Well, we found out that the home assessment people made a mistake. My initial response when Husband told me was to slump in dread of the lower actual number that he was going to tell me. Imagine my delight when he told me our house is actually worth DOUBLE what we paid for it!!!!!! Alriiiiiiiight! :) If this line of credit come through, we should have our mortgage paid off in maybe 15 years instead of 23, plus will have an easier time paying things off and being able to do things as a family.
Now I must put in a little story about me and my little guy. Son is nearly 3 and therefore everything is exciting and interesting, especially if he can pick it up. He has just reached the age where he feels himself to be too much of a big boy to ride in the stroller. To his credit, he can walk for 45 minutes without a complaint, but at a very slow pace, partially due to the above statement. Anyway...I don't like bugs. I don't like creepy crawly things. I just don't. Son does. Son very much does. So Mommy had to swallow her fear and jittery feelings and allow Son his time of wonderment and excitement when he found....and picked up....the most humungous dragonfly I have ever seen. It was dead, obviously, since he was able to pick it up. He brought this thing home, and it sits in a little container at his tiny desk in his room, waiting for Husband to come home and see his prize catch. It's actually a pretty thing, a shimmery blue with sparkly wings.....but it's huge. The body is about 15 cm long, and the wingspan is probably close to that....maybe closer to 10cm. He talked to it the whole way home. He told this dragonfly that he was taking it to his house, he was going to take it IN his house, he told it the colour of his house, too. He's pretty happy about his bug. And, I guess, in a way, behind all my icky jittery feeling towards it, I'm kind of proud of his catch, too. After all, what's the fun of being a little boy if you can't catch bugs, and big ones, at that. :) Now he has his own dragon. Hee hee
Monday, July 30, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
We Bought at the Right Time!!!!
We bought our house in February of 2006. It was the most expensive house we had bought (which isn't saying much, but more on that in a minute). We knew the bank had done a home assessment, but they never told us what the house was worth. We thought the house was maybe worth a little bit more than we paid, hopefully not less, but we had no idea whatsoever.
We are currently in the process of trying to get a home equity line of credit, which requires, you guessed it, a home assessment. Well, THIS time, the company we are working with on getting said line of credit showed us the results. We are very, very, very, very happy....our house is worth about 186% of what we paid for it. That's right.... it's worth 86% MORE than we paid for it! Needless to say, we were shocked and ecstatic. But of course, for those of you thinking we are stinkin' rich or something, let's put things into perspective...
Our first ever house we bought was 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, double lot, small town. Very cheap. Sickeningly cheap to all you poor people who live in, say, Calgary or Edmonton, or the states or something.
Our second house cost approximately 4 TIMES as much, but still not remotely close to what you pay in the places I mentioned above...again, a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, but single lot, not so good part of town.
THIS house cost us nearly FIVE times as much as the second (or over 17 times as much as the first house....what a staggering statistic)....for a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 lot in a good area of town.
Here is the staggering figure to make all you big city, non-Saskatchewan people jealous....if I add up what we paid for all three houses into one sum, I have bought 3 houses for an altogether grand total of $146,500. Not each, not averaged out (that average would beeeee....about $48,333 each) Those of you math whizzes out there can play with this one for awhile. I am giggling with glee and very happy that we live in our wonderful province....with the way our income has been, we never would have even been the owners of ONE house by now in a place like Calgary!
Heh heh heh
We are currently in the process of trying to get a home equity line of credit, which requires, you guessed it, a home assessment. Well, THIS time, the company we are working with on getting said line of credit showed us the results. We are very, very, very, very happy....our house is worth about 186% of what we paid for it. That's right.... it's worth 86% MORE than we paid for it! Needless to say, we were shocked and ecstatic. But of course, for those of you thinking we are stinkin' rich or something, let's put things into perspective...
Our first ever house we bought was 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, double lot, small town. Very cheap. Sickeningly cheap to all you poor people who live in, say, Calgary or Edmonton, or the states or something.
Our second house cost approximately 4 TIMES as much, but still not remotely close to what you pay in the places I mentioned above...again, a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, but single lot, not so good part of town.
THIS house cost us nearly FIVE times as much as the second (or over 17 times as much as the first house....what a staggering statistic)....for a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 lot in a good area of town.
Here is the staggering figure to make all you big city, non-Saskatchewan people jealous....if I add up what we paid for all three houses into one sum, I have bought 3 houses for an altogether grand total of $146,500. Not each, not averaged out (that average would beeeee....about $48,333 each) Those of you math whizzes out there can play with this one for awhile. I am giggling with glee and very happy that we live in our wonderful province....with the way our income has been, we never would have even been the owners of ONE house by now in a place like Calgary!
Heh heh heh
Monday, July 23, 2007
My apples are grapes
You should see my apple trees this year. I'm not sure exactly what happened, I guess the conditions were just right and the bees were busy this spring. I have two crab apple trees. one grows little red ones, one grows medium yellowish ones. Both trees have a good number of apples on them, but the yellow apple tree, WELL, the number of apples on each branch is just stunning. The branches are starting to bend all the way to the ground because there are so many apples that it literally looks like they are giant clusters of grapes. I tried counting just one branch worth of apples, and based on what I came up with, and extrapolating to how many branches there ARE on this tree, there are well over a THOUSAND apples on this tree! I could open my own crab apple business if they ripen! Yikes! The red apple tree has maybe half that, but still, 500 apples, give or take a hundred or so, is still a lot of apples, just on its own!
It is so horribly hot here that I am considering keeping Daughter home today....she usually goes to a day camp sort of thing, but the forecast says it will be 36 C today, with a humidex of 49C!!! She burns like me, even with sunscreen, and this heat will really get to her, especially since they don't always let them get water.
I made it back to the gym today, for which I am proud of myself. Today is the start of a new run at losing this extra weight of mine. Hopefully i will not sabotage myself this week, and will actually get somewhere in this.
