sit here and fret about maybe having to stay like this for another month or two. Then that brings all the worries about how I'd get the kids to school or actually get my house all packed up and cleaned. We have a few repairs around here that need to be done before we leave and a few things that need to be replaced and if I leave it all to Jason, we just wont get it all done. Sitting around and thinking about all of these things is crap for my anxious, obsessive personality and Im sure Im driving everyone nuts.
Until I see the orthopedic doctor on Monday, Im going to continue to make my lists and browse decorating web sites for the new house. I pretty much have everything decided already but maybe there's something I haven't seen yet but would just love. All I know is that I have to keep busy with other things or Ill go insane waiting to walk again.
Friday, August 14, 2009
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