Of tattoos and office furniture

These are my current obsessions.

Tattoos, humm. I've wanted one for quite awhile and now I think is the time. I've been working out consistently for a year and I like the way my body looks. I like my toned shoulders and I think a tat is just the decoration I need. But what to do? My passion (besides my family, whom I will not have tattooed on my shoulder) is the mighty Eskimos. I'm thinking of a flaming funky-looking football with the EE perhaps. I've done a drawing that might actually work. Really, only Mr X, my kids and I will see it, so it's no biggie. I think it's kind of my last tie to being an Albertan. I most likely will never move back to the Homeland, and I'm known around this Saskatch town as the chick with the EE licence plate, jacket, etc. It's hokey, but it just might work. We'll see.

Office furniture. I've been offered a nice corner office at work and was instructed yesterday to choose office furniture from a catalogue. It's weird for me, Ms. Cheapo, to choose something that someone else will pay for and own. I picked a cheapie but functional desk. I don't know if that's what they'll buy, as all the other office furniture is top-of-the-line, custom-designed stuff, but I didn't want to appear greedy. I guess I'll find out next week, as the bosses are off to the big city tomorrow to shop.

On a completely different note, tonight when I was shopping for dog food at Walmart, I ran into a couple of Mr. X's cousins. This is very odd, as they live hours from here. I was delighted to see them -- they're wonderful people, and I know them quite well -- but was horrified to learn the reason for their visit. Another of Mr. X's cousin's (only 28 years old) was killed in an accident and they're here for the funeral tomorrow. The funeral is actually in a town about an hour from here. I didn't really know the deceased cousin, but I do know his parents and sister. I called Mr. X at work (the first time I have ever called him there) to tell him. I offered to go to the funeral as representation from our part of the family, because I don't think his siblings will make it and Mr. X can't leave work on such short notice. I spent most of the evening with the cousins who are staying here, at their hotel, and told them I'd see them at the funeral tomorrow. I sure hope I can get away from work for the afternoon. Man, I cannot imagine the agony of losing a child. I just feel sick for that family. :(

Introducing Chaeli-Bean

As if I need any encouragement.

This is our little darling, Chaeli. She's 20 months old today. Ima's little queen.

Yesterday I taught her to be a monkey. She goes, "e-e-e-" and scratches her armpits on demand. She's a genius, clearly. She also learned to do a mean imitation of a snake slithering and hissing. So cute!

I get to see her pretty much every day, and she is honestly the greatest joy in my life of many daily joys. Through the eyes of a toddler, the world is an amazing place. Every day, something new.

She has favorite dolls (babies) and she loves our big chocolate lab, Puddy, most of all of our pets. Last night she played with her puzzle on Puddy's back while he was napping. Puddy didn't think much of her at first, but now she's his girl. She also loves to play in the dog's water dish and the toilet, but we don't really encourage that too much. Chaeli's favorite TV shows are on Treehouse. Babar and Little Bear are right up there. But she doesn't really watch much -- she just likes to dance to the music while she plays.

This week Chaeli has been a pro at potty-training. She's one of those gentle little children who seem to do everything with very few adjustment glitches. Just like her mum. We are so blessed to have her in our lives and we're so very thankful for her!

Loving the weekend!

What a great weekend! I've been super-productive again. Yesterday I cleaned the basement, did a couple of loads of laundry, rearranged the living room to accommodate our new furniture (which I love!) and worked out. Today I raked the million leaves in the front yard, picked up a tonne of doggie-doo in the backyard, made stew, streaked my hair, worked out and watched about 15 hours of TV. Tomorrow it's back to the office again for another week.

Mr. X is away at work right now and Mitchie has spent the entire weekend with her new beau, so my critters have been keeping me company. Nyk and Chaeli were over a couple of times yesterday, too. Chaeli seems to have a bit of a mad-on for me right now; not really sure why. Usually I'm her favorite person, but maybe it's just because I haven't seen her every day lately. She's so funny. Her latest cleverness consists of adding "'s" to things; Baby's (that's her) or Mommy's when she points to things. She loves to colour, too. As soon as she walks into our house she grabs the crayons and colouring book. She colours and counts the crayons (only up to 3 so far!). She's so clever! Awwwww!

I'm feeling the urge to find some volunteering venture. This is the first year I haven't volunteered at the local rink and though I love knowing my weekends are free, I'm feeling kind of selfish with my time. Hmmmm. What to do? I wish I could get into community theatre again, but I don't think there's much going on with that in this little town. I have musical ability and I would love to use it, but where? And even that is more for me that for the community at large. I must ask around...there must be somewhere I could make a difference.