Anyway, it's already getting too hot to think. Time to go weigh in for the week and have some breakfast and a litre of water.
It is so horribly hot here that I am considering keeping Daughter home today....she usually goes to a day camp sort of thing, but the forecast says it will be 36 C today, with a humidex of 49C!!! She burns like me, even with sunscreen, and this heat will really get to her, especially since they don't always let them get water.
I made it back to the gym today, for which I am proud of myself. Today is the start of a new run at losing this extra weight of mine. Hopefully i will not sabotage myself this week, and will actually get somewhere in this.
Anyway, it's already getting too hot to think. Time to go weigh in for the week and have some breakfast and a litre of water.
Friday, July 20, 2007
My Childhood Home (s)
Some of us are writing a blog entry about our childhood home. In my case, that would be HOMES....growing up, the longest I lived anywhere was 5 years, so it will take a bit of thinking to remember them all.
The house we lived in when i was first born was an old manse, my father being a pastor. I don't remember a whole lot about it, other than it was big and had a spiral staircase. This was the house where our kitty decided to adopt us. She was a stray, and about 1 year old when she showed up. I was 2 at the time. We lived there until I was 3.
The second house we lived in was another large, old manse. I remember this one a bit more....it had the old fashioned set up, complete with sitting room, dining room, everything separated by sliding doors. It had a huge staircase, and I slept in a bunk bed in a room I shared with my sister. I remember the school where I went to kindergarten being right across the road, and going over there on Canada Day to burn sparklers and shoot off a few small fireworks. My brother was born when I was in kindergarten, and I remember thinking he was ugly. LOL. We lived there until I was 6.
The third house we had was a temporary house that we lived in for about a year, and was 4 provinces away. I'm not sure what the story with that one was, but I remember it had a fireplace in the basement which we thought was really cool. There was a park nearby where the entire play structure was made out of old tires, ranging from car tires to massive tractor wheels. I remember we always would watch the Muppet Show together in the kitchen, and a classmate of mine was my backdoor neighbour.
The fourth house we lived in was in the same city, but on the other end of town. It was another old manse. I loved that place. We had a massive playroom in the basement, and the bedrooms we slept in were upstairs, where the ceiling was basically the roof....the ceilings slanted and met in a peak. The furniture was built right in up there, beds, desk, drawers, everything built right into the walls/floor, so the arrangement was, obviously, permanent. We had a nice, big backyard with a swingset and sandbox, picnic table.....your basic backyard, I guess. We had a weeping willow tree that eventually got cut down, which i thought was really sad, and some giant blue spruce trees that were amazing in the winter.....the snow would not get under the branches, so we could dig a door under the branches and have a nice, insulated playhouse made out of the branches and the space under them. The house also had a huge closet you could sit in, great for hide and seek, and a prayer closet for my Mom. I used to stay in the spare room on nights when I couldn't sleep, because my Mom had all her sewing stuff in there, and I'd sit and make Barbie clothes all night.
In winter, I remember my parents getting up on the roof of the carport to shovel it off, having so much snow one year that when we opened the gate to the backyard, it was just a wall of snow, as high as the gate itself. I remember my parents shovelling the driveway and putting all the snow in the middle of the front yard each year, so we could slide down it on our sleds. I remember the slugs that would crawl up and down our driveway wall, and I remember I wasn't scared of spiders yet. I remember that about a half block away, just on the side of the mountain we lived on, there was a huge patch of wild saskatoon berry bushes, and we would all go berry picking each year, eating more than we brought home. I remember going on family walks, which took 2 hours, all the way to the other end of town, just to buy a slurpee. I would always get a mix of orange and sprite, if they had it. I remember going on a hiking picnic up a ski mountain one year. We did a lot of fun stuff there. We moved when I was 11.
My fifth house was back across the country, 5 provinces away. It was yet another old manse, right beside the church. I would love to have a house like that today. It was gorgeous. The basement wasn't finished, just concrete, but it had a raised platform that became our play are, and had two closed off rooms, one was holding the deep freeze, and the other, I believe was cold storage and just general storage. The backyard was huge, because at the time they hadn't built anything behind it, so it even had a small slope leading to a field that was perfect for sledding. The main floor had a half bath, an office, an entryway, a living room with doors at each entrance, a big dining room, a nice sized kitchen, and a deck off the back. The upstairs had 4 bedrooms and a full bath. And two of the bedrooms were huge, one being the master bedroom, and one was split in two, part of the time as a shared room, part of the time being a bedroom with half cordonned off for sewing and computer use. I remember spending all of my Christmas holidays studying for January exams. I would memorize for hours every day, and then would breeze through the exams, because I could literally SEE my notes in my head. I remember putting up yellow wallpaper in my room. I remember having huge fights with my sister and brother, and accidentally slamming my brother's fingers in the door. To this day, I can still hear his fingers crunch. *shudder*. That was the house where I got chicken pox for the third time, baffling the doctors. That was the house where I developed my biggest fear in needles, thanks to an incompetent nurse, and a poor lab guy whose only fault was that he had the misfortune of looking like a gorilla, and so when he was
called in to try to replace the incompetent nurse, got to see just how hysterically terrified a 12 year old can get. (He, by the way, managed to get the needle in and out with no problems, once I was restrained, for which I think he was eternally grateful). I remember going for 3 1/2 hour walks on the back yards as a family, seeing wildlife and watching the maple leaves turn in the fall, and the snow and ice melting in the spring. I remember the old fashioned merry-go-round by the beach, the beach itself, the little waterfall that nobody knew about up the stream that we found by walking a little obscure dirt patch through the trees. I remember Pop Shoppe pop and double ice cream cones at the parlour that had special ice cream cones with two cup on each cone (looked a bit like an 8 on top). I remember the huge fire that burned down a set of low income housing and even got so bad that there was an explosion. I remember walking to school one day and having a car go through a huge puddle so fast that the splash went as high as the power lines and got me soaked. I remember our old dog Sparky getting old and cranky, having her bite me one morning because I teased her, and coming home to find my parents had put her down. I thought it was my fault for almost a decade, until I told my Mom, and she put my fears to rest. I remember going across the river on the ferry. And I remember Justine. She was an amazing woman. She was very, very old, and didn't get out much anymore, not much past her front steps. She lived alone, right across the street from us, in a very old house. I had a school project in French that required me to talk to someone older. I asked if I could interview her, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone so happy. I got to go inside her house, which had not been updated much over the years, which was fascinating in itself. She was a teacher when she was young, and she talked for hours and hours about it (for my project), so much so that my Mom had to come and get me. It was so amazing to be 14 and talk to someone who had taught in the early 1900's. I also remember we had a rotary phone. I miss those, to a certain extent. They were cool. We lived there until I was 14, almost 15.
