montezuma

we've arrived in cleveland :) the drive went by pretty quickly. it was great having a GPS and we named the GPS lady 'donna' . i think the drive felt short because i was always just looking for the next city. brendan was feeling much more tired than i was, but really perked up after i started driving. the entire trip took 7.5 hours and we broke the driving into two sections - each taking half. at one point when we stopped for a break the car started making an odd rattley sound. we checked where it was coming from and didn't find anything so we kept going and the sound has stopped.

our hotel is really great! it's the red roof inn. we got a really great deal - $46 a night! we've stayed at hostels in ireland for more money. and it's really nice. it's got wood floors and a nice flat screen tv. we like to enjoy tv watching when we stay at hotels since we don't have one at home. its a luxury for us :) we're watching 300, which is a bit of a guilty pleasure for both of us.

i'm having a great time and feel really unwound.

i can think
and say and see.

buck

b and i are heading out on our roadtrip to cleveland today. we're super excited. we really like roadtripping and we're very curious about what cleveland is like.

we're all set with snacks and a borrowed GPS to hit the road. we booked our hotel on wednesday and got a really good rate. it should take about 8 hours to get there. 6h 45m on the actual road plus stops for food, gas and washroom breaks. when on long trips we play 20 questions (although i come up with really random people and b loses interest), and listen to music, have long conversations about a variety of stuff. i never get sick of spending time with that guy. i feel pretty lucky.

we're taking our little netbook so hopefully i'll get to write while we're there :)

forget what you have to do,
pretend there is nothing.

skin

while i had dreads it seems that my hair changed. like friends who continued learning and changing during an long absense, my hair and i had to get reaquainted. it's been something like 2 years and i'm still a little unsure of how to manage these changes. it's grown in wavyer. it's a little more unruly. mostly, the part just doesn't cooperate. the back, near my crown, flips when it's supposed to flop. it zigs when i want it to zag. so i've given up. i can't find a way to make it work, so i'm changing my ways. i've decided to start parting my hair on the right instead of the left because it then works with my crown instead of against. surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly) i think my hair looks particularly nice today. while it's conforming to it's natural patterns it's also more full and robust. and i like it.

last night, in keeping with our valentine's day tradition, brendan and i wrote and read to each other lists. lists of our favourite things about each other. the neat thing about this is that each year they're different as we discover and appreciate new things about each other and our connection deepens. it was really quite lovely. and i was all crying and stuff. a new addition to this tradition was a pair of cupcakes. after work i went down to the cupcakery and got us two cupcakes on my gift certificate. it was super busy in there. the busiest i've ever seen it. they'd sold out of everything and were making them as customers stood in line. good to know for next year! i think they were just as surprised as i was.

i fell asleep on the couch last night at 9:30. it was good.

you think that i don't understand,
but i do...

bricks

last night, pulling in the driveway, my right front tire made contact with the corner of a decorative wooden railway tie and popped. that said... getting a flat tire in one's own driveway, in daylight, when her husband is home and her friends around, is probably the best place/time to do it. oddly enough our car did not have a jack, but thankfully we were able to borrow rach's. neither b nor myself had ever changed a tire before, but i'd seen it done and it seemed pretty simple. it went pretty well. we were a good team and with the full-size spare i was able to drive to work this morning.

this is turning out to be one of those hidden blessings. i dropped the car off a mechanic down the road from the office. as i pulled up i saw a sign out front saying "tire event". good timing. i've been thinking for quite some time that it might be time to replace our tires but since i don't like spending money i'm not great at preventative maintenance like that. but it turns out, the tires were really worn down and all 4 need replacing. i'm very thankful that we're getting them replaced since we're driving down to cleveland this weekend and it's good to know we'll have good tires on. also this is giving me the chance to get new belts, which has been needed for about a year since the car squeals and shireks when it's first turned on.

in spite the fact that this will end up being the most expensive car repair i've ever had, i don't mind because i know it needs doing and it will get the car all set and ready for the road this weekend. it's nearly a 7 hour drive there, and another 7 back and i did have the thought at the back of my mind that i should do something about those belts before we go.