Where there's a will, there's a car

So happy to report that Nyk got a new(ish) car today! She's been on the phone non-stop since the repair shop announced her piece of shit car would be $1,500 to fix, but to no avail. Finally, last night Mr X and I decided it would be for the best if I would co-sign for her to get a car loan. She worked out all the details and I went in with her to sign and now she's driving an almost-new car with a warranty and she and Chaeli-Bean are safe for the winter. I'm so relieved. So relieved. And it's red! I love red! I'm so proud of her.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, Mr X bought himself a much-coveted Ski-doo. It's a beaut -- even I'm looking forward to snow so we can take it for a spin. He'll use it at work a lot because a couple of the other guys have sleds too, so they can go out in the bush after work every day if they want. I'm verra happy for him. He deserves to have some fun once in awhile, too. And hey, what's another payment. Pshaw.

Mitchie's out carousing with the new flame again tonight. Mr X and I still haven't met him, but by all reports he sounds fun and a bit crazy. Just perfect. I hope it works out for them. Whatever that means. She's such an awesome young woman. I just want everything to be lovely for her.

Ah. Life is good. God is in His heaven and all is right with the world. And everyone in my little family is happy for another day.

If I had a million dollars, Nyk would have a new car

Well, I survived the weekend quite nicely. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, actually. I woke up with the Mother of All Colds on Saturday morning but I went anyway. I'd already cancelled a couple of times and I thought (edited because I'm a weirdo) might have a stroke if I missed again. I've probably given her a cold now, but she was quite gracious and hardly marytr-ous about it having me hork and sniffle in her house all weekend.

I drove 12 hours and visited about 24 hours (including sleeping time), so it wasn't too agonizing. My biggest faux pas of the weekend was probably when I snorted out loud when the pastor was doing his big prayer at church and he prayed for Stephen Harper to have the strength to continue to fight the good fight. I think I may have made the sound morph into a cough in my snotty kleenex in time -- perhaps no one was the wiser. I think it's safe to say I was the only person in the room who has ever voted Liberal. Mr. X thinks I should have stood up and objected or at least called bullshit. But I didn't. That would have been rude.

On the way home I listened to my favorite CD over and over again (a funky bluegrassey band called Little Big Town) and pondered such mysteries as:
1. The sun is 93 million miles away, give or take a few thousand miles, and has the amazing power to make a sidewalk hot enough to fry an egg, even in Northern Canada, yet a little cloud passing in front of said sun can cause a moment of coolness. What gives with that?
2. In Canada, it's legal for a person, even a very young person, to walk into a video store and purchase a video of people duct-taping and kicking (almost to death) a homeless person, just for the fun of it. Hell, it's even legal for people to videotape and sell such videos, just for the fun of it, and presumably the profit. Apparently, at the end of the video the commentator invites people to send in their own videos of beating up innocent, vulnerable people. How can this be? Why are we not protesting this? Bum Fights. Right. Good idea, squirrel.
3. Driving from Saskatchewan to Alberta for a long weekend is an uncommon thing to do. Driving from Alberta to Saskatchewan for a long weekend is a very, very common thing to do. There was almost no one, save me and a few semis, heading west on Saturday, but every single one of the thousands of people who leave Saskatch to live in Alberta each year were coming home to visit the family for the long weekend. It was so bizarre.

Yeah, so the title of my post today. Poor Nyk. Her car is crapping out yet again. I feel so bad for her, but I feel so helpless. I wish, more than anything, that I could afford to buy my kids out of all of their problems. I know it's good for them to take care of themselves, but it's so hard to not be able to make everything easy for them. She works so hard at her job for just enough money to live on, hauls her little girl around at 7 in the morning to daycare every single day, and her car has brakes that aren't reliable. We've fixed them before, but they're still not right. Winter is just around the corner, so we're going to have to do something. I wish the something was a brand new car, but short of a lottery win it's not going to happen. Poor Nyk. She amazes me sometimes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, tomorrow I head off to (blah blah) to see (blah blah) for the weekend. Is it bad that I just wish I could stay home instead? I feel a cold coming on. Perhaps it will be pneumonia tomorrow and I will have to cancel my trip. One can always dream.

Poor little Chaeli is battling croup again this week. She's staying here tonight and I'm listening to her raggedy breath through the monitor (muffled a little by the sound of the humidifier). I wish I knew what I could do for her. She seems so sad tonight. :( Please be okay little Squirrel.


Well, since this will be my last entry before Thanksgiving, what am I thankful for this year? Oh, so many things.
I'm thankful for Mr. X, thankful that he's enjoying his job this year and doing so well at managing his crew and thankful that we still love each other more all the time.
I'm so very thankful that both of my perfect daughters are living in town, and Chaeli too, of course, and that I get to see them all every day. I am so lucky to have those women in my life.
I'm thankful for my job, for the raises I got this year, thankful that I found a career that I love and that I'm really good at. (Nice grammatical structure in that sentence.)
I'm thankful for our health, mine and especially that of my family. So very, very thankful. We all get up every morning without assistance, we see ourselves in the mirror, hear the voices of our loved ones. We can walk, speak, think, laugh.
We have enough food to eat, a country that still lets us complain about the government and allows us worship in our own ways. We have cars, computers, tvs, pets, medical care -- everything we could ever need.

