Tag!

I've been tagged by Susie

Here’s the scoop on how to play: I pick 5 occupations out of the list below and post my answers. Then I tag 3 other people to post their answers on their blog. If I tag you, and you don’t want to be a part of this, then that is okay. Just let me know and I’ll tag someone else.

If I could be a scientist. If I could be a farmer. If I could be a musician. If I could be a doctor. If I could be a painter. If I could be a gardener. If I could be a missionary. If I could be a chef. If I could be an architect. If I could be a linguist. If I could be a psychologist. If I could be a librarian. If I could be an athlete. If I could be a lawyer. If I could be an inn-keeper. If I could be a professor. If I could be a writer. If I could be a llama-rider. If I could be a bonnie pirate. If I could be an astronaut. If I could be a world famous blogger. If I could be a justice on any one court in the world. If I could be married to any current famous political figure.

If I could be a scientist I'd be researching ways to undo the brain damage of FAS/FAE so that kids don't suffer for the sins of their mothers.

If I could be a linguist (and I'd love to be a linguist!) I'd travel the world listening to regional dialects and traditional stories and recording them!

If I could be an inn-keeper I'd buy a big old manor house in Vermont (just like that old Bob Newhart TV show) and have a humongeous herb garden.

If I could be a writer then more people might read my blog :)

If I could be a lawyer I'd spend all of my time doing pro-bono cases and very likely have to represent myself in bankruptcy court.

How fun! OK I tag Sarah, Michelle and Dan!

A clutter conspiracy

I'm a packrat, I admit it, I come from a very long line of packrats. C has packrat tendencies too, which is to say our house is pretty full. I'd like to "declutter" and downsize, and I try but I seem to accumulate stuff as quickly as I divest myself of it.

However there are people who are utterly offended by my clutter. Whatever, don't visit, what do I care. The irritating thing is these people are the very same people who are in large part responsible for enabling my junk aquisitions. You know the type: they have something for you, something utterly useless of course but they simply WILL NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER. We were visiting with one of these people recently and she attempted to give us a set of spill-proof paint cups. A nice thought but we have TWO FULL SETS already! I declined NICELY but she insisted and insisted. I kept declining, more and more forcefully. I explained that we already have twice as many of these as we need. I thought I'd gotten through to her until we got home and I realized that she'd hidden them in the diaper bag. Sigh. More crap for the pile. Worst thing is she gave us one of the other sets we have too.

So - anyone need spill-proof paint cups? A size 40 black suit jacket? A bag of size 16 or 18 (or maybe even larger?) older women's clothes? The ugliest quilt I have ever in my life seen? Sheer curtains? Wall-mounted bedside lamps? Picture frames?

Primericult

I should preface this by saying that C and I actually have our retirement savings (such as they are) invested through Primer*ica and we have nothing but praise for the company from a client service perspective. However Primer*ica functions both as a financial service company and as a huge pyramid scheme: the employees make money not from the products they sell but from the products sold by people "down-line" from them, the people that they convert to the 'cult'

We have a friend, R, who decided to become a Primer*ica financial planner/mutual fund hawker/insurance dude. Quit his job last fall, convinced another of our friends (M) to quit his job and join too. And hey, great for them! They convinced both of their girlfriends to sign up too, as well as R's mom and a load of their other friends. Bully for all of them, if they enjoy it that's fab. Praise the lawwwwd for Primer*ica. When R came back from his first "convention" last fall he literally drove directly to our house to try to get us to sign up too. We declined (nicely of course) because frankly with 3 kids, two full time jobs and bills out the wahoo we're not in a position to a: take the leap of faith required to quit one or more decent jobs with benefits for a "maybe" job and b: we certainly can't spare the ridiculous amount of money needed for all of the courses and licensing exams to become financial planning peeps. At the time R said to me "well I really wish you'd reconsider because I don't want to lose you as friends once I'm rich and you're not". Mmmm.... yeah. So we haven't seen much of R or his common-law-spouse C (last time we saw them was January, and we were again inundated with Primerichat at that time).