My sixth house was back across the country again, 4 provinces away. It was a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house.You walked in the door and either had to go up or down. Up was 2 bedrooms, a full bath, living room, and kitchen (and closets), and downstairs was 2 bedrooms, a full bath, and a den which got split in two, one part being my Dad's office. I remember a lot of things to do with school, but not a whole lot to do with home. I was having problems by then, problems that had started when i was 13 (a whole other story), and had progressively gotten worse. I remember being in I.B. and doing a lot of homework. I remember crushes that were not reciprocated. I remember being very shy and self-conscious. I remember thinking my academics were what would gain me approval at home, and that losing weight would make me the beautiful girl I wanted to be. The first part wasn't true, and the second part just never happened (the losing weight and getting beautiful part). I have very good memories of the place, and a lot of good memories about my time there, especially connected to school and the friends that i had there, but I think that was also the place where I had the worst trouble with dealing with growing up and who and what I was.
If you'd like to talk about YOUR childhood home, join the crowd and check out http://owlhaven.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/my-childhood-home-2/
The house we lived in when i was first born was an old manse, my father being a pastor. I don't remember a whole lot about it, other than it was big and had a spiral staircase. This was the house where our kitty decided to adopt us. She was a stray, and about 1 year old when she showed up. I was 2 at the time. We lived there until I was 3.
The second house we lived in was another large, old manse. I remember this one a bit more....it had the old fashioned set up, complete with sitting room, dining room, everything separated by sliding doors. It had a huge staircase, and I slept in a bunk bed in a room I shared with my sister. I remember the school where I went to kindergarten being right across the road, and going over there on Canada Day to burn sparklers and shoot off a few small fireworks. My brother was born when I was in kindergarten, and I remember thinking he was ugly. LOL. We lived there until I was 6.
The third house we had was a temporary house that we lived in for about a year, and was 4 provinces away. I'm not sure what the story with that one was, but I remember it had a fireplace in the basement which we thought was really cool. There was a park nearby where the entire play structure was made out of old tires, ranging from car tires to massive tractor wheels. I remember we always would watch the Muppet Show together in the kitchen, and a classmate of mine was my backdoor neighbour.
The fourth house we lived in was in the same city, but on the other end of town. It was another old manse. I loved that place. We had a massive playroom in the basement, and the bedrooms we slept in were upstairs, where the ceiling was basically the roof....the ceilings slanted and met in a peak. The furniture was built right in up there, beds, desk, drawers, everything built right into the walls/floor, so the arrangement was, obviously, permanent. We had a nice, big backyard with a swingset and sandbox, picnic table.....your basic backyard, I guess. We had a weeping willow tree that eventually got cut down, which i thought was really sad, and some giant blue spruce trees that were amazing in the winter.....the snow would not get under the branches, so we could dig a door under the branches and have a nice, insulated playhouse made out of the branches and the space under them. The house also had a huge closet you could sit in, great for hide and seek, and a prayer closet for my Mom. I used to stay in the spare room on nights when I couldn't sleep, because my Mom had all her sewing stuff in there, and I'd sit and make Barbie clothes all night.
In winter, I remember my parents getting up on the roof of the carport to shovel it off, having so much snow one year that when we opened the gate to the backyard, it was just a wall of snow, as high as the gate itself. I remember my parents shovelling the driveway and putting all the snow in the middle of the front yard each year, so we could slide down it on our sleds. I remember the slugs that would crawl up and down our driveway wall, and I remember I wasn't scared of spiders yet. I remember that about a half block away, just on the side of the mountain we lived on, there was a huge patch of wild saskatoon berry bushes, and we would all go berry picking each year, eating more than we brought home. I remember going on family walks, which took 2 hours, all the way to the other end of town, just to buy a slurpee. I would always get a mix of orange and sprite, if they had it. I remember going on a hiking picnic up a ski mountain one year. We did a lot of fun stuff there. We moved when I was 11.
