First day of the rest of my life?

Cheesy title, but right now cheese sounds pretty good...I was just let go. From my job. I had been there for four years...and my position suddenly needed different skills than the one I have.

Shocked.

But man is my dog going to be excited!

Once a week

Once a week, everyone in the house does a chore above and beyond regular weekly tidying. When it is done, for a couple of hours my house is so clean I just want to roll around on the floor and squeal.

My life is apparently not that exciting...

Happy doggy

I am totally cheating out on my picture a week thing. I have a trillion of these...happy doggy, going to the park.

Yay!

Sun Run Sunday

With much nervousness I approached my first Sun Run yesterday.

Turns out I am an okay runner, and I finished at 1 hour 3 minutes!!!

Can't wait till next year!

And since this has a picture too, I am totally counting it on the "Picture a week" thing.

Heck yah!

Picture of the Week!

Well, here is my first post in this picture series...I am doing this with Swell, check her blog out!

Here I am (well, my feet) ready for a run! 10k today, maybe 11 if I decide on the extra loop.

I think I am slowly melting

Well, not melting exactly, but my mind feels like it is dissolving out of my body.

Is this what happens with too much stress? Cortisol is actually an acid and it eats you from the inside out?

I am crazy. Well, I feel crazy anyways.

And outside it is still raining...

Exes

So I was just told by my eldest that "Dad's in town and will be living just a half hour away."

What?

WHAT?

I would be lying if I said I was at all happy about this development. We left all that violence and garbage behind when we left him and now he is going to be one town over?

Fuck my life.

Another day

I need to get out of my funk. I need to keep thinking positively and realize that hard times don't last forever.

It has been...difficult lately. I have zero motivation to do things that I enjoy, unless that includes hermitting. Now, I know the symptoms of depression and when my mind starts with its whole "let's think the worst" thing.

Good thing I am still seeing my doctor about this.

Another good thing is that my kid is turning human again...now that has been a long time coming.

Thumbs up for hope!

...my goodness that is sickening.

Burnt out, bitches

Yeah.  I think I am. 

Can't concentrate, can't stop thinking about all the things I have to do...Only 3 more weeks and I'm done class for this semester, and I only have to worry about kids, spouse and work. 

I am hanging on because I don't know what else to do!!

Free time isn't free, I suppose.

Eh. 

Did I mention my birthday is coming up?  That at least makes me happy.  Ish. 

Getting my writing boots back on.

So. 

I haven't written in a long time.  Not just blogging, but written any short stories, poetry, ANYTHING for a few years now. 

I used to write all the time, as a way to express myself - and somehow in the day-to-day trials of life it was just...left...back there...where "back there" is around 2006. 

So recently I have been asked by Steph (Ordinairy Girl) to collaborate on a screenplay!  I wasn't sure at first that my writing boots still fit - but after receiving the first character descriptions it just flowed. 

I forgot how great it felt.  I forgot what a release it is! 

The wifey thought it was a great idea too....I don't get a lot of time to myself, and now doing something that I really love has improved my outlook!  And really - it has only been about a week and a half.  Really. 

It doesn't take long to get me really excited about a project.  Maybe 3% of a second.  Yes, that long.  So when I was first asked I nearly hyperventilated I was so excited.  Have you ever hyperventilated?  Not pleasant.  But at the same time you feel so darn pleased that someone asked YOU to help THEM write a SCREENPLAY!

Okay, not you, me.  Heh. Or maybe you do and you now feel a strange sort of kinship with me...

How do you make an evil frowny face?  I think I am going to need that to put in my arsenal....

Things I Want

I almost wrote the title as "Thongs I Want" and was surprised at how accurate that was. 

Anyways.  Things I am striving for in the near future:

1) More sex.  Depending on the wife.

2) Make more money.  Somehow.

3) Keep painting.  Finally started again, need to keep it up!  Feels nice to paint.

4) More sex.  Did I say that one already??

5) Time to meditate. 

My list of 5 things which may not be complete that I have decided I need to do! 

Yay me....oh, and remember to take my vitamins!! 

IM OUT.  Like a bellybutton homies.

My vacation...in Ontario!

I have never been to Ontario...and since the ladyfriend's family lives there we decided to take 9 days and visit.

I must say, I was a bit apprehensive but that all disappeared when I received my first hug upon arriving!  What a wonderful bunch of people.  They really knew how to make me feel at home!

The sweetest addition to the family is little 5 year old K, she was just precious and sweet and darling the whole time we were there.  Made me remember my own girls when they were little!!

