I'm the queen of getting all worked up over stupid letters to the editor. I have to restrain myself against writing in to tell people every time they are wrong, wrong, wrong. I've been this way pretty well as long as I can remember, but it really flares up when I read the paper more consistently.

Take this for example. Now, this bears so explanation, if you're not a Strathcona County resident. Sherwood Park has several tiny traffic circles in residential areas, but only 1 main one, refered to frequently as "the traffic circle". It's a bit unusual. It has only 3 exits, which seems to cause a whole slew of confusion. Because of it's odd shape and few exits, two of those exits are straight through. That doesn't really make it any less of a traffic circle, but for some reason, several people seem to think that suddenly regular traffic circle rules don't apply, or, in the case of Bertha McLaughlin, the outside lanes are not part of the traffic circle.

Of course, that's absurd. Bertha McLaughlin is a self-righteous idiot. If you read the letter I referenced, you'll see that she doesn't like "young" drivers (she's "questioned" them on their driving skills, since she's such an authority, despite publicly proving that she doesn't know how to navigate a traffic circle) and thus has anecdotal evidence that "young" drivers are far worse than people of a, I don't know, greater age. (Note: I say "young" drivers because I fully believe this to be all perception - I'm 28, despite the fact that people usually peg me for 21 or 22).

I read that letter when the paper was delivered to my house a couple of weeks ago and truly meant to respond, but, like many things, I didn't get around to it. Luckily, someone else did. Beth Blackstock said exactly what I would have, and she was tactful! I'm not sure how heavily her letter was edited by the editor, but I applaud her! Ms McLaughlin should have felt like a tool, but instead she responded and proved herself to be a tool. "The lanes I referred to were outside the traffic circle, not inside and I do not have to brush up as I know traffic circles rules quite well." Have you ever observed such a contradiction???

Ms Blackstock wrote back and was again dignified and tactful. It's way too late for me to jump in to this discussion, and I doubt the newspaper will let it go any further, but I just want to say something Beth Blackstock was too mature to say. Bertha McLaughlin - you are an idiot. You made up your own rule as far as the traffic circle goes, and you are now treating everyone else like they are stupid for not following your absurd rule. You whine that drivers stop "without warning" in free flow lanes and you have to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting them. Brake lights should give you sufficient warning. Look where you're driving, or don't drive.

I hate winter. There's nothing at all appealing about it, to me. I hear people say "I love snow but I hate cold" or "I love the way it looks" but those statements don't apply to me. I hate snow AND cold. I hate the way it looks. My car was (and still is) covered in about 3 inches of snow this morning. I have a garage, so this shouldn't be a problem, but the logistics of it still have not worked themselves out, so I'm left brushing snow off every morning. Everyone's told me the roads are treacherous. Great. I'm going to work from home a couple of hours and go in after traffic has died down a bit. On the other hand, I have a photographic client who, as of last night, was still considering doing an outdoor photo shoot today after work. I really hope she changes her mind.

I had a very intense yoga class last night. I'm very much counting on yoga to get my ass back into shape - I'm about 6lb above my comfortable weight (yep, I've lost 4lb!) - but getting back into the routine of going 3 or 4 times a week has proven a challenge. I skipped my Monday evening class. My excuse was that my brother in law had just gotten out of the hospital, and we were visiting him, but the fact of the matter is that we finished with that in plenty of time, but by that time I had it in my mind that I'd stay home. I went to last night's class (Wednesday evening classes are the hardest, so I take some credit for that) and I will absolutely go to my Friday morning class. Then I have to drag myself to my Friday evening class. The problem is that I stopped going so frequently in the summer, and then when I was going strong with it in September, I was rudely interrupted by a car accident. No, I didn't have to miss 5 weeks (2 would have been more than sufficient) but that really hurts the cycle.

Seville's started saying "love you". I think she's on a growth spurt as well. She went from eating essentially nothing over the course of a day to stuffing her face. She had a bowl of corn flakes and an entire banana before I'd even had breakfast. I love that she's so self-sufficient now. I love that she sleeps straight through the night. I do not, however, love that she's just decided she doesn't like baths any more. It's only happened in the past week. I run her a bath and Layton strips her down and she waddles into the bathroom and I say "hop in", same as always. Usually she makes a very serious attempt to get her knee over the side of the tub (she's very short) before I have to plop her in. Lately, I say "hop in" and she either just tells me "no" or dilly-dallies around. The other day, she looked around and said "potty", then headed for it. Aside from some amazing triumphs in the first week we had it, she has shown nearly no interest in the potty, so I figured she was just trying to distract me. Nonetheless, I lifted the lid for her, and directed her little butt as she tried to sit down (her aim is off) and got her a magazine. As expected, she only sat there for a minute, but didn't do anything. Then she stood up and grabbed a bath book - a plastic, inflated book that won't be ruined by the bath, of course. I thought maybe she was going to head for the tub, but instead she laid the book open on the floor, and started stomping on one of the pages! Then she carefully flipped to the next page and started stomping on it. It was pretty hysterical, so I turned around to tell Layton what she was doing, and by the time I turned back to her, she'd peed on the floor.

Ok, back to worrying about driving in this terrible mess.

I find myself thinking about Sydney Anderson a lot. Sydney Anderson passed away last month. I met her a few weeks earlier - I took fall photos of her family. It's all very cumbersome and difficult for me to explain, but when I read the email her mother, Tracey, sent to me saying that Sydney had passed away, I had to read it at least 5 times to make sense of it. It doesn't make sense, of course. A four year old is not supposed to die, especially one who is so full of life and sunshine. I locked myself in my office and cried a lot. I went home and burned a disk of every photo I took that day. Dropping it off was hard. My heart felt broken. It still does.

I've met a great many people in the past few months, and seen some amazing and beautiful things. I don't know whether any of those things or people will stay with me the way Sydney Anderson does, though. I hope her little soul has found peace. I hope her family finds happiness in their pain. Life can be so unfair. Where is the lesson in a child's death? What good does it bring? I don't know, but I cannot resolve to just accept it. Life can be so cruel.

Where have the days of blogging gone? Nowhere, actually. After four months of being busy with other things and waiting on this and that, I've actually been blogging for work this past week. Having a job description which includes blogging is a bit surreal - isn't that everyone's dream job - but I'm gotten so far from the world of writing everyday that I've found myself run into that big brick wall of writer's block once or twice. So I think I need to bone up and start blogging personally, despite having become somewhat more private than I used to be, and running the risk of my coworkers re-encountering this blog and using it's contents to make fun of me (ok, I might deserve it if they do). Anyway, here I am blogging.

It's a bit hard to believe that Seville's nearly 17 months old. The first year crawled by, especially compared the the past four months. She's not a baby any more - she's a little girl. That blows my mind. Maybe it really hit me when her cousin, my niece, Scarlett was born in October. In spite of the fact that she was a fair bit bigger than Seville was at birth, she still seems so tiny. Since Scarlett's (Seville calls her "Scar") birth, Seville's become obsessed with babies. She has a little stuffed baby, which she got for Easter and ignored until the past few weeks, that she carries around, and hugs and kisses. She feeds "Baby" a bottle and gives her a soother when she's sad, and puts her down to sleep in the tiny crib my parents bought for her. On one hand, she's such a girlie-girl. She plays with dolls, is obsessed with clothes and her hair. On the other hand, she's the family dare devil and is afraid of NOTHING (and even likes to scare her other cousin, given the opportunity). If you ask her whether she's a girl or a boy, she will tell you, unequivocably, that she is a BOY. No matter how I try to convince her otherwise.

I guess it's not unusual. Kids are lucky at that age - they don't have to impress anyone with gender stereotypes.

People ask me all the time how I "do it all" - work full time, run a successful side business and have a family. It's taken a long time to develop the balance that's made my insane life tolerable and enjoyable. I love all the things I do though, and have no plans of giving any of them up any time soon. I suppose it's not just balance - there's a lot of delegation involved. I'd totally fall apart if I didn't have an amazing fiance who does housework. My mom does my grocery shopping. I hired a wedding planner. I'm still strongly considering hiring a maid. I have someone who does my scrapbooking for me. Life has really come together.

Well, I should go take a bath. I have two book club meetings in 9 and 10 days respectively and I haven't started either book yet!

