January 2009

Today I decided to check our (home) voice mail.

On dialing *98, the little voice informed me that there were “Eleven New Messages and No Old Messages.”

Eleven? Really?

Oh yes. And some date back to December.

That’s how much I hate the phone.

1. Middle One raced his Kub Kar last night and won 2 x 1st place and 1 x 3rd place. He was very happy.
2. Coffee walked me through getting gmpc running on my laptop so I can use the kitchen speakers.
3. The popping noises in my spine when I stretch my body fully feel so, so, SO good.
4. Kitten purring on my shoulder in a rare “quiet” moment.
5. Fountain pens, stationery and a stack o’ stamps on my desk. Nom.

I’m going to just say it here: Schmutzie made me join. She’s persuasive, y’know.

On WNET, I try to do my “Blessings & Bitchings & Randomness” post every morning before the day really gets rolling. It helps me focus a bit, clear out some cobwebs, and (sometimes) get my rant over with before breakfast.

I’ve long said that focusing on the little things makes it easier to be happy – after all, it’s not every day that you get a new car or win a big chunk of money. But on any given day, you might get some new chapstick or find a long-lost novel underneath your bed…

So yes, I’ve decided to join in and pay attention to the Grace In Small Things every day.

1. Sunshine. It feels so good.
2. Maymo’s insistence that everyone he meets is “a new friend”.
3. Dulce de Leche Yogurt that’s thick enough to hold the spoon straight up.
4. Postcrossing postcards arriving to their destinations!
5. The way the kitten, tiny as she is, manages to stomp her feet when she walks.

Let’s just have a brief chat about the Celexa, shall we?

I’ve been off of it, fully, for almost 40 days. Huh. I was about to write “a little over 2 weeks” but, wow, time flies when you’re unmedicated and flying all loosey-goosey and wild n’ crazy and shit, huh?

From my perspective, things have gone very smoothly. The spinning and headaches and stuff went away, the sleeping issues resolved themselves, so all of the withdrawal effects are gone. And, since then, I’ve seen a significant boost in my energy (no naps! not much urge to nap!) and I’ve been getting shit done.

I am more emotional. On one hand, it’s good – I laugh more, especially the kind of laughter that leaves me gasping for air and with a stomach in agony. Plenty of snorting. On the other hand, I’ve been an overly-emotional person for much of my life and I’m back to that “weeping when it’s a little sad/poignant/Monday” thing again. I’m adjusting.

I’m much more impacted by lack of sleep. This is good for the sake of me being able to identify when my body could use a few more hours and bad because when I don’t get a decent quantity of sleep I become, shall we say, unpleasant to be around. Snarly, even.

Coffee’s had to deal with the overtired me a few times recently – he comes home at what constitutes the “witching hour” for the kids and that also coincides with “Violet Cannot Handle This Anymore Because She’s Tired” time.

I haven’t started chucking plates or anything, but my sulky-moody-grinchy-snarl was enough to convince him that maybe I was a bit depressed. I assured him that I’m not – that I’m quite pleased with my mood and energy – but that it’s lack of sleep impacting me. At the end of the day, of course, it’s most noticeable.

So, I gotta’ pay attention to my sleep habits.

In short, I feel perfectly great about going off of the Celexa. And I think, baring any weirdness, this will be my last post dedicated to the subject.

The End.

“Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.” – Fran Lebowitz

My friend Lena offered to babysit this weekend so Coffee and I could go out, sans kids, for the afternoon.

And we did, and it was heavenly.

(I could end this blog post right there. But I won’t!)

I may have mentioned it before, but Coffee and I are trying to do a “monthly date” where we head out for sushi and then spend some time doing whatever we feel like afterward.

It’s nice to leave the house without kids – something I hardly ever get to do (because Maymo is home in the afternoons) – and, without grandparents nearby, the babysitting costs can add up pretty quickly, which cuts into the budget for “fun”.

So we’re aiming for once a month and we’ve managed to do it two months in a row and, thus, I am pleased. (Hey, want to babysit for free? I’m accepting applications for February and March dates!)

Coffee and I used to go out for sushi every Saturday before the kids came along, but now, if we were to take the kids with us, a simple lunch would be about $100. Totally not feasible for a group of small people who only like “the chicken” at the sushi place and who make horrified faces when we eat the other foods, right before they get “restless” from sitting still and being polite and start squirming and require Coffee and I to, oh, pay attention to them or whatever.

Luckily, the kids absolutely love Aunt Lena so they’re not even remotely upset that their parents are doing something without them. Her hourly babysitting rates (free!) are exceptionally good, too, plus I always get a wicked hug and some laughs when I see her.