The first full day there we decided to go to Kakabeka - for the life of me I can't pronounce it properly.  It takes a windup for me to spit it out.  Anyways, we spent the whole day swimming, playing in the sand, walking trails...and we saw the falls!!  Being from BC, I have seen many very tall waterfalls, many beautiful winding through the trees falls, but NEVER have I seen something like this!  If you have never seen Kakabeka falls I recommend it.  It was like someone had used an ice-cream scoop and just carved a chunk out of a lake....and then sprinkled rainbows all over it.  It was breathtaking.

The next day we walked around town, checked out little memorial parks and what not in Thunder Bay.  It was very cool to see the Finnish and Italian influences in everything...I was so impressed with the monuments in the Friendship Garden that I kind of ran down the battery in our camera.  Whoops.  But seriously, so much work and attention had to have gone into those monuments!  So worth seeing.

The third day we went to The Old Fort - loved it!  Very fair admission, and we got to interact with all sorts of "people from the period", which was the mid 1800s.  We spent the entire day there with M's mother, Little K and her friend.  It was amazing and interesting...and we got to see piglets.  And chickens.  Squee!  I think my favourite part of the experience though was seeing the native woman in the "native encampment" just outside the fort.  She was amazing!  Made me feel like I was actually talking to her back then...Then again, M's mother was getting very into it, replying to comments with "Of course we have furs to trade!" and "Oh, we must have left that in the canoe!"  She was hilarious.

The next day we spent in doors, just relaxing.  That is, until M's mother decided that we were going on a drive to "see the deer".  I wasn't opposed to that at all, but it did remind me of what M told me about the Thunder Bay zoo - "We go to the dump to watch the bears."  Really.  I had a hard time not snickering in the car while we were driving around looking at deer.  Oh!!  We also saw a baby skunk.  SO CUTE.

One of those days we also had lunch with M's sisters.  It was really interesting to just sit there and watch them interact...I'd never seen her interact with both sisters before, so I got to see a side that I hadn't seen.  It was very nice, and I felt so close to her!

The next day we went to the Amethyst Mine!  AMAZING!!  I love love love crystals and rocks and stones and everything you can think of along that vein (ha ha I'm hilarious) so actually going to the Amethyst Mine was a real treat for me!  We got to dig around and explore the loose rubble for amethysts - $3.00 a pound.  Not too shabby!  I found some very nice pieces, some that really spoke to me.  Totally worth it!

From our way back from the mine we went into Centennial Park...but didn't stay, as the gates were going to be closing right away.  I saw a small train though.  The next time we go I am SO riding that train.  Give me a hells yeah!!

I also got to see the Terry Fox Memorial, what an amazing person he was.  I was only a year and a bit when he started his run, so I grew up with the story of him and what he represented very fresh in Canada's memory.  He has always been someone I have looked up to, and it was immensely touching to see this spot.

..What else?  I started rambling and now I am all confused about where I was in my story...Eh, that's all good.

Needless to say, I had a fantastic time in Ontario!  If I remember anything else I'll make an attempt to come on here (see Kyt?  I will try ha ha) and write about it.

Kakabeka bitches!!!

Wait, what I do isn't meaningless?

Sometimes I have trouble remembering that I have an impact on the lives of others...in the case of my job, I actually DO help people, just not in the building-houses-in-africa way. 

If I keep on remembering that maybe it will help me to not scratch my eyes out when I get a particularly inane inquiry.  How do you run your business when you have NO IDEA?  Well, without me, they wouldn't be as efficient in running their business, that's how they do it.  So remembering patience is my goal!! 

----

On another note, does anyone have any suggestions on getting that song about the pumped-up kicks out of my head??  I don't know any of the words except the ones mentioned above (and I suspect, in the title) and it has been haunting me FOR OVER A WEEK. 

I have even tried getting other songs stuck in my head but this one returns with a vengeance.  Vengeance, I tell you.

Things happen.

Wow, a lot has happened in the last nine or so months since I decided not to write about anything.  That being said, I don't want to write about them while I'm at work, so laters!

Life! Such as it is...

I have been avoiding writing lately.  I could say that I was busy, but that would be a half-truth. 

Most of the time I write down everything in my head, a narration of my days events and how things have unfolded.  Talking to a fellow volunteer at the animal shelter where I go on Sundays really got me thinking, and my thoughts are just too big to be kept in, so they had to be put down. 

I learned that there are so many forms of courage. 

The people that I live with, work with, volunteer with are all capable of great things.  Absolutely great things. 

Being no stranger to personal demons, I listened with everything I could muster when my fellow volunteer confided in me about being a recovering alcoholic.  He was very unabashed about everything, just told me how it was in a concise, clean manner.  From what I gleaned, his life was anything but clean and concise back then.  It gripped me - his story made me think. 