I had a lovely weekend. I got to attend a 1st birthday party for an adorable little girl named Parker, then had a really fun maternity photo session with Bailey and her daughter Grier. The weather was nice - it's too bad it didn't hold on today. It POURED today, and it's pretty cold. We can only hope for better weather come the weekend.

My next photo session isn't coming up until the 24th! If anyone is in need, I've plenty of time.

Snow Pea Portraits

I have to remind myself that it's ok to take artistic license. I have to get that voice out of my head (my college photography instructor's voice) that says "that's overexposed! you messed with the colors! why all the contrast! enough with the sepia!" and just do my own thing. I think, maybe, some might say it's ok if not every picture looks like it was shot in your elementary school gym, with that ridiculous neon laser backdrop, in 1993. That's what I'm remembering now about that class - the instructor was SO moderate on everything photographic, and he wanted everything to look, I hate to say it, bland.
He'd have failed me for this shot. And I think it's not half bad! Photography isn't really about reality, is it? Otherwise, why would anyone even hire a photographer. I have to stop worrying about my exposure and just get on with it.

I launched my website today! You can see it here. Launching a website involved doing a whole bunch of things I havn't done in a very long time. It was a painstaking process, but overall, I'm satisfied with the finished product. Actually, I'm feeling great about the whole thing. I'm at such a good place in life right now - I've really never been happier, and things just keep improving. I'm really on a roll.

I was the only person to show up to my Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga class today, so my teacher, Shelley, decided she and I would do the ENTIRE primary series. So we did this. Yes, every pose. Did I know I could do a wide-legged forward fold, get the top of my head on the floor, then interlace my fingers together behind my back and leverage my arms onto the floor (3rd row, 9th from the left)? No, I did not know that. But apparently I can. I'm feeling just a little worn out right now, and a bit like my right leg might fall off. I wonder: will I be able to walk tomorrow?

A storm is rolling in and I'm falling asleep. Good night! Tomorrow promises to be an exciting day!

I hate wearing socks to bed. I have to fight off instinct not to take them off when I crawl in. Here's the problem: when I get up in the middle of the night with my little one and put her back to sleep, it then follows that I have to go back to my own room, and if I'm not wearing socks, the sound of my feet peeling off the floor will wake her up, and we'll have to start again. It never used to be hard to put her back to sleep; it took only seconds. Lately it's been a little more difficult, though she's sleeping through more often than not. I've found that she will almost always sleep straight through the night if I wear my socks to bed right from the get-go.

She's begun nodding. She'd been shaking her head "no" for three or four weeks now, and we were trying to get her out of the habit, and then last night she came up to Layton and I on the couch and began nodding with a big, self-satisfied smile on her face. It's too cute.

My cold is all but gone, which is nice and quite amazing. I was so out of it yesterday that I apparently put the grapes in the freezer. Layton discovered this and made fun of me for it, but then left them in there so, really, who's the idiot?

I am sick. I had a bit of a scratchy throat yesterday so I took Cold FX for it (I'm still not convinced that stuff works, but it's certainly worth trying) and woke up in the middle of the night nauseous and with a pounding headache. Luckily, the baby stayed quiet until nearly six in the morning (I know she woke up at one point and played with her crib aquarium, but then went back to sleep) but when I got up with her, I was woozy and ineffective and Layton ended up getting up and sending me back to bed. She still wouldn't go back to sleep so he brought her into our bed, which I don't like to do but I needed the sleep and so did he. The baby and I slept til 8:30, and then I found some daytime cold medication (that stuff definitely works) and got on with the day. I hate being sick. It's especially crappy that I don't get to enjoy the last two weeks (or week and a half, we will see) of my mat leave with a nasty cold. Lovely.

Our weekend at the cabin was cut short because the baby appears to have seasonal allergies and was up most of Friday night with a stuffy nose and watery eyes. We stayed until after dinner Saturday and then drove home - she's still recovering, but at least we all got some sleep last night. Apart from all her suffering (the kid was NOT stoic at all) it was a really nice weekend. On Saturday morning, after I got some sleep, we decided to head into town to wander around and do some shopping. I had been taking pictures since the minute I got there, but decided against bringing it into town. I've been there a thousand times; there's not much to see.

Or so I thought. The first thing we happened upon when we got there was a soap box derby! We stayed and watched for a while, and I snapped a few shots with my crappy point-and-shoot pocket camera and truly regretted my brand new 55-200mm lens sitting back at the cabin. After that, we went to the main strip to do some shopping, but had to park a couple blocks away because they were having a "Fabulous 50's" fair! It was still early and things were just getting underway and me with no camera. It was so disappointing.

Coming home Saturday night worked out well. It was almost like having a long weekend, and we got a lot done that we otherwise would not have, namely a little more work on the mini bathroom reno and a small amount of yard work. The baby is still stuffy but certainly improved.

My cell phone contract expired last month and I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade or just stick with what I have. My LG Dare is only a year and a half old and still works perfectly (in fact, I only have to charge the battery once a week) but I kind of want an iPhone. It would cost me a little more on a monthly basis but it'd replace my piece of crap iPod. I'm not sure. I think I'll walk over to the mall tomorrow and ask some questions and then I'll decide. With something like this, I may as well just do it, otherwise I'm going to sit around contemplating it forever. It's dumb because there's nothing at all wrong with what I have now. But who doesn't like new stuff? I will probably sell the Dare once I get a new phone, and it looks like I might be able to get over $100 for it (I only got $42 for my Chocolate when I sold it) which will cover half the cost of he 16G iPhone (on a three year contract of course) and that's definitely cheaper than buying a new iPod...OMG I'll decide tomorrow.

Layton got off work early so we're going early!!!

I was driving home from my cousin's place yesterday and I saw a moose. It bolted across the highway ahead of me and then lingered in the ditch. When my car got close, it looked like it was going to come back up to the road, but then it suddenly turned around and jumped a fence and ran through a field. They're such strange, awkward creatures.

It's going to be a great weekend. We're heading out to my parents cabin. It's so relaxing out there. I hope the baby enjoys it. We haven't taken her out of town for a weekend since she was two months old, when we went to visit some of his family. I'm a bit nervous, but I think it'll be a lot of fun. I'm excited to see her little face light up at all the sights. I'm very glad that we got a new three-wheel stroller so I can take her for walks on the gravel roads.

Well, it's the first time this week I haven't had anything to do, so I'm taking my little pigtailed angel for a walk.

I feel like it should be raining. I remember just where I was two years ago today. As a thank-you for putting up with a lot of crap for a few years, my employer hosted a private screening of the latest Indiana Jones movie for a couple hundred of us. I'd already seen the movie twice, so I left early, but not because I was bored. Someone on my facebook had posted a status update that said "Pray for Kyle's safe return". I sat there through about a half hour of the movie hoping she wasn't talking about who I thought she was talking about, but I couldn't stand it. So I went home and confirmed it. My friend Kyle, who I knew from kindergarten, who was one of the best people I ever knew, was missing, and had last been seen fishing with a friend and the friend's young son on Devil's Lake.

I still drive by there every once in a while, on the way to or from my parents' cabin. It's still a bit unreal to me that he drowned there, although I went to the funeral and I saw his body, his skin tinged grey and so, so unreal. I didn't cry at the funeral, but I'd been crying for days. It was profound, the injustice of his death. The world lost an amazing person. We've all suffered for it since. And I miss him. I hadn't seen him in a year or two before, but running into Kyle was like running into someone you just saw yesterday. He cared about everyone, knew everyone well. Kyle was the popular kid who didn't know he was popular, and wouldn't have cared if he did know. He treated everyone with respect. He was like no one else. And I miss him.

The sun is shining, and it's a beautiful day.

My daughter is finally teething again. She's had her two front bottom teeth since she was seven and a half months old, but nothing else has appeared in the past four months, until now. It's a front tooth and it's definitely on its way. The poor girl is beside herself, but Tylenol seems to be helping a lot. Except in getting her to take a nap.

Her five-day sleep-through-the-night streak has been interrupted. She woke up at a quarter to five and just wanted me to watch her sleep...ugh. She raised her head every couple of minutes to make sure I was still there. After twenty minutes, I just went and got her a bottle and it put her right to sleep, and then she slept until well past eight, which was actually no good because I had a doctor's appointment this morning and needed to get the baby and myself ready and then take her to her aunt's and then myself to the doctor and I ended up having to do it all very quickly. I really must get back into the habit of setting my alarm.