My fifth house was back across the country, 5 provinces away. It was yet another old manse, right beside the church. I would love to have a house like that today. It was gorgeous. The basement wasn't finished, just concrete, but it had a raised platform that became our play are, and had two closed off rooms, one was holding the deep freeze, and the other, I believe was cold storage and just general storage. The backyard was huge, because at the time they hadn't built anything behind it, so it even had a small slope leading to a field that was perfect for sledding. The main floor had a half bath, an office, an entryway, a living room with doors at each entrance, a big dining room, a nice sized kitchen, and a deck off the back. The upstairs had 4 bedrooms and a full bath. And two of the bedrooms were huge, one being the master bedroom, and one was split in two, part of the time as a shared room, part of the time being a bedroom with half cordonned off for sewing and computer use. I remember spending all of my Christmas holidays studying for January exams. I would memorize for hours every day, and then would breeze through the exams, because I could literally SEE my notes in my head. I remember putting up yellow wallpaper in my room. I remember having huge fights with my sister and brother, and accidentally slamming my brother's fingers in the door. To this day, I can still hear his fingers crunch. *shudder*. That was the house where I got chicken pox for the third time, baffling the doctors. That was the house where I developed my biggest fear in needles, thanks to an incompetent nurse, and a poor lab guy whose only fault was that he had the misfortune of looking like a gorilla, and so when he was
called in to try to replace the incompetent nurse, got to see just how hysterically terrified a 12 year old can get. (He, by the way, managed to get the needle in and out with no problems, once I was restrained, for which I think he was eternally grateful). I remember going for 3 1/2 hour walks on the back yards as a family, seeing wildlife and watching the maple leaves turn in the fall, and the snow and ice melting in the spring. I remember the old fashioned merry-go-round by the beach, the beach itself, the little waterfall that nobody knew about up the stream that we found by walking a little obscure dirt patch through the trees. I remember Pop Shoppe pop and double ice cream cones at the parlour that had special ice cream cones with two cup on each cone (looked a bit like an 8 on top). I remember the huge fire that burned down a set of low income housing and even got so bad that there was an explosion. I remember walking to school one day and having a car go through a huge puddle so fast that the splash went as high as the power lines and got me soaked. I remember our old dog Sparky getting old and cranky, having her bite me one morning because I teased her, and coming home to find my parents had put her down. I thought it was my fault for almost a decade, until I told my Mom, and she put my fears to rest. I remember going across the river on the ferry. And I remember Justine. She was an amazing woman. She was very, very old, and didn't get out much anymore, not much past her front steps. She lived alone, right across the street from us, in a very old house. I had a school project in French that required me to talk to someone older. I asked if I could interview her, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone so happy. I got to go inside her house, which had not been updated much over the years, which was fascinating in itself. She was a teacher when she was young, and she talked for hours and hours about it (for my project), so much so that my Mom had to come and get me. It was so amazing to be 14 and talk to someone who had taught in the early 1900's. I also remember we had a rotary phone. I miss those, to a certain extent. They were cool. We lived there until I was 14, almost 15.
My sixth house was back across the country again, 4 provinces away. It was a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house.You walked in the door and either had to go up or down. Up was 2 bedrooms, a full bath, living room, and kitchen (and closets), and downstairs was 2 bedrooms, a full bath, and a den which got split in two, one part being my Dad's office. I remember a lot of things to do with school, but not a whole lot to do with home. I was having problems by then, problems that had started when i was 13 (a whole other story), and had progressively gotten worse. I remember being in I.B. and doing a lot of homework. I remember crushes that were not reciprocated. I remember being very shy and self-conscious. I remember thinking my academics were what would gain me approval at home, and that losing weight would make me the beautiful girl I wanted to be. The first part wasn't true, and the second part just never happened (the losing weight and getting beautiful part). I have very good memories of the place, and a lot of good memories about my time there, especially connected to school and the friends that i had there, but I think that was also the place where I had the worst trouble with dealing with growing up and who and what I was.
If you'd like to talk about YOUR childhood home, join the crowd and check out http://owlhaven.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/my-childhood-home-2/
A hot and tiring week
It's been one of those weeks, you know the kind....it seems as if it's the hottest it's ever been. Everyone is shocked and grumbling about how horribly hot it is...and yet everybody knows, deep down inside, this is exactly what we got LAST YEAR....and the year before, and the year before....
As a result, I have been very tired. I have even been feeling sick the last two days, now that the heat has receded a bit. This works to my major disadvantage. This means I intend to eat less because I'm not feeling well, and then end up bingeing later on in the day. I have not made it to the gym the past two days, bringing my gym attendance to a whopping total of one day this week. I have dragged my butt home after papers and inserted myself on one of the spare beds, so as not to disturb anyone, and been found around 9:30 by my family members. This, of course, cuts down on the day's cleaning time considerably, as it then takes me quite awhile to get back into the conscious and PROPERLY FUNCTIONING part of my day (I can be up, physically, but until I've had some coffee, etc, hopes of my doing anything useful are a mere dream). This, in turn, makes the job seem mountainous, and somewhat intimidating. This leads to frustration, which leads to my feeling tired and uninspired....
Definitely not an ideal week.
Rearranged the kids' rooms, much to their delight, and today my goal will be to tidy Son's room, both bathrooms, the kitchen, and do a load of laundry.....and maybe some weeding, if it doesn't get too hot this afternoon. Wish me luck.
As a result, I have been very tired. I have even been feeling sick the last two days, now that the heat has receded a bit. This works to my major disadvantage. This means I intend to eat less because I'm not feeling well, and then end up bingeing later on in the day. I have not made it to the gym the past two days, bringing my gym attendance to a whopping total of one day this week. I have dragged my butt home after papers and inserted myself on one of the spare beds, so as not to disturb anyone, and been found around 9:30 by my family members. This, of course, cuts down on the day's cleaning time considerably, as it then takes me quite awhile to get back into the conscious and PROPERLY FUNCTIONING part of my day (I can be up, physically, but until I've had some coffee, etc, hopes of my doing anything useful are a mere dream). This, in turn, makes the job seem mountainous, and somewhat intimidating. This leads to frustration, which leads to my feeling tired and uninspired....
Definitely not an ideal week.
Rearranged the kids' rooms, much to their delight, and today my goal will be to tidy Son's room, both bathrooms, the kitchen, and do a load of laundry.....and maybe some weeding, if it doesn't get too hot this afternoon. Wish me luck.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Purpose In Life
It's amazing how, when you start pondering something, the topic keeps popping up in different places. Take yesterday's thread, for example....what am i famous for? Wouldn't you know that at church today, the topic of the sermon had to do with our purpose in life....what are we here for. It has me thinking a little bit, okay, maybe a lot....everybody has a purpose in life. Everyone is born for some reason, whether we ever know what it is or not....and it's something we really ought to remember, especially when it's one of those really bad days where you feel like you could die and it really wouldn't matter to anyone.
So I started wondering....what is my purpose in life? Why am I here? I have to admit that, when I look at my life so far, I find very little that I can claim as a real influence in anyone's life, aside from the negative things I have brought. But following what my pastor said today, I know there is some reason I am here, some reason why I am exclusively ME, soul, mind, and body.