A co-worker of mine has a horrible auto-immune disease, and still, she works, plays, lives as she wants to.  It's quite heartening to see her just accepting what she has been given and living beyond.  She has no limits!  Not any she has imposed upon herself, in any case!

My oldest daughter, being 14 is in the throes of "peer acceptance" is learning what it is like to want things herself, and not just because her friends have told her that's what she should want.  She is pretty bold and strong in any case - it was still amazing to here her asserting herself with her peers.  Not being rude or anything, just being herself.

I am surrounded by amazing people, and these are just three of them!  Hooray!!!

Cats and the people that love them

I recently started volunteering at a local no-kill cat shelter.  I had always wanted to do something like that, but there were always excuses.  This time I just decided to do it. 

It is incredible.  These cats are amazing.  I can't wait until next weekend when I go again!  If I could do this as my full time job I would. 

They need people, they need that time that we give them.  They are so dependant on us...It is a pleasure to be able to help them learn to trust and become confident again. 

It has made me look at my three kitties at home in a new light, too.  They are lucky little cats, but I don't want to ever take them for granted.  They need me, and I need them.  They help me remember how important we all are to each other. 

Sigh, my little loves!

Dreams and other nonsense

I've just woken up...my dream is still in my head, and it was fantastical and a little scary, but I still wanted to finish it.  I was mildly disappointed when I woke up and I felt that the dream wasn't done yet.

I was a child, in the 1930s or 40s, running and playing in a forest with my friends.  It was summer, in the afternoon and it was a beautiful lazy day.  We found a door, a great big iron and wood door that looked ominous, with great big wheels set beside it like a drawbridge mechanism and huge bars set across it to lock us out.  Out?  Maybe.

We found a weak spot in the wood of the door and crawled through like mice, and when we got through to the other side it wasn't summer anymore but autumn, and we were in a place that had many fences, and in all the fences were piles of scrap metal.  Cabinets lined the walls of the place, because unlike where we had come from this was a room, not a wide open space.  Children were crawling in and out of the cabinets like little worker bees.  I was immediately scared, and tried to run through the paths without being seen - I had noticed another door far across the Room of Fences and I deduced that it was probably less scary than what was here.

"Stop right there!  What are you doing, trying for the door without having taken your test yet?"  I was grabbed from behind by two dogs with uniforms on, and forced to look up and up and up into the face of a woman with wheels for feet, and scissors for hands.  She had short black hair and was wearing a mockery of victorian dress.

I replied that I didn't know I had to take the test but I would if I could make it through that door.  The woman smiled (horribly) and directed me to the cabinets, where I would make my little home until I could pass the test.  I was a little worker bee now, like my friends and the children before us.

I kept the door fixated in my mind - I don't know how long I stayed there but I eventually tried to escape. 

I found out I could jump higher than any other person in that room, so I vaulted myself up and over the fences, running with great strides, running like a deer would run, not like a person.  I jumped and landed through the door - no splintering of wood, no great sound, nothing to mark the occasion of my escape - I was just through. 

I was through and sitting on a tree branch with a family of Gypsies.  They had feathers woven into cloaks on their backs, which helped them fly up into the branches to rest for the night.  I checked my back, and I didn't have any feathers, it was my extraordinairy jumping that allowed me to join them.  I was a little disappointed, but then realized that this way I didn't have to be one of them, I was just a visitor and I could move on.  They fed me apple cider and beans from a tin, and we sang beautiful songs that filled up the sky - now that I was beyond the Room with the Fences I could see the sky again, and all around me was a beautiful lush forest.  If I listened I could hear singing from other areas of the trees - other Gypsies singing together, perhaps with other visitors like me. 

I woke up alone, in the tree with the leaves and twigs cradled all around me.  I didn't want to wake up, I wanted to be part of the tree forever and see things come and go and sing sometimes.  I got up regardless, and jumped down from the branches to the forest floor. 

...Then I woke up. 

This is spinning in my mind, I want it to be finished!  I was immersed in this strange world for a meagre moment, it was a tease. 

Maybe I will think of more, and write it down.  Maybe it will be a dream that doesn't fade.  Who can tell?    

Problems that aren't mine, and pizza that is

I walked in the house today, half an hour late and smelled something incredible.  Of course, my beautiful wife, who can cook anything (and make it fantastic) decided to make vegan deep dish pizzas.  It was such a homey, fulfilling supper made with such love that it made my whole day so much better than it had been. 