The doctor appointment went well; I'm in great health. I've also apparently grown half an inch taller in the past year. Hmm.

Well, baby girl is finally down for her nap so I should tidy up and then get to the business of watching some Grey's Anatomy.

This weekend was great! Layton's tournament was awesome - he came in second in his division! The metal he got is really nice, too. The baby was a little angel for her auntie, too, which was a relief. She used to be so difficult, that I forget sometimes what a good baby she is now, especially outside of home. I think she's a bit shy, so she just behaves when she's away from me. She's not shy with me; she'll always tell me when she's not happy about something. Channing and I picked the baby up after Layton's fight and she was asleep by the time I got her home. She napped for more than two and a half hours, at which time we had to wake her up to take her to her grandparents' house, because we were having a date night. The baby was an angel for her grandparents too, and I missed her a lot but we had a really good date night; we went to see one of Layton's Muay Thai instructors fight, and he won!

My daughter has been sleeping through the night again; she's on to five nights in a row now. When she was around six months old, I was really feeling the pressure to get her to sleep through, but at that point I'd tried everything but letting her cry it out, and I was unwilling to do that, so I just accepted that she'd get up at least once and that I'd just have to deal with it. After that I found out that the majority of babies do not sleep through until they are nine months old, and that I was stressing for no reason. She didn't sleep through at nine months, and by that time I didn't even care. So now, even though she sleeps through most of the time, I am so used to getting up that I wake up several times a night and just lay there. It sucks and I wonder when it will stop. I don't feel bad that she's a bit behind in the sleeping-through thing. She's been on time or ahead for so many other things (she began rolling at 13 weeks) and when it comes down to it, babies will do things in their own time. It's not a baby competition. Now, at 11 and a half months, she may not walk, but she says mom, dad, hi, up and moo. I think that's pretty great.

I went with Bailey and Channing and Rachelle to see the new Sex & the City movie yesterday afternoon. When we first got there, we sat in the third row from the back and were immediately hit by a wall of BO. It seems the older gentleman sitting in front of us didn't deem it necessary to wear deodorant. I insisted we move. The movie was pretty good, though way too long. Way back when I used to watch Sex & the City, I don't think I really noticed what a moron Carrie is. It's only really been bugging me in the movies. Oh well; it's still a lot of fun.

Layton hung curtains for me in the dog room, so it looks really nice. He also did the plumbing and drywalling for my new rainfall showerhead, so hopefully the whole thing will be done in the next couple of weeks. We're so busy during the week that there's really no time, and we're going out to the cabin next weekend. I hope the weather holds up.

I just got season three of Grey's Anatomy, and am dying to watch it, but the baby really enjoys the Golden Girls, so I have to wait til that's over.

So back in February someone was moving into a house somewhere in the little "city" I live in, but, when signing up for electricity service, instead of giving their own address, they gave mine, or the agent taking the order entered the address wrong or something. At any rate, after I received my second bill that had only gas and no electricity, I called Enmax and asked. They informed me that the service had been taken over by another company and couldn't give me any information on who owned the service, but were happy to move me back to them. The next day, I got not one but SEVERAL calls from Epcor over the issue (the agent didn't seem to fully comprehend that I did not cause this mistake; I think I wrote about the issue a while back) but after some confusing discussion, she finally got down to the issue: I owed them money. I did not dispute this, of course, because I know electricity isn't free. At the time this was SUCH a big deal and it seemed that Epcor was going to a lot of effort to enforce this bill on me. Well, I got the bill in the mail today. $10.37. I laughed when I opened it. I'll be sure to hurry to get them that money.

Wow, what a great day! I cleaned the dog room today (and made it back into a human room), I came into some money, and my (future) sister in law found out the sex of her baby. Do good, and good things will happen? I guess, I'm not complaining!

Yoga kicked my ass last night. Because I went to see Pam's new baby last week, and Bailey's birthday two days later, I only got to go to two yoga classes last week and they were both yin classes. Granted, even in the short time I've been taking yin, my flexibility has greatly increased, but it's really not enough to keep a person in shape. I could almost feel my love handles growing back (oh horror). It was really nice to be at last night's class and I was SO pleased to find my seated forward folds are now much more advanced, but I'm really feeling it today. I took the baby on a walk (to 7-11, for a Slurpee) and was limping by the time I got back. Still, I feel great.

I'm also feeling pretty great about the dog room. It is thus called because that's where the dog sleeps, and it is technically a bedroom converted into an office. It has a glass door. So, for a year and a half now I've had to stare at this horrible mess of dog kennel and dog bed and vacuum cleaners and scrapbooking supplies and photo paper and receipts and bills and more and more and more dog hair. And grime. I couldn't believe the line of grime I found on the walls behind the kennel. So I pulled out the kennel (without the puppy, keeping it in the house is pointless, so it's moving into the garage with the '51 Plymouth) and took apart Layton's computer, which doesn't do much besides suck electricity out of the wall at an alarming rate, and probably cause cancer, and dusted and vacuumed and scrubbed and sterilized until the room was presentable again. I hated passing that eyesore daily. I wouldn't say I'm a clean freak...well, ok, maybe a bit. Squallor drives me insane. I cannot live with filth. My aversion to it has gotten worse and worse over the years. Well, I'd rather be a clean freak than the alternative.

Tomorrow is grocery day, which is wonderful because we're nearly out of groceries. The only groceries we seem to have left in the house are the ingredients for this recipe, which I discovered yesterday, and which is what we're having for dinner, when Layton gets back from training.

Ah training. He's got his first tournament coming up this weekend, so he's had to do extra sessions this week. Since I missed so much yoga last week, I didn't want to miss any more if I could avoid it, and thus availed myself to his parents as babysitters last night. When I went to pick the wee one up after class, I was a bit surprised to find that she was not excited to see me. Contrarily, she had her what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here look on. Taking her home did not go over well; she did not want to let go of a sparkly book and screamed bloody murder when it was yanked from her hands (I don't believe in giving kids what they want just because they cry) and then cried all the way to the car, and then as she was being strapped in. She finally stopped when the car started moving and essentially fell asleep the moment I laid her down in her crib. Luckily, she's a creature of habit (luckily for her I mean) and 8:30 was way past her bedtime and she did not regret going to sleep.

After my yin class tomorrow, and groceries, I'm going to buy myself a new lens. I'm so excited about this. I just got a new lens for my birthday, but I've wanted another for a long time as well and can't wait to use it. After that, I'm going to buy myself and my daughter charm bracelets, which will go with the charms Layton got us for Valentine's Day. I've wanted to buy those for a long time as well. After that I'll probably sit in Second Cup with my book and my latte and a bunch of buyer's remorse, because spending money makes me nervous.

And now, I am going to go take a nice hot bath and enjoy some pre-dinner me time and hope tomorrow is as great as today.

I don't care what anyone says; I'm glad people wave cell phones rather than lighters at concerts now. I was tired of burning my thumbs.

It's a lovely day. Sure, the sun may not be shining and the temperature may not exactly inspire one into shorts and a tank top, but I love the rain and I love long weekends and I'm very much enjoying myself. We didn't go away for the weekend. I wish we'd been able to, but we've got a cabin weekend coming up and that's more than good enough for me.

We went to the bookstore and I bought Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I read about a book a week, but the book I started yesterday is pretty short and I'm going to be done it in a couple of days, and then I will have had nothing to read, as my bookclub book is not due for another couple of weeks. I don't know what I'd do if I had nothing to read. TV bores me most of the time and doesn't often hold my attention, and though I still have baby birthday party invitations to put together, I can't count on that to eat a lot of time.

The last book I finished was a book about the Bronte sisters, specifically Charlotte, called Romancing Miss Bronte (Juliet Gael). It is a work of fiction, though largely based upon letters of the time. It was unexpectedly excellent and I recommend it to anyone with an inclination toward those classics. I've read both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights (though admittedly no other Bronte novels) and found myself inspired to read them again, so moved was I by Juliet Gael's novel.

I read almost constantly as a child, devouring books even more quickly than I do now (I had a lot more time then) but then hit a bit of a dry spot after moving out of my parents's house and into my first condo. I still read some, but life was busy and god knows I worked a lot. Then, tired of roommates, I moved into my second condo and read almost never. Reading turned into an activity I did at work, between calls. The book that actually pulled me out was Watership Down. I'd seen the movie as a child, but never expected such a moving, grown-up novel. Apparently many people read it in high school, but I was in IB English and we read things like Becket and MacBeth and I never got to read it.