I can only hope next year is as full as this one has been. Thank you God. Thank you karma. Thank you lucky stars. Thank you world.

Mr X in charge

I had yesterday off (a holiday day; I still have more than 2 weeks to use up this year) so we could do some work around the house. I wish we'd taken a "before" picture of our basement bedroom so it could be compared to the current state. It was pink. Pepto pink. With a deeper pink for the trim. Nyk painted it a few years ago in a drugged state, I'm sure. It was pukingly hideous. Even the door, the door handle and the built-in wooden shelves were pink. Fortunately it's downstairs and we didn't have to look at it very often.

Mr. X decided yesterday was the day that would all change. We went out for breakfast after my mammogram (all seems to be fine, I think) to discuss our plans. By the end of the day, we had painted the entire room (sandpiper beige -- Benjamin Moore, of course), laid some beigey-whitey-brownish berber, spray-painted the shelves in a beigey-brown granite finish, and installed a new set of round brass door handles (I did the handles while Mr. X spray-painted the shelves). Today Mr. X installed baseboards and put a bed and vanity in the room and tonight we put up pictures, blinds and I put my beautiful green bedspread and shams on the bed. It looks fantastic! Now we're inspired to finish the rest of the basement. Basically all we need is carpet and we're in. Yeay! It finally feels like we're getting somewhere.

In other news:
Poor little Chaeli had another bout of croup early yesterday morning. Nyk took her to the hospital and they put her on the nebulizer for an hour or so. By the time we saw her a couple of hours later she was in good spirits but was still so croaky. Poor little Bean. Tomorrow Nyk and Miles are going out and Chaeli will spend the night with Ima. We'll have fun! Whee!

I think Mitchie had a date last night. (shhhhh). I'm not sure, but she was out late and seemed oddly happy today. More about that later. Maybe. She gets a lot of calls from guys but never seems interested. Wonder what's going on this time. Stay tuned.

Won't that be fun

Riiiight. Tomorrow I get my boobie squished to check out a lump that we discovered a couple of weeks ago. I'm not worried about the lump -- I've had these before and I just seem to be a lumpy person. I'm just a bit less than excited about the procedure. My husband (Mr. X) said I should slam my boob in the piano lid just to warm me up. Or the fridge door. Or I could lay on the floor of the garage and he could drive over my boob a couple of times. I'll be happy when it's over. The last time I had it done my breast tissue was too dense to see anything so I had to have an ultrasound. I can only hope that they'll say the same thing tomorrow, but I doubt it. I'm sure it will squish quite nicely now. Damn.

I've decided to take the whole day off from work tomorrow to spend some time with Mr. X. I think he has jobs for me. Perhaps we'll do brunch somewhere while he delivers my duties for the day. I'm scared of that, too. He's a slave-driver. But he is cute, so it's all good.

...random editing....
Last spring I when was at ... (such a person who shall not be named) ... she announced that she discovered a book that she wants all of her children to read. Have I heard about the DaVinci Code? Yes, I said, actually I read it. "You read the book, DaVinci Code?!" she shrieked in horror. I asked her, "So, you're asking me to read a book debunking a book I've never read? Why would I not just read the book and make up my own mind?" Not the right answer. At all.
Apparently my faith should be eternally shaken and clearly my mind hopelessly corrupted by having had the audacity to have actually read it. I must just learn to listen to the church leaders and let them tell me what is right and what is wrong. For the love of God, don't think for yourself. Heavens.

So that's what I'll be dealing with next weekend while everyone else is out having fun.

And to further add insult to my agony, one of my friends is having a barn dance at her farm this weekend. Beotch. Go ahead, have fun. It's okay. I'll be fine. Just fine. Just fine.

I love a sunny Sunday in Autumn!

We live on a street lined with 40-year-old elm trees, two of which reside in our front yard. This morning when we looked outside we saw the most amazing sight. The leaves were floating through the air by the hundreds (thousands!) and covering the ground with colour. It is so beautiful. It looks like God sprinkled a blanket of yellow and orange rose petals all down our street. When Chaeli was over we sat by the window for a while and watched the leaf show. Every once in a while a stronger breeze would blow and a couple hundred leaves would fall and she would gasp and point at the leaves. Ah, fall. It truly is the nicest season of the year.

Brent and I golfed for the last time this year at a course by the river valley. The weather was perfect and the scenery was breathtaking with the red, orange, green, purple and yellow trees and the softly flowing river. I can't believe it's almost winter again. This summer was the best we've had in ages, but I'm still not ready for snow. I guess I'm never ready for snow.

Which brings me to my bitch of the week. Why, when there is so much good in the world, do some people have to complain about absolutely everything? I cannot tolerate drama-queens who want everyone to feel sorry for them because their lives aren't always laid out perfectly for them. There is always, always someone who has it worse than you, squirrel, so suck it up and stop whining. Argh. There is nothing -- nothing -- I detest more than poor-me whining. This has been a public service announcement. Keep it in mind.