I wish I knew the reason for who I am, but in a way, I wonder if by knowing, that would somehow either dampen its effect on the world, change who I am and perhaps cause it never to be, or somehow change something in someone else's life that should never be changed. I don't know.
If someone asked me why I am here, what purpose I have in life, and I absolutely had to give an answer, maybe I can come up with a few thoughts, and in that, perhaps it could sustain me through some of those dark hours...
I am a mother to two children, one a girl, one a boy. Perhaps the girl will grow up and become the mother of someone the world really will need, perhaps she, herself, will grow up to be somebody amazing (not just in the sense of "amazing in her Mommy's eyes, you know?), I don't know. She may be destined for greatness, or help bring someone else to greatness,
The boy was originally not meant to be...originally we were stopping with the girl. I told Husband after I had her that I was never going through pregnancy again. It was a rough delivery, and when I said it, I'm sure I meant it, but somehow there was a huge longing, a hole, in a sense, that arose later on, a nagging overwhelming desire to have just one more baby. Husband had only wanted one child, so this caused a great deal of friction, and deep sadness and even some depression on my part, which I'm sure didn't help our relationship much. Eventually, Husband decided he, too, would like to have another. To this day, I wonder if he just said yes to make me happy, but I think, in the end, his doubts and reservations disappeared, once Son was here. Love at first sight...so I figure Son is destined for something big, considering it was such a huge battle, in a way, to get him here.
Perhaps I am here to talk to people about the "hidden illness", as mental illness is often called. I have come to accept who I am, and the struggles I face as a result of who I am and the choices I have made. People who look at me likely would never know there was anything wrong with me. Once people really get to know me, they find I can often be a very difficult friend to have, at times. I say things I shouldn't, I do things I shouldn't, I seek attention, acceptance, validation, sometimes with such ferocity that I scare people off. I suffer from depression, I also suffer from an eating disorder, yet another thing people would never guess....who ever heard of a fat anorexic? Maybe I am here as an example to people that an eating disorder doesn't come with a specific face. It doesn't necessarily come with a specific name, either. I am neither anorexic, nor bulimic, at least not exclusively....but I DO have an eating disorder. Anyone who obsesses about food, and allows that obsession to control how, where, when, what, and how much they eat has an eating disorder.
I have come a long way in my fight, and in most cases, I am winning. I am able to manage most of my episodes, both the depressive ones and the eating disorder urges, but I still have a long way to go, and have come to realize this is a lifelong battle...you don't get over them, but merely learn to control them and deal with them. Maybe there is someone out there who has the same issues as I do, someone who, one day, can benefit from my experiences and wisdom I have acquired in learning to live with myself.
Perhaps I am here to touch someone's life in some way, by something as simple as helping lead the singing at church, or being a part of my Sweet Adelines group, or maybe just by being a listening ear, a smile when it's needed, maybe a letter or phone call I make someday will save somebody's life....I don't know.
I am beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, a lot of the "bad" things that have happened to me will, one day, be used for a good purpose....maybe by going through them, they will be the tools to my helping someone else in their journey. I hope so. I think we all need to know we have some purpose in life, hidden or not, that will make our lives all worthwhile in the end.
So I started wondering....what is my purpose in life? Why am I here? I have to admit that, when I look at my life so far, I find very little that I can claim as a real influence in anyone's life, aside from the negative things I have brought. But following what my pastor said today, I know there is some reason I am here, some reason why I am exclusively ME, soul, mind, and body.
I wish I knew the reason for who I am, but in a way, I wonder if by knowing, that would somehow either dampen its effect on the world, change who I am and perhaps cause it never to be, or somehow change something in someone else's life that should never be changed. I don't know.
If someone asked me why I am here, what purpose I have in life, and I absolutely had to give an answer, maybe I can come up with a few thoughts, and in that, perhaps it could sustain me through some of those dark hours...
I am a mother to two children, one a girl, one a boy. Perhaps the girl will grow up and become the mother of someone the world really will need, perhaps she, herself, will grow up to be somebody amazing (not just in the sense of "amazing in her Mommy's eyes, you know?), I don't know. She may be destined for greatness, or help bring someone else to greatness,
The boy was originally not meant to be...originally we were stopping with the girl. I told Husband after I had her that I was never going through pregnancy again. It was a rough delivery, and when I said it, I'm sure I meant it, but somehow there was a huge longing, a hole, in a sense, that arose later on, a nagging overwhelming desire to have just one more baby. Husband had only wanted one child, so this caused a great deal of friction, and deep sadness and even some depression on my part, which I'm sure didn't help our relationship much. Eventually, Husband decided he, too, would like to have another. To this day, I wonder if he just said yes to make me happy, but I think, in the end, his doubts and reservations disappeared, once Son was here. Love at first sight...so I figure Son is destined for something big, considering it was such a huge battle, in a way, to get him here.
Perhaps I am here to talk to people about the "hidden illness", as mental illness is often called. I have come to accept who I am, and the struggles I face as a result of who I am and the choices I have made. People who look at me likely would never know there was anything wrong with me. Once people really get to know me, they find I can often be a very difficult friend to have, at times. I say things I shouldn't, I do things I shouldn't, I seek attention, acceptance, validation, sometimes with such ferocity that I scare people off. I suffer from depression, I also suffer from an eating disorder, yet another thing people would never guess....who ever heard of a fat anorexic? Maybe I am here as an example to people that an eating disorder doesn't come with a specific face. It doesn't necessarily come with a specific name, either. I am neither anorexic, nor bulimic, at least not exclusively....but I DO have an eating disorder. Anyone who obsesses about food, and allows that obsession to control how, where, when, what, and how much they eat has an eating disorder.