I really got back into reading a couple of months after my daughter was born (she was colicky for the first nine weeks of her life and there was no time for anything, period) and haven't stopped since. I think I'm having some success in passing my love of reading on to her; when confronted with a pile of toys, she heads straight for the books. She chews on them, but at least it's a first step.

I have one cousin who has just come back from his third tour of duty in Afghanistan, and another who is at training in Gagetown. My family has a strong military background on both sides, and I'm very, very proud of my cousins. However, it's not a life I'd ever choose for myself. I could never put my country ahead of my family. I couldn't imagine sitting at home while my husband brandishes a gun in a far away country. Why do people love power and hate one another?

My daughter has been blowing kisses almost constantly for the past two days. Yesterday she mooed for the first, second and third times. She loves freely, openly. I'm frustrated daily by the world we live in and my inability to keep her safe from everything, forever. It's crippling, the uncertainty.

I was admittedly quite uninterested in babies until the year or so before I became pregnant. I'd had a lot of experience with children, but hadn't frequently been around infants, and has nearly never seen any newborns. Now, I can't help but jump at the chance to see a brand new baby. My friend Pam gave birth on Sunday, six weeks early, and had to be airlifted here, because the small city she lives in does not have a premie ward. Despite his prematurity, he is very healthy and will probably be released in a couple of weeks. Pam has already been discharged. The best part of this is that I got to go visit them in the hospital last night. He's definitely one of the cutest I've ever seen. It's hard to believe my own sweet baby was ever so tiny.

What a beautiful day. Bailey and I took our little girls into my back yard to play in the super-deluxe baby pool we bought this weekend and visited and enjoyed the serenity of the afternoon. Layton and I bought this house about a year and a half ago, in the fall, and thus did not see much but dead grass and leaves in the back yard, but when the following spring arrived (finally, after such a long winter) we discovered we'd purchased quite the gem. The house was built in 1973, with an oversized double-detached garage added ten years later, and though we bought it from a numbered company that rented it out to questionable tenants, I suspect it was much loved before that. We have a large spruce tree, three or four white lilacs, an apple bush, some sort of Japanese cherry tree, a birch, a long-suffering oak, lovely ivy, climbing wisteria and so forth. It's heavenly. Prior to moving here, I lived in a highrise condo just west of downtown, which I loved, but giving it up was worth it for what we've found here.

My daughter spent more than an hour in the pool. Quite contrary to myself, she is quite at home in the water and probably would have stayed longer had her nap not become so overdue. Her cousin was not so keen on it and spent much of the time in the playpen I irresponsibly leave full of toys in the back yard. Bailey and I drank Slurpees and chatted. If only summer lasted much, much longer. :D

My sister left Friday morning, with her car all packed up, and headed to Vancouver, to live this time. I'll miss her a lot, but I'm so happy for her. I think it's been a long time coming and that she'll be very happy. She was living in our basement in the two months leading up to the move and it really gave me an opportunity to spend a bit of time with her and get to know my little sister a lot better. We were never close growing up, didn't get along well and had nearly nothing in common. After I moved out of the house, though, I gained a great deal of respect for her, and three years ago I met up with her in Thailand for a three-week vacation that created a bond between us that never existed before. I am so proud of my sister and I know she'll be successful at anything she attempts.

It's Monday morning and I've been up since six, but my daughter slept ten hours in a row so I shouldn't complain. At the age of ten months she slept straight through the night for a solid week, but then stopped as suddenly as she'd begun. In the first six months or so of her life, I was obsessed with getting her to sleep through and tried everything anyone recommended to me, with absolutely no success. The books I read had great ideas on how to get a baby to go to sleep, all of which were useless to me since getting her to fall to sleep has never been much harder than putting her in a crib, reading her a book or two and turning off the light (she's had an 8pm bed time since she was 4 weeks old and she can't keep her eyes open much longer than that) but none of their theories ever kept the baby asleep. She wakes up at totally random times, and sometimes wants a bottle and sometimes doesn't. After six months, I gave up. I figured she will sleep through the night when she is ready, and I was wasting more energy trying to remedy the problem than I could ever recover with a full night's sleep.

So, it's strange to me now that her father has suddenly become so obsessed with having her sleep through. It's like watching myself seven months ago, trying everything, theorizing, panicking. I think he's beginning to worry that he will soon have to get up with her. I go back to work in a month and then it's open season for dad getting up with baby. He's an amazing father who dotes on his daughter and feeds her meals, changes diapers, gives baths and puts her to bed three nights a week, but he's useless at getting up with her in the night. Either he doesn't hear her until I've been up for more than five minutes (most times, she's up for less than five minutes, and he doesn't realize she's been up at all) or he gets up with her and has no success getting her back to sleep, and then falls back to sleep before I inevitably have to get up with her. He knows this won't fly when I go back, so he's really trying now. One great advantage of it to me is that now he's all over doing the things I ask him to around the house, especially when it comes to the baby. He didn't miss a beat with putting her air conditioner in her room, and then he was on a roll so he put ours in as well, and started our mini bathroom reno and mowed the front AND back lawn, and washed the truck and assembled the new stroller. I'm not convinced any of this will help the baby to sleep through, but it's great to have things done without asking.

I almost went back to work early. Well, there was this job that I nearly applied for, and would probably have gotten, and would have had to start in only two weeks. I wasn't ever excited about the prospect of going back early, but the job was everything I've been looking for and more so I thought I was willing to give up those last three weeks of mat leave for it. It meant I'd have my weekends free, and that I'd get to see my daughter every night before she goes to bed, two things that my current job do not allow, so it was worth it. Then I got up yesterday morning and realized I wouldn't be with my baby on her first birthday, and that quashed it for me. How could I ever give that up?

It's a beautiful day, and I will probably take the kiddo on a walk to get myself a Slurpee, and stick her in her deluxe kiddy pool in our back yard, and maybe pull up some more dandelions and perhaps even visit with the neighbors and invite my (future) SIL and niece over and just have one more beautiful day with my daughter, because these lovely, free summer days of mine are certainly numbered and I intend to cherish every one of them.

The logic behind colorful, patterned baby socks is confounding. It's easy enough to lose a single andult-sized sock; tiny ones just seem to turn to thin air. I must have a dozen pink and purple, adorably patterned socks that lack a partner.

I had a nice first Mother's Day. I got two new books (thank goodness! I finished my book yesterday afternoon and didn't have anything to follow it with) and a bag for my yoga mat. I picked my sister up from the airport in the morning (back from Mexico, off to Vancouver this week) then went by my parents' place to visit my mom, then had a great play date with my friend Candice and her little boy (the babies were so cute together) and then family over for dinner. Channing brought over little plastic lawn chairs for the girls which my daughter uses like a walker. She scoots all over the house with this thing. I'm just worried she'll try to walk (whenever she tries to walk, and I'm certainly not urging her to hurry on that - stay little!!!) all bent over.

I talked to a customer service agent for Enmax yesterday who had a definite Indian (as in, from India) accent. I was calling because I haven't been billed for my electricity in two months, and through the call it was discovered that another company requested my service from Enmax, probably in error since I didn't request it and haven't been getting bills, so obviously I wasn't angry. On top of that, I've worked in a call centre for the past seven years (fortunately I haven't taken customer calls in years) and I am very familiar with how it feels to be on the receiving end of the call. So, I'm a very, very pleasant customer to deal with. Despite all this, the poor girl, who told me her name was Sarah, was extremely apologetic. It seemed like she was trying to head off an angry outburst from me. I felt so bad for her. I'll bet she gets yelled at a lot. I've found that customers of my company (the company I work for, not My Company) are sometimes plainly abusive to our overseas reps. And Canadians are supposed to be so...

Tomorrow's stacking up to be a great day! Hatha in the morning, because my mom's coming a bit early to watch the kid, and then swimming with my (future) SIL. And then a nap in the afternoon? Very likely. It's coming down to the last few weeks of my mat leave and I'm starting to truly cherish every minute (and desperately search for a job that won't leave me working weekends and evenings and nearly never seeing my daughter) and I wish the weather would cooperate more with that initiative. My cousin has a lovely house in St Albert near all sorts of beautiful walking trails that we were supposed to go enjoy on Tuesday. But this is Canada, so it snowed on our plans. Swimming is an indoor event, so the weather doesn't much effect it, but it'd still be nice to just pull the baby's little cover-up dress on her on the way to the pool. But nothing ever seems to be on my side (ok, yes, usually everything seems to be on my side; I'm being dramatic) so instead I have to chase her around the livingroom to shove her into a bathing suit (she's so fat, and fast, and resistant) and then do it all over again to get her into an outfit. Then the four of us hop into the van (lol, not my van) and drive five minutes and we're there. It could be so much easier.