 

it's just tough since we just got our washer installed which was expensive and have to pay off the balance of our equal-billing (that was not covering the costs properly) at york street. we have a tenant who may or may not be moving because we're not lowering the rent, and are about to do renovations upstairs. PLUS, my dad is back in hospital after passing out a bunch of times.

while i'm not panicking, it's understandable that i've been stressed out and overwhelmed lately. i'm coping ok though. i'm feeling calm. more calm. but looking forward to this being behind us.

 

they keep pounding their fists on reality
hoping it will break.

thumbs

for the first time, last friday i missed knickers. not missed her in a nostalgic sense, but i felt her absence in a very real way. she was a real fighter and networker. she knew the ropes and would fight fires on behalf of our team. on friday i needed to get some information from one of the engineers, so i went over to speak to her. in doing so, i found myself caught in the middle of two engineers and their opinions. i had to stand there with them for at least an hour because i needed the information decided at the end of their discussion. after that was finished i then had to go speak with a director to explain the results of that conversation and come up with a course of action. all this to say... i felt like a young adult who finds herself launched into the real work only to find she no longer has her parents to fix her troubles any longer. it hit me that the weight is now upon my shoulders. there's no one else but me. i am now the communications rep at our site. i have to network. i have to chase people. i have to fight for our team. knickers is gone and emma is stationed overseas. it's just me. and that feels like a big deal. i'm not really made for that sort of thing. i like just doing what i'm told and not being a decision-maker. networking is not enjoyable. it's draining to be around people, especially at work where i am stationed in an open concept room with 20 odd other people. i wish sometimes i had walls that could provide me with some shelter. then in my small alone space i could recharge. the empty space around me could radiate energy back into me.

yesterday was a bit dicey. at times i felt ok, other times i did not. i'd occasionally give b an update so he'd know where i was at. i wasn't / am not sad. i feel worn. thin in spots. threadbare. i'm planning on laying low this week. spacing out my commitments, maximizing my resting time. part of me feels badly that i need leisure time. that's not an option for people with kids. but i suppose i shouldn't be comparing myself. this is me and where i'm at. and maybe i should take advantage of the freedom to relax in order to recharge simply because i can.

beckie told me to take care of my day-to-day things in order to establish good mental hygiene. i like this approach. i did another load of laundry. the luxury convenient laundry is quite addictive. it's so nice having clean clothes, sheets, towels, etc. it's also really nice how easy that can be accomplished. SO great.

 

rockabye, rockabye baby
rockabye, the baby that is me
rockabye, rockabye baby
rockabye till i'm fast asleep.

helium

this has been a weird day. i feel that it's safe to say that i'm definitely depressed and it may not be just the weather. all week i've been a bit off. stressed, anxious, overwhelmed for no apparent reason. i've been feeling really crappy about myself and that i'm letting people down or always doing/saying the wrong things. anyways, today for no apparent reason i had a total breakdown. i'm feeling a bit better now, or at least i'm up and doing. it's scary not understanding why i feel this way and not knowing how to soothe myself. brendan was really great. i feel like i trust him even more knowing that he can stand by me when i'm at my worst. right now every obligation or commitment i have seems like a gigantic hurdle that i'm just not up to facing. and yet, avoiding such things only makes it worse. i'm looking forward to our trip to cleveland next weekend because the only thing i will have to do is go on a trip and have a nice time. 

i haven't felt this bad since my early 20s when i suffered from depression for a year. things just don't feel right inside me. 

in spite of this, there were some nice parts of today. brendan and i assembled a shelf unit for my dad at his apartment. i got my hair cut. i did my first load of laundry in our new washing machine. and we went out for dinner to copper penny. 

we bought our washing machine about a month ago. i'm pretty sure i told you the harrowing tale of us carrying it into the basement.  after that we contacted 3 plumbers to assemble it and aside from the one plumber who gave us a quote then blew us off, we made no progress. so out of desperation on thursday i decided that i would call thru the phonebook until i found a plumber who would install it (we didn't have a hook-up or a drain in the basement) on friday afternoon when brendan was home (his only chunk of time off school). thankfully the first place i called was nice and close by and they came over that afternoon to give us a quote and then came on friday to hook it up. i'm so grateful. it feels pretty awesome having laundry at our disposal. it amuses me a little that between buying the washer and getting it installed makes it the most expensive load of laundry ever. i think i'll need to do another load tomorrow. we don't have a dryer and the clothes are drying on racks so space is limited. 