I have come a long way in my fight, and in most cases, I am winning. I am able to manage most of my episodes, both the depressive ones and the eating disorder urges, but I still have a long way to go, and have come to realize this is a lifelong battle...you don't get over them, but merely learn to control them and deal with them. Maybe there is someone out there who has the same issues as I do, someone who, one day, can benefit from my experiences and wisdom I have acquired in learning to live with myself.
Perhaps I am here to touch someone's life in some way, by something as simple as helping lead the singing at church, or being a part of my Sweet Adelines group, or maybe just by being a listening ear, a smile when it's needed, maybe a letter or phone call I make someday will save somebody's life....I don't know.
I am beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, a lot of the "bad" things that have happened to me will, one day, be used for a good purpose....maybe by going through them, they will be the tools to my helping someone else in their journey. I hope so. I think we all need to know we have some purpose in life, hidden or not, that will make our lives all worthwhile in the end.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
What am I famous for?
In this neighbourhood, apparently my new air pump. The neighbourhood kids all have these inflatable swimming pools (we don't, yet, but may soon, as our hard plastic one bit the bullet), and apparently their pools keep going flat. So they all come knocking on my door..."Can we use your air pump? Our pool went flat again!", and I give it to them, and off they go. I always wanted to be famous.....but I never thought it would be for my air pump. I always wanted to be a famous singer, but apparently I'm just full of hot air. Ha ha.
Speaking of hot air, we are all melting on this fine Saturday afternoon. We were supposed to have tuna casserole for supper, but there is no way that stove is getting turned on. As it is, Son is sitting around in his underwear....the only one in the family who is young enough to get away with doing so. We all envy him. So today I will put together a cold plate....lettuce, tuna and mayo, maybe some tomato, and some cheese. I guess I'm famous for coming up with food ideas in my house, too. I create my own "kitchen sink soups"....I have some leftover meat, maybe some bones, toss them in a pot and boil like mad to get a broth, then after the bones are removed, toss in pretty much anything and everything I can find....potato, rice, noodles, veggies....I've even put in some Bulls Eye BBQ sauce when I had leftover roast, and it actually tasted really good! I made a big pot of chili yesterday....sort of followed a recipe, in terms of what ingredients would go in, but kind of fudged it from there, especially since the recipe wasn't for the 3 pounds of beans I cooked up. It turned out really good, and made enough for 6 family meals.
Daughter got herself one of those bead curtains at a yard sale yesterday. They plopped it in a bag for her to carry it...it took me 4 HOURS to get the thing untangled and put up for her....it came out of the bag as one giant snarled ball of beaded string. Ugh! As a result, I got to bed last night around 1AM....not good when you consider I get up at 4AM to go to work! I managed to stumble my way through that, skipped going to the gym, opting instead to crash on the couch at 7AM....and stayed there in either an unconscious or semiconscious state until shortly before 11AM.Much to my children's frustration, I'm sure. I sing at church tomorrow, but don't have to be up until about 7AM to get everybody ready to go, so should be able to catch up on my sleep a bit that way....and then Husband works an overnight shift tomorrow night, which takes away any possibility of me working on Monday morning, so i will have yet ANOTHER night of extended sleep....except that I don't sleep so well when he is away overnight.
Anyway, I plan to spend the rest of the day in a lazy way....maybe I'll treat the family to ice cream later or something. It's too hot to do much else, and it's supposed to be even hotter tomorrow....so we are going to the MOVIES where it will be air conditioned....cheap theatre to see Nancy Drew, I believe.
Speaking of hot air, we are all melting on this fine Saturday afternoon. We were supposed to have tuna casserole for supper, but there is no way that stove is getting turned on. As it is, Son is sitting around in his underwear....the only one in the family who is young enough to get away with doing so. We all envy him. So today I will put together a cold plate....lettuce, tuna and mayo, maybe some tomato, and some cheese. I guess I'm famous for coming up with food ideas in my house, too. I create my own "kitchen sink soups"....I have some leftover meat, maybe some bones, toss them in a pot and boil like mad to get a broth, then after the bones are removed, toss in pretty much anything and everything I can find....potato, rice, noodles, veggies....I've even put in some Bulls Eye BBQ sauce when I had leftover roast, and it actually tasted really good! I made a big pot of chili yesterday....sort of followed a recipe, in terms of what ingredients would go in, but kind of fudged it from there, especially since the recipe wasn't for the 3 pounds of beans I cooked up. It turned out really good, and made enough for 6 family meals.
Daughter got herself one of those bead curtains at a yard sale yesterday. They plopped it in a bag for her to carry it...it took me 4 HOURS to get the thing untangled and put up for her....it came out of the bag as one giant snarled ball of beaded string. Ugh! As a result, I got to bed last night around 1AM....not good when you consider I get up at 4AM to go to work! I managed to stumble my way through that, skipped going to the gym, opting instead to crash on the couch at 7AM....and stayed there in either an unconscious or semiconscious state until shortly before 11AM.Much to my children's frustration, I'm sure. I sing at church tomorrow, but don't have to be up until about 7AM to get everybody ready to go, so should be able to catch up on my sleep a bit that way....and then Husband works an overnight shift tomorrow night, which takes away any possibility of me working on Monday morning, so i will have yet ANOTHER night of extended sleep....except that I don't sleep so well when he is away overnight.
Anyway, I plan to spend the rest of the day in a lazy way....maybe I'll treat the family to ice cream later or something. It's too hot to do much else, and it's supposed to be even hotter tomorrow....so we are going to the MOVIES where it will be air conditioned....cheap theatre to see Nancy Drew, I believe.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
It's been awhile...
But I am back, like it or not *grin*.
I received a few comments which had me thinking, and I have to say that I simply must continue in my usual vein, whether that means nobody has anything to say in response or not. Once in awhile, however, I will try to put something in to get some feedback....a point to debate, as it may.
Anyways...July 3rd was my last post....that would be...last Tuesday.