I had the most brutal Sunday night in recent memory. The baby woke up seven times, leaving me with less than 3 hours of sleep. I had to skip my Monday evening yoga class because I just wasn't going to make it. By the time I went to bed, at eight, I had a pounding headache. I dreamed about pancakes. Nothing comprehensive, just pancakes. Fortunately, the baby slept through and her dad and I were only awakened by the howling wind. That wasn't super fun either, but at least I'm caught up for sleep.

I went to visit at work yesterday. It was nice to see people. It won't be long, though, before I'm seeing them all the time. Not an exciting thought, but what can you do?

Well, I'm going to go be lazy.

I've managed to extricate all the brass from my kitchen. I'm so pleased. I hate brass, and every piece of hardware in the whole house was brass when we bought it. Now I only have to work on the oak. I hate oak as well. It was really tough to find hardware for the cupboards because what was there was an odd size and for a long time I could only find special-order pieces at around $12 a unit (and I had 20 to replace) but I was in Ikea the other day and found them - 5", black, perfect. The other option, of course, was to fill the top hole and re-drill, but that's risky too. I'm planning on having the cupboards painted (I don't have any confidence in myself to do it nicely) but this will not be for a while. Just looking at the brass-less kitchen makes me smile. Ah, small pleasures. Layton got the lattice up on our fence (when we bought the house, one fence was covered in chicken wire and vines, but we cut the vines down to replace the chicken wire with lattice) so I hope the vines grow in quickly. He also assembled my bistro set (we didn't get to do this last year because I couldn't find the hardware) so all I need is to figure out where to put it. It's so nice that the house is coming together. I finally found a window shade for the kitchen (the one that was there when we moved in is not actually oak, but it's the color of oak) but I haven't been able to locate one in the proper size so that has to wait. Still, it's nice to know progress is being made. Wow, thank god for tax returns.

My daughter just remembered that she loves pineapple. The first time she ever had fresh pineapple, she ate roughly half the pineapple (well, she chews on pieces until they're nothing but pulp, then spits themm out) but she's refused to even try a piece since. So when I offered her some today, I was surprised when she accepted it. She's on her way to finishing the entire fruit. I've never seen her so excited.

Tomorrow will mark the end of my third week of six hours per week of yoga. I'd seen a lot of bodily improvements in the three months prior to that that I'd been taking weekly yoga classes (to the tune of 11 lbs) but I started feeling like I wanted more. I'm addicted. I'm in the best shape of my life (7 lb below my pre-pregnancy weight!) and I've never felt better. But it's not just the weight loss or the increased strength or the incredible difference in my flexibility. I'm so much more relaxed. I have so much more patience. I'm far, far happier. Than I've ever been in my life.

I love Fridays. My mom watches the baby while I do my shopping and running around, and sometimes I even get a chance to have lunch with my (future) SIL, and then I head over to Second Cup to have a latte and immerse myself in whatever I happen to be reading at the time. Then I come home to spend a few hours just enjoying my daughter before her dad comes home. Then we usually spend a couple of hours visiting with his family, either at our place or his parents' house. Then I have a 7pm Hatha class with one of my favorite yoga teachers. Then I come home and soak in the tub for a bit before a fantastic sleep (yoga is great for sleep quailty). Then I have another Hatha class to look forward to on Saturday morning.

I'm so sore from cleaning today, and probably from a fairly intense ashtanga class last night. It sure feels good though. I always vacuum at least once a day, and wipe down the high chair after every meal, but today I scrubbed all the cupboard doors clean and wiped off all the hardware and scrubbed the floors and the walls and the light switches and the windows and the baseboards and wiped off all the appliances. I love the feel of a super-clean kitchen. The baby was having a fairly whiny day and she followed me around making pitiful sounds. She was just so pathetic, it was hard not to laugh at her. She has taken to pushing her high chair around the kitchen (we have laminate floors - ugh) like a walker. When she runs into an obstacle, she cries.

Our house was built in 1973. We bought it about a year and a half ago, and although it has plenty of, let's say, room for improvement, it was never so bad that it needed work before we moved in. However, there is oak everywhere. The baseboards, the cupboards, the floors. Everywhere. I hate oak. Oak is my nemesis. The plan is to make it look nice, increase it's value, live in it a few years and sell it at a profit. I'm confident in our ability to do this (we bought it cheap) and on one hand I can't wait to move forward with this. But on the other hand, I've kind of fallen in love with the place. The house was a rental in the years before we bought it, and in a lot of ways it shows, but underneath it's not hard to see that it was once a beloved place. It's most obvious in the care that was taken in landscaping the back yard. I have three lilac trees that bloom beautiful white in the spring, an apple tree and a mysterious oak tree that doesn't belong in this climate (we call it the ugly tree). The front yard boasts three very tall trees that I think are poplars and a lovely weeping birch. The front flower beds have been neglected, although pansies and roses pop up in the summer.

It's just a little house, but now I don't want to think about leaving it (though we have no certain plans to right now). So much has happened here. I didn't feel this way about my first car or my first condo, but I've planted such roots since then that my whole dynamic has changed. I loved my second condo, but I never felt quite the same way about it that I do about here. I've been out of the house a lot lately, and coming home to our little house gives me a lot of joy. The whole house is my sanctuary. I don't know that it's such a good thing to feel that way about a place you don't plan on settling. Moving has never been hard for me; I've always loved a change of scenery. But right now I'm loving what I have. Wait, why am I complaining about that?

After a month of having a very miserable little girl, I woke up this morning to some relief. It's so nice that she's happy again; it's made this grey day quite beautiful. So I'm very glad. Also, she slept through the night. She nearly never sleeps through the night. Normally she gets up only once, but there are nights when I'm up two or three times with her. A solid night of sleep is such a rare gift, I won't soon forget it.

She had Cheerios and pieces of apple and banana and toast for breakfast. I can't believe how much she eats. We recently switched her from baby formula to whole milk, but I ran out last night so I had to make her a pitcher of formula. It was hard to convince myself that it was ok to switch to cow's milk, since we're so by-the-book with her. I wish I could say I was a really laid-back parent who just rolled with the punches, but that's not really the type of person I am. I'm so protective of her. I'm afraid Layton's worse. I know she's only ten months old now, and these aren't going to be actual concerns for a long time, but I can't even imagine letting her walk to school by herself or putting her on a bus. I hope I loosen up eventually. I'm sure I will.

On Saturday, on a whim, we decided to take the baby to the Muttart Conservatory. Layton had never been, and I hadn't been since grade eight, and I love taking pictures of flowers (I'm a dork, I don't care) so we just packed up and went. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We ended up going through one or two of the pavillions twice. There was an african violet event going on there, and I considered buying one, but I'm really running very low on room for plant life in my house. After we were done there, we decided to head over to the Royal Alberta Museum. Layton hadn't been there either. A police officer followed us most of the way there, which was irritating since we were driving below or around the speed limit and had an infant with us, but that's how it goes I guess. He left us alone when we parked. The museum seems like it's gotten a lot smaller, as everything from childhood does. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun. We bought the baby a fridge magnet from the gift shop as a souvenier. I took a tonne of pictures. It was a lot of fun. We're going to try to do things like that more often; with me at yoga several hours per week and him at Muay Thai, it's so tempting to spend our time together on the couch. On the other hand, we're both getting in such good shape that it's hard to sit around and do nothing. We walked to his parents place the previous weekend. It's not far, but we took the dog and the stroller and it didn't occur to him that the stroller's not meant for off-roading (don't buy the Graco travel systems, they're awfully cumbersome and way too expensive for what they are) and I don't know my way so well, not being from here, and he led me through the most ridiculous path along the school's football field. On top of that, I forgot that it was summer and didn't wear sunscreen and ended up with a nasty burn just around my collar. That's always humiliating.

Ok well the baby's throwing a fit (the terrible twos have started REALLY early in this one) so I should go attend to her.