Thursday night the phone rings at 6:10pm. It's C, She has a "huge favour" to ask of me. She's going to a Primer*ica cult meeting that evening and really, really wants me to come along "for moral support". I apologise profusely (and, I think, quite convincingly) but James had cadets and I knew that I'd be alone with the two wee babes most of the evening. There's a pause and muffled discussion on the other end of the line. "Well how about if R's mom comes over and babysits for you? At least you'd get to escape from the kids for a couple of hours".

Where do I even begin with this? I've been flat on my back sick for nearly a week (not that she'd know of course but by way of partially explaining my reluctance to go), anyone who knows me knows that saying "escape from my kids" is going to right away rub me wrong, and I thought that we were clear with the whole gang that we're just not interested in being baptised into the primericult?

I hate the thought that we're going to lose friends over this religious difference but I just can't bow to the Primerigods, nor to the almighty dollar for that matter. What is it about these cults that brainwashes their members into forgetting that not everyone wants to be part of the sect? Sure I'd like to have more money (wouldn't everyone?) but not like this. Not by harassing my friends and acquanitances into joining me, not by alienating everyone who doesn't share my vision.

It's a shame. I'll miss the people they used to be before they were converted. Can you say halleluiah.

are the clouds parting?

I did drag my butt into the doctor but he told me what I already knew: this nasty bug is viral and there's not a lot I can do but rest and wait it out. He did tinker with my asthma meds to at least get that back under control and I have a bottle of yucky cough suppressant. C (genius that he is) suggested I sleep propped up half sitting and that REALLY helped, I slept better last night than I have all week. A good night's rest goes a long way towards helping the body fight it's battles.

Our van has "recovered" too. My uncle is an autobody repairman, which means he can buy car parts at mechanic rates, so he found our $900 fuel pump for $540 (and even arranged for us to pick it uphere in town instead of having to pay for shipping from Southern Ontario). Our mechanic installed it (and fixed our blocked up heater too) for $270 so the whole deal came to a little over $800. Still a lot of money but less than we had braced ourselves for. So that's definitely a bit of good news :)

Small reasons to smile, but I'm grateful for them.

Hermit

Dragged my stupid ass into work yesterday and spent a miserable day huddled in my desk, alternately shivering and sweating, drinking gallons of hot tea, hacking relentlessly into the phone everytime someone called. This morning I woke up coughing up great green globs and decided that I just couldn't do that at work. So here I am, huddled at my desk, alternately shivering and sweating and drinking gallons of hot tea. At least here there's no phone calls :)

I hate blogging about being sick but when you're sick your world contracts to where nothing else exists. So once I get over this bug maybe I'll have something interesting to say. No, probably not but at least something different.

misery

It's after 2am here. Why am I blogging? I went to bed hours ago but was awakened by this horrid pain in my ear (and now that I'm awake I notice an equally horrid pain in my throat), so here I sit, drinking scalding hot tea and waiting for the ibu*profen to kick in. I'm running just a very slight fever (100.4) which leads me to believe this misery is viral and therefore if I crawled my @$$ into the doctor's office all he'd tell me is fluids and ibu*profen anyway. SUCKS! Not that I'm a drug seeker, I rarely take anything more potent than ibu*profen anyway and I believe in the wait and see approach to antibiotic use (both for myself and the kids) but it's so frustrating to feel like this and realize there's nothing you can do but wait it out.

I can't imagine how awful work tomorrow will be. It'd be really tough to call in sick though, I've used a LOT of sick days and vacation days lately to cover for my sitter taking at least one day off each and every week for the past 8 (in fact she's off tomorrow - or I guess I mean today now, and the kids are spending the day with my eldery in-laws).

Ugh.

Bugs and Fairy Princesses

What's that saying about never raining but pouring? I started out with a cold, spent the evening at the home of a cat and today have a humongeous phlegm ball firmly lodged in my lungs. Bugger. Probably why Jonah's been miserable the past week, he's probably been harbouring this bug. Spring is the worst time to get sick, at least in the winter you expect to feel like crap, in the Spring you're just so deperate to be outdoors.