Win-Win-WIN!

Anyway, today we ate sushi until we were both in pain and then headed out into the freezing cold to wander up to the used book store. Coffee found a bunch of books that he wanted in hardcover (he has them in paperback already) and I picked up some new postcards for my Postcrossing adventures.

Then we visited a local discount store to buy speakers for the kitchen (to listen to when I’m cooking!), headphones for, uh, our heads (with noise-canceling properties to listen to when I need some peace), and then to Canadian Tire and Home Depot to look at new lights for our dining room.

(Did I mention that Oldest One broke ours when he picked up the broom that he had, for some inexplicable reason, put on the dining room table? I don’t think I mentioned that. But there you go; that’s the gist of it.)

We found a beautiful (to us, at least) lamp at Home Depot. And now Coffee has a new project for tomorrow, lucky boy!

It was a super fabulous day and I feel much less Mom and much more Human and, really, that’s all I ask for: once a month, I get to be a human being.

But I will admit that at one point, I turned to Coffee and sharply said, “DID YOU LOOK BOTH WAYS?!” in a parking lot.

Eeep.

Courtesy of Melle, I present to you one of the funniest Best Man speeches of ALL TIME.

This is my dog, Daisy. She’s mine, despite technically being “the family’s dog” because she loves me best. Unendingly.

I find it hard to take a decent picture of her because she’s a dark colour, very shiny (usually) and it’s almost impossible to get her to sit still for long enough to hit the button on the camera.

But a cookie? It works every time.

(It is still cold and I am wearing about 90 layers of clothes inside as I type this, but we’ll just talk about something else today, ok?)

Yesterday I went to Michaels to pick up the frames I needed and, as I wandered around browsing the assorted crafty things, Maymo suddenly dropped to the ground and writhed on the tiles.

I looked at him, curled around my boots, and he looked back at me. Then he began making a whimpering noise. Loudly.

“Whatcha’ doing?” I asked.

“I’m a BABY SHARK!” he replied.

Well, okay. The Baby Shark rolled around, whimpering, until I had to move to another aisle. He then stood, dusted himself off, and walked alongside me until we stopped again and, yep, he dropped and rolled a bit more. Still whimpering.

Finally, I remarked that I was pretty certain baby sharks didn’t “whimper” because they’re under water and wouldn’t they get water up their shark noses if they did that?

Maymo pondered for a moment and then announced, “Now I am a puppy!” – complete with more whining.

A few aisles of that and I said, “Y’know, I think the puppy needs to stop whining now or the puppy’s owner will have to lock him in a room ’til he stops whining!”

Maymo stopped whining.

The woman in the aisle with us made a choking noise.

Last night, driving Oldest One to Scouts, my driver’s side wiper stopped functioning. It went.. limp. This caused me to bust out with excessive streams of profanity which, in turn, made Oldest One giggle. At least there’s that, right?

In the church parking lot (because, really, what better place for excessive profanity from the girl with the “Darwin fish” on the back of her car? HELL! I’M GOING TO HELL!) I tried to find what was blocking it.

A frozen berry? Nope. Some ice? Nope. NADA.

Nothing. Meh.

The wonderful thing about my car is that it has a really long warranty. The other good thing is that the people at the Kia dealership are really friendly.

When I called this morning to book an appointment, the woman in the service department advised me that it was probably a “breakaway bolt” that required tightening.

Apparently, whenever the wipers encounter a really difficult motion, the bolt “breaks away” to prevent the wiper motor from burning out (and thus, despite the annoyance, it saves me a heap of money!) In this case, the fucking freezing cold was what did it.

Coffee went out into that freezing cold and tightened the bolt and now.. all is good and I’m clear to drive around with my wipers at full-tilt just for FUN.

I’ve got a few “feel good” errands to run today – one of which is heading to Michaels craft store to buy a frame for a Jen Lemen poster I bought over a year ago (this one).

It’s not a standard size, so it’s been in a rolled-up tube for the past 12 months, waiting for me to decide what to do with it. I’ve decided to frame it in a fairly neutral way (possibly mount it) so the colours can shine through.

We can all use the reminders on the poster, I think, so I’m going to aim to hang it somewhere the kids can see it too.

I’m slowly but surely making this place look a bit more “home” and a little less “random stacks of crap in a house”. It’s been a little over 2 years since we moved here, and we have lots still to do, but progress feels quite nice nonetheless.

I mean, it’s not like we’re planning to move anytime soon, so we might as well get started, right?