I've begun taking 4-5 yoga classes per week. I was taking only a Wednesday class for a few months, but started to feel like I needed more. I'm glad I did. On top of all the physical improvements I've seen, I love the peace of mind yoga brings. I'm happier than I've been in years. Life is great right now.

I came home to a vase of antique white roses on Thursday. What a nice surprise. In wish I could have flowers all the time, but instead I mostly settle for houseplants. I now have two pots of ivy, two bamboo plants, a "money tree", a strange lilly from Ikea, a little plant that once had orange blooms, an african violet, and three orchids, two of which bloom continuously and one that I can't get to bloom at all. On top of that, I've been caring for two of my sister's houseplants while she's staying here.

I can only hope that my outdoor plants will fare as well as the indoor ones. I didn't have much time for my garden last summer, though all but one of my shrubs survived the winter, but this year I hope to have a lush front garden. Our house is south-facing so it shouldn't be hard. I've been buying plants for the front garden as I see them, and I've planted two that wer given to me as gifts. They're kind of random right now, but hopefully they'll fill in.

I've really developed a taste for hot baths lately too. Nothing compares to sinking into the hot, bubbly water with a good book. Life is really amazing lately.

I'm reading a book called The Forgotten Garden and it has been making me so sad that I don't even want to read it some days. I'm about a third of the way through and it's just heartbreaking; the story is very convoluted and I'm not really interested in giving a synopsis, so read it if you're really curious. There's a little girl in the story and she's four, and she's so alone that it just makes me want to cry. I don't think any book has ever touched me this way.

I drove my sister to the airport this afternoon. She's going to Vancouver for a few days to shop for schools. It's not a long flight, and it's national so I thought she'd want to be there a half-hour or so before the flight. We left the house at 1:30 and stopped for a Slurpee and then I missed the exit on the Henday and then too the wrong exit off highway 2 and she started freaking out on me a bit. I felt bad because I was worried that she'd miss her flight and by this time it was a quarter after two and then she told me that her plane doesn't leave til 3:30. I couldn't help but laugh. I'd have to get pretty lost in order for her to miss that.

My sister and I were not close growing up. We didn't get along very well and didn't have anything in common. As we got to our late teens, we stopped bickering and fighting a lot, but we weren't great friends or anything. I think the first time I spent any large amount of time with her was when I went to Thailand with her three years ago. We had a really good time. I would have been totally lost there without her. She has an amazing talent for making her way around the world without speaking a word of the language of the country she's visiting. I'm very very proud of her.

Life really gets in the way of writing sometimes, despite my effort to make writing a vital part of life. My daughter has been quite sick. On Friday night, the doctor at the after-hours care centre told us, as curtly as possible without being overtly rude, that she would stop vomiting within the next 24 hours and listed all the signs of dehydration that we could look for "next time". Well, she didn't vomit on Saturday, but she did on Sunday and then again today, but I'll be damned if I'm going to go in again and be told to just wait it out, and sent away again. What's the point?

Her miserable little attitude the past two weeks got me thinking for a while that maybe I wasn't spending enough time rolling around on the floor with her. She's so happy with her dad just laying next to her, but I've tried it and she wants something different from me. She wants me to listen to her. Yes, that sounds a bit silly since she doesn't talk, but she's happiest with me when I'm giving her my undivided attention and responding to her waving arms or ridiculous babbling, but not by saying ridiculous things in stupid baby voices. She wants me to take her seriously. Then she's happy. I understand that. Parents are so prone to duplicity with their children, and it starts in infancy, and probably becomes a deeply ingrained habit. I care a lot about how I'm treated and how I'm spoken to, so the least I can do is not be a hypocrite.

Well, back to trite activities like doing laundry and cooking dinner.

Oh the joys of motherhood.

I finished the Harry Potter series last week, after tearing through it at a lightning pace, and then finished Shutter Island yesterday, for book club, and now I'm reading The Fountainhead, which I got almost halfway through a couple of years back, but abandoned for whatever reason. However, I'm just not as gung-ho about reading it as I was the Potter books. When I was reading them, I'd dive right into my book the moment the baby went down for a nap. I devoured them. It's been less than a week since the last one was over and I'm still mourning the series a bit. So I'm not reading so prolifically right now and it feels a bit strange. Baby girl has been sleeping more than an hour (thankfully - she's miserable lately) and I've just been putzing around on facebook, playing Farmville and whathaveyou. Strange.

Bailey and I took our girls swimming today. It was great - the facility we went to has a wading pool, so the girls got to just hang out at their own level, though neither of them walks yet so they couldn't really go anywhere. They seemed to enjoy it a lot. I know we did. I have a great picture of the two of them in the playpen in the changeroom with their suits on, all ready to go.

Bailey and I got to talking about going back to work, which she's done already and I will be shortly, and I was complaining about all the horrible shiftwork I'll be doing and wishing I had some way of bringing in money from home. She thinks I should start hiring myself out as a photographer. I'd love to, but the thought makes me a bit nervous. Of course, it's easier now with digital photography than it ever was with film because you can take a million pictures and not worry about it, but I am still not really confident that I'm good enough to do it. I don't want to screw up people's memories. I've seen a lot of "professional" photography websites that don't exactly produce even acceptable pictures, but on the other hand I have some good friends who take incredible photos. I think I just need more practice.

So, I want to try doing it for nothing. If anyone out there wants maybe some family photos taken, or portraits or whatever (and this would all have to be outside since I have no studio) please comment or email me medusa@telus.net and I'd love to do it for you, just for practice. I will take the photos and edit them as need be and give them to you on a disc or memory card and you may print them as you like. :)

Ok, I broke my own rule and didn't blog for a couple of days. I could come up with excuses, but there's really no point. Rules get broken all the time. I'm not saying rules are meant to be broken, oh no. It's just that they do.

Finally spring has sprung and my birthday is threatening right around the corner. Many years we're still under a foot of snow for my birthday, so I'm pleased that it's all melted for this year, of course. One year Ashley and I went to the cabin to celebrate. It wasn't an overly warm year and we spent most of it bundled tightly up in the porch. Last year I had my first 3D ultrasound on my birthday. The year before, Layton threw me a surprise birthday party. Yes, they've mostly been very good, and I'm not really apprehensive about getting older, so I shouldn't act like I'm unhappy about my birthday coming up. That's not what I'm dreading.

Two and a half months are left of my mat leave. I've accepted that. There's no way around it and no point in stressing over it; there's no way to make the year last forever, no matter if you waste your time or make it precious. I've spent nearly every minute with my daughter, so I'm sure I'm not mistaken when I say it's been many precious weeks. I've also gotten myself into fairly great shape through a combination of healthy eating and yoga. I've made a few unexpected friends. I've learned a thousand things I'd never even thought of before. I've read the entire Harry Potter book series. It's been some really great months so far, and I've faith that it's only going to get better.

It's nice to be able to go outside, but fresh air really takes it out of me.

My birthday is next week. I don't really hate getting older as much as I probably will when older involves regular mameograms, but it's still not the best feeling in the world. When I was younger, in my early twenties, I felt like time was running away from me and it seemed like 30 was some huge deadline that was fast approaching. But that time was a lifetime ago, and 30 is still quite far away and I still feel very young. And it seems like time has gotten longer, the possibilities endless like never before. When I was younger, I didn't want to go back to school because it seemed like everything I wanted to take would just take too long. Now, I'm much more open to the idea, and a few extra years doesn't seem like a big deal.

Maybe posting before bed, when I can barely keep my eyes open, isn't the most productive option. The baby and I got up early this morning (read: the baby got up early this morning and I couldn't get her back to sleep) so we still have many hours to go before nap time.

There was one campground on Vancouver Island that my family and I nearly stayed at, but decided not to. It was certainly interesting; it was another walk-in site, but the walk was about 15 minutes through the North American rainforest, and the campsite was on the beach. I think the decision not to stay there was based on the heat we'd be feeling first thing in the morning, and the lack of privacy and safety afforded by sleeping on the beach. It`s a nice thought, but not that practical.