My SIL paid for a session of "pre-ballet" for Katie for her birthday, 3 and 4 year olds, run by the city (and she signed the g-niece up too so the girls go together). Her first class was last week, the instructor (an impossibly thin and perky young woman) collected all of the girls and then VERY FIRMLY told us all to get lost, that we distract the kids to much. *pout* 15 or so parents standing in the hallway clutching cameras and looking lost. The last class will be open and we'll get our fill of pictures then. But it's like a secret society - after each class we ask Katie and Mimi to show us what they've learned and they refuse! A preschool cult in the making.

When SIL signed the girls up she was told that since it's just babies that shorts, t-shirt and bare feet were the way to go. I sent Katie in shorts, t-shirt and her Ro*beez slippers, Mimi was in a bodysuit and bare feet. The other dozen toddlers were in leotards, tights, ballet slippers and some even in tutus. Absolutely freakin' adorable, but Mimi was quite crushed that the other girls had all of these things. Katie didn't seem to care until this week when we were getting ready to leave and I said "OK I'll just grab your shorts and slipers and we'll be ready to go" and she said "and my ballet dress too?". Yeesh. She didn't fuss at all but I guess I was deluding myself that she didn't notice. I'm torn though, as incredibly adorable as seeing her in the whole getup would be, it's really a waste of money that I can't afford to waste right now you know? Wonder if I could get a second hand set somewhere near here?

Katie and Jonah are fighting right now over a blanket, as much as it will probably irritate me in years to come I find their fighting quite exciting right now, proof positive that Jonah is beginning to interact with his sister, something he didn't do much in his first 20 months.

If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all

So my van died on Tuesday morning, right out of the blue, one minute it was driving, the next it wouldn't start. So fine, it's only a car, it isn't a huge deal. $75 to tow it to the mechanic, OK, not so awful yet. Now the mechanic has called. The fuel pump has gone, in any normal vehicle that would be about $150 plus labour but not our van, oh no, for our van the part ALONE is $900. Mon dieu. Plus we have some sort of vacuum leak in the heating system which will run a couple of hundred to fix as well.

It's only a car, it's only a car, it's only a car.

Thing is we're stuck. We really need a vehicle big enough to hold 5 people (two in carseats), and the van is perfect that way. But $1500 is a LOT of money, and we just don't have it.

I'm pretty bummed, it feels like we're never going to pull ourselves out of our financial hole. We never manage to get ahead, and everytime we think we can see a little light something like this happens. This isn't a woe is me pity party, I'm well aware that I have a full belly and a warm home, which a lot of people don't have. It's just a frustrated lament that lately we just can't catch a break.

Jonah hasn't slept well the past 3 nights either so perhaps I'd be a little less doom and gloom on a little more sleep.

Hope

It was 25 years ago today that Terry Fox started his Marathon of Hope across Canada. I was a 4th grader at the time and we watched, rapt, the news every evening to follow his progress. Even at 8 years old I understood the magnitude of what he was attempting. Terry never finished his marathon, his cancer came back and he died a short time later. But Terry Fox has remained in my heart these 25 years, I think of him, and the amazing things he accomplished and that were accomplished in his name, often. I wonder how the humble, somewhat stubborn and extremely big hearted young man would think of the legacy he left. I wonder if his marathon would have accomplished so much if he hadn't been struck down half way through. Because nothing demonstrated the heartlessness of cancer like seeing such a vibrant young man fall. Yet even in death he was not defeated, and perhaps because of his death mankind will ultimately triumph over cancer.

That would be the most fitting legacy.

Bug Off!!

Yes, I have a "guest chair" in my office, no, that's NOT an invite to wander in and stare at me like I should drop everything to entertain you. And while we're at it if someone *is* visiting me (particularly is it's someone I actually want to chat with) that's not an inivtation to stick your head in and comment on every.freaking.detail of our conversation. Find someone else to blather at! I have enough work stress.

Well, now that I've vented, Katie is doing a little better. The leg pain seems to come and go, when it comes it's frightening, crippling, but when it's under control she just limps and hobbles a bit. I've received some great suggestions about supplements that might help, and certainly I'll keep a very close eye on her but I'm not so panic-struck anymore.