Getting told that you are going to take the fall for something that you really had no hand in is awful.  Ten minutes before it was my time to leave I get a phone call - it was something I was following up on, and I didn't have the answer he wanted.  To make a long story short, I missed my train while I was running around trying to create the answer he wanted.  I thought about telling him to go take a hike, but never did.  Never did, and feel better for it because I created a solution for him and now he looks like the idiot that lost his temper. 

Yay me. 

Then I finally got to the next train, which I sat in for twenty minutes before it went - and it was nice, I got a good seat and read my book.  I'm currently reading Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.  Can you say amazing?  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.  I only really read on the train, unless I can squirrel away in bed earlier than the wife, but that is rare.  If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it.  It has a wonderful style that brings you into the story like you are experiencing it with the author.  It's raw and emotional, very good book.

Now, back to the pizzas.  She made TVP with all veggie beef flavoured bullion, and a bit of oil so it was greasy like sausage - sliced mushrooms, thinly sliced onions, and a superbly spiced sauce.  The crust was a simple yeast dough, very easy and it browned very nicely without browning too fast. 

Pizza for lunch tomorrow!!  Hooray!! 

Note to self:  Try to get recipes to post them for anyone who might be interested.  

Blueberries, yum.

So this morning I had a hankering for Oatmeal Blueberry bars.  I love blueberries, and I love oatmeal.  I also had some cashews, and the flavour of the cashews with blueberries is just decadent. 

In the oven right now are my bars, thrown together because I love making sweet breakfast things with no recipe.  It is what I do, much to my wife's chagrin.  She is an excellent cook, so much so that you can give her ingredients and she will measure them out to make a perfect dish.  You give me ingredients and I might just snack on them while I look for the sugar. 

Oh, and we are vegan.  I should mention that. 

Back to the bars.  The crust is an oatmeal/soymilk/baking soda/egg replacer/cane sugar conglomeration that tasted pretty darn good in the bowl.  We were out of flour (except for rice flour, and, well, I don't like rice flour that much) so I really hope this turns out. I heated up the blueberries with a bit of cane sugar on the stove, until they started juicing up nicely.  Stained my cream coloured stir spoon, but it looks rather prettier that way, with streaks of purple and blue.  I poured that mixture over top of the crust and quickly candied some cashews and pressed them into the mixture. 

It looks absolutely gorgeous, and it smells even better.  You know, even if it doesn't come out as "bars", I think the kids and the wife will still love it.  I know I will, with those flavours how could I miss!

Well, I hope so anyhow.

We were also hoping to get to Bard in the Valley today, but with the rain we aren't feeling that outdoorsy.  Not to mention my butt hurts from tennis yesterday.  Good stuff, yeah!  The production that Bard in the Valley is putting on is A Midsummers Night Dream.  I've never seen it as a play, I was very intrigued.  I did see that movie that was made in the 90s that was loosely based on it...it had Kirstin Dunst in it, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of it.  The movie is a great filler movie, but nothing I would have ever paid to go see in the theater.  Good thing I didn't. 

Off to go check on breakfast!!

Saturday So Far

I really like Saturdays where I can go to bed tired and ready to sleep. 

I have a hard time sleeping sometimes during the week because I work at a desk job and don't get physically tired.  Except from wearing heels, but I don't think that counts.

Being a very social person however (sometimes to my detriment) I do find myself traversing a visiting path around the office quite often.  That notwithstanding, I do have a desk job, and nonactivity begets more of the same.  More often than not I come home with "grandiose" plans of the dog park or tennis or something outside...and I end up just sitting on the couch after dinner, playing on my laptop or watching tv.  Then before I know it, it's time to start getting stuff ready for the morning.

Head tired, body not. 

Today I managed to fit in a nice array of activity...Had homemade blueberry scones (wife's recipe, she is a genuis) with Strawberry tea, then tennis, when we came back we made vegan "fishsticks" (see previous statement about wife), then went to the dog park. 

I absolutely love the dog park.  You have a bunch of people amassed there with their canine compatriots and you have instant conversation ice breakers:  "You have a beautiful dog!", "What kind of dog?", "Oh wow, look at them play!"

As I've said, I'm extremely social. 

I also love dogs.  I love watching dogs, I love petting dogs, I love walking them, I love being around them all the time. 

So the dog park is one of the best places I can think of to go...My wife said that we aren't allowed to have any more of our "dates" there because it doesn't count if the dog is there.  If the kids can't come, the dog can't come.  My reasoning is that it's free and fun and we always both enjoy ourselves...although I do get distracted and start talking to the whole park.  That being said, I do get her point. 

Note to self:  find free and fun things to do for couples.