b has gone over to next to get the music ready for tomorrow. i'm tired but i'll wait for him to return because i don't want to go to bed alone. having him with me is comforting. right now i feel squeezed from every side, even if i don't know why. having him with me is reassuring. it's nice to know there's someone in arms reach if i need it.

your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits.

catnip

in my new fancy planner at work there are tips for environmental living. so far they've all be neat and enjoyable tips, except last week it said that to save water and time you should brush your teeth in the shower. that just seems WEIRD to me and i don't see how it would save either time or water because you'd have to stand there brushing while streams of water poured down the drain. do any of you do this? does it at all seem like a productive thing to do?

my dad got released from the hospital yesterday and is staying with joy for a week. they had a meeting at their church so brendan and i went over to baby sit the kids and help my dad get settled. before we set to task, he took down his pants and opened up his shirt to show us his incisions. it was hilarious. he kept doing these muscle man poses with his big belly and bandages everywhere. his chest incision is about 8 inches long and the ones on his leg, where they took the vein, make his thigh a dark maroon colour. the entire thigh. we were talking and laughing, swapping stories, which got my dad laughing so hard that his chest hurt and he took some time to get settled again.

it's funny how whenever i spend a lot of time with my dad, especially when we're working together toward an objective, i see how similar we are. he's very brash and so am i - in the same ways. i think that's the right word for it. brash. he was in a big hurry to get his dialysis machine set up and when he found things were missing/left at home by accident he got really worked up about it. sometimes, in his anxiousness, he got annoyed at me because i didn't fully understand what he had in mind - because he hadn't fully communicated it. he easily lost things. these are all things i do, except i get annoyed at brendan. it was a very eye opening experience and it helped me better appreciate what it's like to be on the other side of my brashness. i think i'm a little better at soothing myself than he is, but he responded well when i prompted him to calm down. all in all, i find him quite amusing. growing up with my mom and sister, who operate very much alike in how they organize things (both 'J's), it's nice having a family member who operates like me. i think it's easier being a girl. most women who come into contact with a man like that thinks he need to be changed or corrected. i'm pretty grateful that i'm not seen as a project by my partner.

this morning, after i making my lunch, i put in my contact lens. it instantly started burning my eyeball. i screamed out in pain and brendan rushed to be in alarm. i'd stupidly not washed my hands after mincing garlic, so the oils were transfered to my contacts, then into my eye. brash. brash, i tell ya.

 

if there's anything i've learned
all these years on my own,
it's how to find my own way there
and how to find my own way back home.

huggie

i'm amazed by how much a little bit of water changed my life 20+ years ago and i knew nothing about it. i'm saddened and yet a little relieved. things make more sense now.

visiting my dad in the hospital today was an encouraging experience. he's doing remarkably well. as i thought about it afterwards i don't recall seeing him as happy before. i think it's the combination of having a near death experience and surviving, but also he's so extroverted and it seems that being at the hospital, being around people constantly, has really been good for his soul. it seems to be bringing out his most lovely and warm side. five days after surgery and they're set to release him tomorrow. to see him you won't really believe that he just had major surgery. he's up walking on his own unassisted. he's lively and spunky. he seems like a perfectly well gentleman.

while at the hospital joy and i joined my dad at an aftercare session. this covered physical restrictions, a talk from a dietitian and  some medical information. the dietitian made it clear that the tips she was providing are good principles for everyone, not just people with diagnosed heart problems. she talked a lot about salt and encourages a no-adding salt approach. this prompted my dad to give me a 'i told you so look' since he's been waging war on my use of salt for my entire life. she suggested mrs dash seasonings instead and i decided to give that some thought, and when i looked up the website later i was quite impressed by the selection. so i'm giving up adding up salt to my foods in favour of spices :D

we're having some difficulties with our tenants. they're trying to convince us to lower the already low rent. i felt badly because he looked like he was about to cry. it's extremely awkward and i know we're in this crappy situation because they had no lease or defining agreement. that said, we're not negotiating with them. i feel sorry for him, but this issue is actually between them as housemates and doesn't actually involve us. blah......

i always wanted to be
commander in chief
of my one woman army.