One of the yoga instructors I had for prenatal was big on having us visualize a happy place and for some reason my mind always went straight to the campground in Radium that we'd stay at. Our campsite was walk-in and was at the top of a windy hill, with the tents facing the open valley. There are a thousand places I can think of that are beautiful and calming and that I'd like to be at any given minute, but this was always the first one my mind chose. I dream about that place sometimes too, particularily the winding mountain path that leads to the hotsprings. In my dreams I could run up and down that path and never fear the harsh drop on one side. In my dreams, the path always ended in a different place. I don't know what the draw is, but I'd like to go back there one day.

When I was a kid, and when I was a teen, my family and I drove out to Vancouver Island in the summer. Over the years these trips have all melted together in my memory but I've felt my mind wandering back to them a lot lately. My mind is very, very tired today though, so pretend I wrote a bunch about the drive out to the coast. Maybe tomorrow I will.

I used to work at Home Depot, which I'm sure is basically the worst place to work in North America. Any time I become disenchanted with my job or life in general, I think back on those days and reflect on how much better I have it now. I was a cashier for a few months, and I was probably treated best when I was there, now that I think upon it, though customers were relentless. Then I moved on to home decor, which was not bad as I had a very nice manager, but the training was abysmal and I'd probably have had a better chance of really grasping the intricacies of custom ordering blinds if I'd cared at all or was being paid more than $9 an hour.

A couple months later I moved into the paint department, which I would have enjoyed a lot more if I hadn't been working completely alone most times, usually without breaks and covering the phones for at least one other department while I was at it. Or if my manager hadn't been completely useless and one of the rudest people on earth. I was constantly in trouble with her. The reason was this: I was a part-time worker and was supposed to be scheduled around my school schedule (I was 19 and a full time student) but Maria just didn't care that I had school most days and scheduled me whenever worked for her, and when I mentioned it to her and asked her to change it, she just ignored me, so every single week I had to go above her head to have my schedule changed. So she hated me and made me work alone. In the busiest department in the store.

Luckily I managed to get moved to millworks where I had an awesome manager and some really great coworkers, but both customers and vendors treated me like I was some sort of idiot because, clearly, a girl doesn't know anything about windows and doors. It was irritating on a daily basis.

But the worst part of working for the Depot was the appaling way the staff was treated by most upper management, and the way they didn't seem to quite see us as people. After I'd been working there about a year (I stayed two and a half years total), upper management decided that closing shifts would no longer end whenever you were done cleaning your department. Instead, everyone was forced to stay until 11pm, despite the fact that most people were finished all their cleaning by 10:15 or so. Since many people just ignored this new rule, upper management decided to begin locking us all in until 11. Even when confronted with the fact that it was a safety hazard in case of a fire, we were told to shut up. I think someone must have made a call to get that straightened out, but when the exit doors were finally left unlocked, management began simply standing guard there, doing nothing until 11.

The night after my grandmother died, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I'd been at the Depot a long time and had never once called in sick, but I was simply incapable of going to work that day and called in a few hours before my shift. The assistant store manager who took my call accused me of lying about my grandmother. I just hung up on her.

On another occasion, when I was working in millwork, a customer in a wheelchair asked me on a date. I respectfully declined. Apparently he didn't take that well because he told an assistant store manager named Tasha that I randomly walked up to him, grabbed him by the collar and shook him and shouted "are you retarded" in his face. I personally think it's a little far-fetched that anyone would do that, but she wrote me up for it.

So my advise to you, to anyone, is to NEVER work at a Home Depot. Don't even shop there, if you can avoid it. It's better to shop at Rona and support the Canadian economy anway. Home Depot sees its employees as its least valuable resource. They really should be stopped.

I've found myself in the unusual position of having only one pair of earrings to my name, which isn't really distressing in the traditional sense, but when one has very very little to worry about, as I myself do, it's as good a reason as any to become distressed. So, being somewhat crafty and having a great liking for a project, I bought myself an earring-making kit at Walmart today, which includes all the makings for eight pairs of earrings, all of which I was rather fond of when I picked up the box. After my daughter was put down to sleep and my bath was had, I decided I should go at it right away, before my interest wanes. The back of the package indicates that one needs needlenose pliers, wire cutters and round nose pliers to complete this project. I have the first two, so I figured I could just do without the round nose pliers (I have a bad habit of just winging it) so I started on the first (easiest) pair and ta-da! Earrings. Ok, yes, there were only four pieces to put together and it was really really easy, but still I'm proud of myself. High on my first success, I decided to tackle a second set! It's so easy! I gathered the materials needed for the pair I was most attracted to and was disappointed to find that the poor quality of the product meant that it wasn't made in a way that it would actually hold together (the whole set was $5 so I'm not really going to complain about one faulty pair) so I had to ditch that set. Disappointing, but there are still six other pairs, right? Further inspection told me that all six required round nose pliers. Some trial and error told me that I cannot just wing it.

So, it was a good effort, but I crashed and burned. Maybe I should dig out Seville's scrapbook while I'm at this.

I didn't get around to taking any pictures today so I guess I have to write something.

Which would you rather have: freedom or comfort?

It's turning into spring, which has almost always been my favorite time of year. I love the smell of snow melting and the fresh green new life springing up around me everywhere. However, spring makes me restless. It makes me want to sell my house and move away. It always has. I wonder if I'll feel the same this spring, or if I'll continue nesting far into the summer, til I have to go back to work and everything will be forced to change.

On the other hand, I've been thinking a lot recently about the possibility of going back to school and getting a real career. It's something I've thought about a lot, on and off, for the past four or five years. I'd like to have a job where I'm not constantly monitored and rated and judged and picked apart. It's painful and humiliating and stressful. But it's been a constant in my life for nearly seven years. So which do I choose? Cold comfort, or change?

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

- Hamlet

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

- Macbeth

Ok, so they're not my words. I'm sure you understand how I feel though.

I'm finding myself in the vicious circle of finding excuses not to write every day. I can't write because the baby wants to use the computer. I can't write because my hand cramps up when I put pen to paper. I can't write because I just read something that made me think about something besides what I was planning to write about. Enough! How hard should this really be?

My other major hobby is photography. Well, maybe you'd just call it "taking pictures". I take some good pictures once in a while though I'm certainly no professional, but I really do enjoy it and that is the point.

My interest in photography began sometime in high school. At the time I had a terrible point-and-shoot film camera and every picture was out of focus and poorly framed, but the drive was there; I have boxes upon boxes of these pictures. I figured out quickly that a better camera would garner better results, so I began to try different ones out. I've never been big on returning things though, so when I was done trying an unsatisfactory camera, it became part of my collection, which is now in the 20+ range. The year being 2000, APS film cameras were popular and I ended up with a couple of these, though to no better results.

College gave me a chance to develop some skills. I had to convince the head of the Pro Writing program to let me take photography as an option, as it was not on the approved list, which I found a bit ridiculous since writing and photography kind of go hand-in-hand.

ecause I had nothing but horrible point-and-shoot cameras, my dad very kindly gave me his Pentax Spotmatic SLR that he'd had since he was a teenager. I loved it. I saw improvements in my photography even from the first picture I took (I have an album full of them and will one day scan them and put them online, I promise). From that moment on, my picture-taking went into full overdrive. Ashley and I would think up ridiculous photo projects and drive around the city to make them reality. We photographed everything we could think of; I have boxes and boxes and boxes.

School started and I learned a lot. I learned about the rule of thirds and the common mistake of giving your subject too much headroom. I also was lucky enough to learn to develop and print my own rolls of film, which gave me a whole different perspective on photography and what's possible.

The first level of photography was interesting and informative and inspiring. Level two should have been as well, but the instructor was so bitter about everything that I, and the rest of the class I think, kind of lost steam half way through. He gave us assignments that should have been fun, but somehow made them not fun: in the flash-photography assignment, he didn't give any examples beforehand and was disappointed in everything anyone handed in. He gave us a slide-photography assignment in the dead of winter, so the kool-aid color quality of the slides was pointless. One assignment involved buying two rolls of Fugi film and two rolls of Kodak and getting one of each developed at the Fugi store and the others developed at McBain, and seeing what the differences were in processing (the answer is that the Fugi will give white people a greenish skin tone, which is particularily pronounced if you have it developed at the Fugi store), but the instructor once worked for McBain and couldn't help himself from continuously bashing it, and refering to the company as "McDonald's camera". By the end of the term, I'd pretty much stopped taking pictures.

I made the idiotic mistake of leaving my camera in my car over night. I doubt I'll ever really forgive myself for that.