Things started going downhill after that....the van got a VERY flat tire....the jack broke while the car was on it (luckily nobody got hurt)....the nuts on the hubcap snapped off making it nearly impossible to remove....the nuts on the wheel were stubborn, resulting in my dancing all over the lawn in pain when the tool slipped off the nut, causing me to scrape and ram my upper arm into the metal frame where the wheel fits (not sure what that part of the car is called, I just know how much it hurts to scrape with great force over the edge of it)....Husband got several scrapes and such, causing HIM to scream to the neighbourhood "SON OF A COW!!!!!" several times, creating great embarrassment on my part. Took the van in, got the tire replaced. Thursday, we pack everybody and everything up (after Husband had worked an overnight shift), head out, wagons Northwest to Edmonton. 30 minutes out of town, the van starts making a TERRIBLE noise...won't accelerate without great coaxing. We turn around and limp back into the city, doing 70 on a 110km/hr highway. Pull into the garage where the mechanic knows exactly what the issue will be, but not to what extent. Van should be ready sometime Friday morning. Yeah, right. We rent a tiny car Thursday afternoon, decide to take the trip anyway, but have to cancel the camping part, as we would never be able to fit the tents and all in the car and still be able to take the kids (tempting...). Friday morning, we set out, after having camped in the backyard to appease the kids (and maybe me, too). Friday goes relatively eventless, aside from super-annoying rush hour mixed with construction in Edmonton. The weekend was less than it was cracked up to be...Husband didn't want to go, and so didn't enjoy himself. At all. He also ended up with some sort of allergic reaction on his legs on Saturday. Made our way through the weekend of disappointment and frustration, had dinner with the in-laws and the "Greats" (Husband's grandparents, the kids' great-grandparents), the kids got gifts, as always, and crashed to sleep as always, while I packed and played XBox360 PingPong. (And I was GOOOOOOOOD!)
Drove home on the Monday....FINALLY got a call from the garage saying the van would be ready by that evening. North of Saskatoon, the sky opened...there was so much rain that EVERYONE was pulling over to the shoulder to wait it out. A definite flash flood.....nobody could see in front of them, or in any direction for that matter, and the ditches were FULL of water. Each time it let up even a tiny bit, everyone got back on the road and crept forwards as much as they could before it started again. It's the only time I've been on a highway and seen everyone driving 50kph or less, WILLINGLY.
Here I will insert my little token for thought....a huge pet peeve of mine....WHY is it that EVERYBODY but me seems to think that a speed LIMIT is a suggestion? Why is it that EVERYONE comes whipping by me, a good 20kph ABOVE the speed limit, and then has the GALL to look annoyed at me, when I am, by the way, driving EXACTLY the speed limit, no faster, no slower? It's a LAW, people! It's there to protect people! It's there, you'd think, to weed out the idiots. You'd THINK only an idiot would disregard a law and substitute their own limits....but then, that would mean I'm the only smart person out there....and somehow, much as it would be nice if it were true, I get the feeling there MUST be other smart people out there, even smarter than me, I'd bet....so EXPLAIN this to me....why do people purposefully place their brains in the trunk, fire up their vehicles, and go roaring down the highway, not considering that it's NOT just their issue if something happens, but rather, if something goes wrong, they could hurt or even kill myself or my kids? The stupidest line I've ever heard on this subject: "I'm careful, nothing's ever happened, it doesn't hurt anybody, and I've never been caught yet!" Once, people, it only takes once. One split second. And it makes me furious that people JUST DON'T CARE.
Back to my diary style of writing....ahem...repairs and car rental cost about $1000. Not nice, but at least the business covers a good portion of that. Glad to have my business van back, though I'm really hoping to get a beater to call my own in the next little while, give me a bit more freedom to go places and do things with the kids. We now await for the powers-that-be to decide our fate....do we qualify for a home equity line of credit? Hopefully yes. That would make our lives that much more liveable in so many ways.
It's really hot out today and supposed to get even hotter as the days go by. Ugh~!
I've been doing two routes each morning since we got back....yesterday was really tough, since I wasn't used to being up at 4AM and then staying up all day until about 10:30PM...I had been getting extra hours of sleep over the past week, with no papers. I was pretty dead by the time I got to bed. Tonight should be a little better, and the next night even better.....just need to get back into the habit.
Speaking of habit, I also need to get back into the habit of the gym and eating better....I was away from the gym (obviously) while we were away, and let my eating habits go, too, so the weight jumped right back on, for the most part, and it's really hard to get back on track again...my friend is also away, so I don't have her to keep me accountable, either. I think she's back tomorrow, so hopefully a week and a bit of work will get the weight back down and keep it going down again.
Anyway, I guess I am pretty much caught up now, though I've likely forgotten a million things I wanted to mention. I think I'll go search for some chocolate....I just have to decide if it will be 75%, 86%, or 99% cocoa today.
I received a few comments which had me thinking, and I have to say that I simply must continue in my usual vein, whether that means nobody has anything to say in response or not. Once in awhile, however, I will try to put something in to get some feedback....a point to debate, as it may.
Anyways...July 3rd was my last post....that would be...last Tuesday.
Things started going downhill after that....the van got a VERY flat tire....the jack broke while the car was on it (luckily nobody got hurt)....the nuts on the hubcap snapped off making it nearly impossible to remove....the nuts on the wheel were stubborn, resulting in my dancing all over the lawn in pain when the tool slipped off the nut, causing me to scrape and ram my upper arm into the metal frame where the wheel fits (not sure what that part of the car is called, I just know how much it hurts to scrape with great force over the edge of it)....Husband got several scrapes and such, causing HIM to scream to the neighbourhood "SON OF A COW!!!!!" several times, creating great embarrassment on my part. Took the van in, got the tire replaced. Thursday, we pack everybody and everything up (after Husband had worked an overnight shift), head out, wagons Northwest to Edmonton. 30 minutes out of town, the van starts making a TERRIBLE noise...won't accelerate without great coaxing. We turn around and limp back into the city, doing 70 on a 110km/hr highway. Pull into the garage where the mechanic knows exactly what the issue will be, but not to what extent. Van should be ready sometime Friday morning. Yeah, right. We rent a tiny car Thursday afternoon, decide to take the trip anyway, but have to cancel the camping part, as we would never be able to fit the tents and all in the car and still be able to take the kids (tempting...). Friday morning, we set out, after having camped in the backyard to appease the kids (and maybe me, too). Friday goes relatively eventless, aside from super-annoying rush hour mixed with construction in Edmonton. The weekend was less than it was cracked up to be...Husband didn't want to go, and so didn't enjoy himself. At all. He also ended up with some sort of allergic reaction on his legs on Saturday. Made our way through the weekend of disappointment and frustration, had dinner with the in-laws and the "Greats" (Husband's grandparents, the kids' great-grandparents), the kids got gifts, as always, and crashed to sleep as always, while I packed and played XBox360 PingPong. (And I was GOOOOOOOOD!)
