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.