I lost my patience with Jonah's mop and cut his hair (and hey, since I was making one child look like a hillbilly I cut Katie's bangs too). It didn't do too badly for someone with no haircutting experience (or ability). He kinda looks like a mini George Clooney. Katie on the other hand looks like her mom cut her bangs. Poor kid, she'll need therapy for sure ;) Pictures to follow (when I put the babes to bed tonight).



George and Pippi :)

Growing pains?

When Katie woke up yesterday she couldn't stand she had such pain in her legs (predominantly the left leg). Since she's been sick all week and now was practically crippled I called the paediatrician's office (I'm not normally a worry wart but this just seemed wrong). The nurse suggested I bring her in.

I had to carry her into the office, she just couldn't put any weight on her leg. The doctor - who I normally love - seemed rather put out that I was bringing her in for "simple growing pains". To his credit he did check her joints (particularly her hips) quite closely but in the end he said just to take her home, give her motr1n, warm baths and use a hot water bottle.

I do trust our paed, and I'm not trying to second guess him but my "gut" tells me something isn't right. The motr1n did a LOT of good, for the first hour and a half after each dose she could walk around (albeit with a strange limp and with her legs spread wide like she was wearing a very full diaper) but once it started wearing off she was crawling around the house or laying on the couch. My active, energetic 4 year old daughter reduced to near immobility.

She's no better this morning, crying just trying to climb out of her carseat. I'm at a loss. James didn't really have growing pains so I have no idea what to expect. I never want to be one of those harpy mamas who bring their child to the doctor and demand he prescribe something or do some testing (Munchausen-by-proxy anyone?) but I really feel like there is more to this than he thinks.

What do I do? My whole soul thinks that if she isn't better tomorrow morning I should camp out in his waiting room but what he suggested as treatment does help so I don't want to seem like I'm second guessing. Plus that little voice of doom at the back of my mind is screaming and likely clouding my better judgement.

Time for Change

My job sucks ass. I am so bored. At least I have lots of time to look for new jobs while I'm sitting here trying not to pick my @$$. If you're young and skilled and looking for an exciting career where your talents will be appreciated don't apply to the public service.

It poured rain here all weekend, it was the perfect weekend for holing up in the house and ignoring the world. I think I'd do just fine as a hermit :) Haven't yet caught the Spring cleaning bug though, I wish I would, I'm seldom motivated to clean (and boy does it show!) I do have so.much.crap that I have to go through and purge, books alone I could stock a small library. Perhaps a massive garage sale this Spring is the answer, it's easier to let go of things if there's cash involved ;) Plus once I haul it out of the house I won't be much inclined to bring it back in.

My Princess is unwell, probably just a cold but she's congested, scratchy throated and mildly fevered. I hate taking her to the sitter when all she wants to do is snuggle with me all day. She was pretty sad this morning when I told her we had to get up to go to the sitter's. Not to mention exhausted because of the time change.

Really - do we NEED daylight savings time anymore? Like my brother says, farmers have alarm clocks now, do we need to screw up the time for half the planet? Ironically Saskatchewan doesn't even participate in the daylight savings time thing and that's where a huge portion of the farmers are! Stats show that accidents and heart attacks increase during the time changeover, the time has certainly come to get rid of DST altogether.

In passing

Terri Schiavo finally found peace yesterday. Her story has played on my mind on and off for years now. It's a difficult thing to think about because I can see both sides so crystal clearly. Both C and I agree that neither of us want to be kept alive by artificial means, and I know I would fight to allow him to die with dignity if (God forbid) he was in that situation, as he would fight for me. However I'm also a mother, and no matter how brain damaged my children were (again God forbid) I don't think I could "pull the plug" if they weren't physically suffering. Such a heartbreaking story, made all the worse by being played out on a public stage, seized by various political groups and activist factions to forward their own causes and run through the American legal system many, many, many times.

Hopefully now the media circus will die down, the zealots (on both sides) will find other causes to scream about and one fractured and battered family can find healing.