Drove home on the Monday....FINALLY got a call from the garage saying the van would be ready by that evening. North of Saskatoon, the sky opened...there was so much rain that EVERYONE was pulling over to the shoulder to wait it out. A definite flash flood.....nobody could see in front of them, or in any direction for that matter, and the ditches were FULL of water. Each time it let up even a tiny bit, everyone got back on the road and crept forwards as much as they could before it started again. It's the only time I've been on a highway and seen everyone driving 50kph or less, WILLINGLY.
Here I will insert my little token for thought....a huge pet peeve of mine....WHY is it that EVERYBODY but me seems to think that a speed LIMIT is a suggestion? Why is it that EVERYONE comes whipping by me, a good 20kph ABOVE the speed limit, and then has the GALL to look annoyed at me, when I am, by the way, driving EXACTLY the speed limit, no faster, no slower? It's a LAW, people! It's there to protect people! It's there, you'd think, to weed out the idiots. You'd THINK only an idiot would disregard a law and substitute their own limits....but then, that would mean I'm the only smart person out there....and somehow, much as it would be nice if it were true, I get the feeling there MUST be other smart people out there, even smarter than me, I'd bet....so EXPLAIN this to me....why do people purposefully place their brains in the trunk, fire up their vehicles, and go roaring down the highway, not considering that it's NOT just their issue if something happens, but rather, if something goes wrong, they could hurt or even kill myself or my kids? The stupidest line I've ever heard on this subject: "I'm careful, nothing's ever happened, it doesn't hurt anybody, and I've never been caught yet!" Once, people, it only takes once. One split second. And it makes me furious that people JUST DON'T CARE.
Back to my diary style of writing....ahem...repairs and car rental cost about $1000. Not nice, but at least the business covers a good portion of that. Glad to have my business van back, though I'm really hoping to get a beater to call my own in the next little while, give me a bit more freedom to go places and do things with the kids. We now await for the powers-that-be to decide our fate....do we qualify for a home equity line of credit? Hopefully yes. That would make our lives that much more liveable in so many ways.
It's really hot out today and supposed to get even hotter as the days go by. Ugh~!
I've been doing two routes each morning since we got back....yesterday was really tough, since I wasn't used to being up at 4AM and then staying up all day until about 10:30PM...I had been getting extra hours of sleep over the past week, with no papers. I was pretty dead by the time I got to bed. Tonight should be a little better, and the next night even better.....just need to get back into the habit.
Speaking of habit, I also need to get back into the habit of the gym and eating better....I was away from the gym (obviously) while we were away, and let my eating habits go, too, so the weight jumped right back on, for the most part, and it's really hard to get back on track again...my friend is also away, so I don't have her to keep me accountable, either. I think she's back tomorrow, so hopefully a week and a bit of work will get the weight back down and keep it going down again.
Anyway, I guess I am pretty much caught up now, though I've likely forgotten a million things I wanted to mention. I think I'll go search for some chocolate....I just have to decide if it will be 75%, 86%, or 99% cocoa today.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Peekaboo!
Okay, so I haven't got any real stimulating material to share with you, but I figured I'd kind of peek in for a minute or two. It's been hot lately, so hot that Daughter keeps commenting "Mommy! You're really sweating lots!"...and she's right. It's gross! We set up a tent in the back yard on Saturday night and camped out, which was a lot of fun, but next time, I need a bigger tent...I couldn't lie with my legs straight because the walls weren't far enough apart. That's the kind of problem you run up against when you're tall.
I bought myself a saskatoon bush with the remains of my birthday money, and it seems to be hanging on so far....my plan over the next years is to buy a plant or two to add to the garden space....a fruit plant. I have a bunch of strawberry plants, now I'm working on saskatoons, then raspberries, blueberries, grapes....well, you get the idea. I've already got the apple trees....one year down the road, I'll have quite a fruit orchard for a back yard. :)
Son is in a singing mood today, lying on his back with a sippy cup in his hand, singing beautiful songs, all made up from scratch by him. Unfortunately, one of his favourite words these days is "poop", so it features frequently in what he says and sings.
Husband is out working hard, making money and trying to find ways to get more.
I continue the pointless battle of tidying the house, cleaning up after Son's potty accidents, and trying to get ready for a reunion.
I bought myself a saskatoon bush with the remains of my birthday money, and it seems to be hanging on so far....my plan over the next years is to buy a plant or two to add to the garden space....a fruit plant. I have a bunch of strawberry plants, now I'm working on saskatoons, then raspberries, blueberries, grapes....well, you get the idea. I've already got the apple trees....one year down the road, I'll have quite a fruit orchard for a back yard. :)
Son is in a singing mood today, lying on his back with a sippy cup in his hand, singing beautiful songs, all made up from scratch by him. Unfortunately, one of his favourite words these days is "poop", so it features frequently in what he says and sings.
Husband is out working hard, making money and trying to find ways to get more.
I continue the pointless battle of tidying the house, cleaning up after Son's potty accidents, and trying to get ready for a reunion.
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