Skip forward five years to 2007. I'd won a poor-quality Sony digital camera at work at one point, and had since replaced it with another poor-quality Panasonic digital camera, which I took to Thailand with me. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wished I had, but the amazing new scenery sparked my interest in photography again. A few months later, that camera quit on me and I ordered a little Pentax point-and-shoot digital with my Airmiles. Unfortunately it didn't come in time for my trip to Mexico, but when it did I was fairly pleased with it for a while. It did everything it was supposed to, though the fact was that it was a hundred-dollar camera and had its limitations, so I asked friends for recommendations and ended up buying a Canon Powershot.

A lot of the people I know swear by Canon (my bitter photography instructor always said never to buy a camera that was not made by a camera company, by which he meant film companies like Kodak or Fuji, but I'm sure he'd feel the same way about a camera made by a printer company) and I've seen many, many beautiful pictures taken with Canon cameras, but I just couldn't get the stupid thing to listen to me. It never focused on the right thing, ever. The colors seemed washed out. I ended up ditching it in favor of the Pentax.

When my daughter was born, the picture-taking became ceaseless. I got around the time delay of a point-and-shoot digital by taking picture after picture and weeding the bad ones out later. It worked pretty well. I have some amazing pictures of the first six months of her life that I'm extremely happy with. We've never taken her to a professional photographer, and sometimes we'll even set up a backdrop for her and do a little photo session with her. They've all turned out really great.

Christmas day was wonderful. We spoiled the baby with toys and the look of wonderment on her face melts my heart to this day. After everything seemed to have been opened, Layton disappeared behind the tree and said "oh yeah" and handed me a silver-wrapped box from the baby. It was a shiny new Nikon D3000. I said "you didn't!!!" and prompty burst into tears.

If I could choose a career for my daughter, it'd be photojournalist. Forget doctor or lawyer. The world is such an amazing, varied place and I'd love for her to be able to see it all and take a million pictures and bring them home to me. Of course, I'd also love to travel around the world taking pictures and writing things, but let's be realistic; these things are hard to do with a family in tow, and we tend to pass our dreams on to our children, or so I'm told.

All this writing has gotten me thinking that I can make up for my frequent bouts of writers block by pressing myself to take pictures (of things other than my daughter and my houseplants). So, I am hereby committing myself to supply at least one picture per day if I fail to write.

Lately I've found the toughest part of blogging is finding an end point.

I can't stand redundancy. Every time that commercial for Vick's Custom Care comes on TV, I cringe. You might know it. The tagline is "treat only the cold symptoms you have, and none that you don't". Brilliant...

I love the teen moms on MTV's 16 and Pregnant because they feed their babies formula, and they warm it up in the microwave. I do those things too.

Sitting around at home for the past nine months and doing virtually nothing has made me more domestic than I ever thought I'd be. The number of things I know about common mistakes people make while doing the laundry makes me laugh. Who cares??? Apparently I do. And I've become somewhat obsessive with little ways I can be eco-friendly. Nearly all the detergents and cleaning products in my house are coconut based.

I strive not to be one of those moms who talks about nothing but her baby all day, and I don't want to be a know-it-all mom. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that there are a whole plethora of things that I don't know about babies, and that having one little baby doesn't make me an expert on the subject, especially since every baby is so different. Pregnancy really had a common-experience feel to it, but parenthood doesn't.

I ordered new flatware the other day and I'm falling off my seat with excitement waiting for it to come. It makes me feel old, and like perhaps I should be ashamed of my glee over this. But I'm not embarassed! Who wouldn't want new flatware? Who doesn't love getting things in the mail? My latest amazon.ca order came today and I nearly jumped for joy, even though I'm already in the middle of a book and won't get to any of the new ones for a while. I've found myself reading a lot of young adult literature lately. I don't get why it's called that; teenagers are not young adults. They're a whole different variety of human being. There's a high school a block from my house and at two teens live next door. They're all so lanky looking these days. And so young! I used to see them walking, in the summer, to the 7-11 and half of them look like baby prostitutes. My mother'd have killed me if I left the house dressed like that. I think.

The weekend was too long and too short, in its own weird way. It feels as though nothing got done. But really, plenty did. I can't really complain, since I don't work anyway and every day may as well be Saturday in my life, but we all must have something to complain about, musn't we?

I'm half-watching an extraordinarily stupid movie called Mad Money. That's been one of my worst habits since becoming a mommy; I can't seem to give my undivided attention to anything on a television screen. Even though the baby's prematurely in bed, there are a dozen other things that I feel I should be doing. Noble as that sounds, I'm mostly playing farmville and tinkering with the jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table.

On a completely different note, I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss why I decided to start a blog. A girl I know began one recently and it inspired me. I still probably would not have bothered had it not been for the encouragement of my best friend and my future sister-in-law. In highschool I was a hardcore diarist, so much so that I couldn't seem to stop myself from writing in my diary through most of my classes. The words just came and came and came. I could not just sit there and listen at all. Some people can, some people doodle. I wrote. And did not pay much attention at all. That may be why I didn't do so well in high school.

It goes back much further than that, of course. The first story I ever remember writing was about an octopus, or a dolphin, or some other variety of sea creature, and it's home under the sea. I'm fairly sure that's what landed me an invitation to the World of Writing event at Londonderry mall in second or third grade. I was sold after that though. All I ever wanted to do was write. People told me I should become a teacher and write in my spare time, but I only wanted to be a full-time author. When I was a Brownie I wrote an awesome horror story (I was a big Stephen King fan at the time) that I remember typing up on MS Works and printing on the old dot-matrix. This, however, was not enough for the required badge, and I had to write a poem as well. I got a lot of help with the poem, from someone`s random mother, and it sucked. It was about butterflies and the last line claimed, falsely, that they were "my favorite thing of all things", which I knew sounded terrible, but I couldn't find a better way to work it, and besides, I wasn't very attached to that particular piece.

Around grade 5 I decided to write a book. It was about some girls and their mothers who become shipwrecked and build themselves homes on a deserted island. I only got about 30 pages in before getting bored and calling it quits. Sometimes I still wish I'd not given up, or that I at least still had the manuscript. It seems to me I spent a lot of thought on those pages.

I attented Leadworks, a city-wide writing conference, all three years of jr high. The teacher taking submissions called me down to his classroom on one of those occasions and questioned my use of the word "eschewed". He was sure it was either a typo, or that I'd made the word up. After that came the high school diarising (did I make that word up?) and then high school ended and I began blogging, prior to when the internet was cool.

Then college killed my urge to write. I made the mistake of taking a new, unproven program and apparently misunderstood the program description, and thought that Professional Writing would be something that it wasn't. I should have taken journalism. Maybe I should have become a teacher. Maybe I should have just kept writing, in spite of my disillusionment.

Not to say I didn't land some place I don't want to be; I love my life (and also semicolons) and wouldn't trade it for anything. But I still wish I was an author, so I'm going to begin blogging again. :)

Your shroud is on fire

Ok, seriously, what happens to all the toothpaste? I should very likely be asking Layton this question, and not the world at large, but he's in the shower and he won't give me a satisfactory answer anyway, so I'm asking you. I've lived with a variety of people and have found it quite common to run quickly out of toilet paper or ice cream, but considering that I am the one in this relationship who has a bit of an oral health obsession, and that I don't use an excess of toothpaste, I don't understand at all how we can possibly go through a tube or more in a week. I don't really want to cheap out when it comes to toothpaste (due, of course, to my oral health obsession) but it just seems a bit absurd.

Really, I'm going to sleep.

There are times when I wish that I was you

I can't really deny that this is hard sometimes. She screamed for nearly two housr yesterday evening, in her crib, in her sleep, before beginning to snore softly. I love her. Fiercely, of course; I'm her mother. An hour or two is sufferable. The longest I've known her to scream for is nine weeks. So I can tolerate an hour quite easily. Right?

I found out quite recently that the world stops when your baby gets sick. It's something like frog-swimming, I think; you surface every once in a while to take a breath and you probably find yourself surprised that the old world, the one from the day before that you've all but forgotten already, still exists, scattered all over the house. I was once concerned with inane details like the expiry date on the meat I bought yesterday? I bought meat yesterday? The power bill is coming due? Who has time to think about these things?

And it's not to say that she's dangerously ill; I can't imagine what other mothers go through, other parents, when their children come down with worse than bad colds and little viruses. How do they find the strength to emerge and breathe?

Ok, good night.