cancun and back again

we arrived home from cancun last night. our flight was at 14:50, so we had the morning to hangout. after i packed up our stuff, it was so hot that just sitting still was making me sweat profusely. so i unpacked eamon's and my swimsuits and we went for one last dip.

after we arrived in toronto, went through customs, picked up our luggage and our car, it was dark and was raining quite heavily. i have this thing about passing transport trucks on the highway. before, when i was the primary/only driver, i didn't mind them so much. but now, when i'm mostly a passenger, passing transports freak me out A LOT. i think it's because they feel as though they are inches, or at the most 2 feet away from me. it's usually upsetting, but even more so when brendan drives faster than i'm comfortable with, considering it's raining so much that visibility is bad. so we just had to reach an agreement that i would have to shut my eyes. not a great system. i honestly had serious doubts that we would make the drive home. and on more than one occasion i thought "so, this is how i'll die". it felt ironic enough to be real.

but we made it home. we had a super super super great time. and i'm so thankful. it's good to be home too though. although, we sure missed having someone do our cooking and cleaning today :p

more later!

possibilities abound

man, i am full of ideas.

i have so many interesting ideas that i surprise even myself.

here's my latest thing...

this morning, our downstairs tenant of 18 months gave his notice. after that, we got thinking about whether to find another tenant or be done with that. but after realizing that we really don't need that space yet. eamon isn't old enough to play down there on his own. he likes to be close to us. when he is 6 and otis is 3, i think they'll definitely be ready to have a real play space. so we decided we would rent it out again. then i thought, if we rent it out furnished, we could charge more, plus, we'll need to furnish it eventually anyway. so that's what we'll do, starting in september. 

but wait, there's more! this is where my interesting idea comes in. maybe over the summer, we should list it on airbnb! over 4 weekends we could make the equivalent to a months rent. kingston is touristy, and in a good location between many other major cities. i think this could work! i'm excited. i think it's a good financial decision, AND a new experience we've never done before :)

fingers/jammed

at some point since otis was born, i changed my food habits. i don't even remember when that was. maybe new year? but i think it was earlier than that. maybe november. it has gone well, and i'm proud of myself.

this wednesday, we're leaving for our vacation in cancun. usually i do well with a new routine until there is a disruption. so i am curious to see how i manage there and upon returning from this break from routine. i feel that i have been significantly changed enough that i won't be negatively impacted by this, but i'll have to wait and see.

packing for myself and 2 small children is an interesting experience. under normal circumstances, i would have eamon pack for himself with brendan's help. i think that he is old enough to do that now, but since we are taking limited luggage, we have to be crafty with what we choose, so i'm doing it myself. i think i've reached the point that i need to take a break until wednesday, because we need to use everything else up until then.

this afternoon, all three lorimer males were napping. so i sat down with a cider at the kitchen table. yes, i WAS drinking mid afternoon :p unfortunately, otis woke up the moment i got comfortable. c'est la vie.

helmo

my friend helen died.

i found out this afternoon on facebook, when someone i don't know wrote on her wall and included 'RIP' in the message. my mind was reeling when i saw that her profile had switched to a 'remembering' page.

she was so loving and warm. i was always so touched by how she included and reached out to me, even when she didn't have to. she was so smart, and often times far to smart for me to follow everything she was saying. i have so much respect for her marriage to terrence. they have been together for so long, yet each had a strong sense of personal identity. they were different, and complementary. like different flavours in cooking. my heart breaks for him. i can't imagine his life without her.

i'm glad that brendan got to meet them. we had dinner together a year ago last summer (august 2015).

i'm tempted to say things like "life is so short" and "life is so precious" or "tell your loved ones you love them". but it all feels trite. so instead, i'm going to go brush my teeth, and get into bed with my warm body who i'm grateful for every day. be thankful and relish all the good stuff.

someone i used to know

i bumped into someone from my past the other day. well, bumped into is a bit of an overstatement. i saw this person from a distance. it was the first time in over 10 years that we've crossed paths in this small town. i immediately seized and back-tracked to brendan to regain my composure. i'm not really sure if b understood the significance of this sighting, but he was there for me nonetheless. that relationship is something that i simply choose not to talk about. in fact, in my early blogging days, 12 years ago, i set some blogging ground rules, which included never discussing said events. at the time, that was really important for me. choosing not to talk about it was a way to empower myself. i was not, and am not defined by those experiences, and i would not let it be part of my new reality. but i think at this point, it is more empowering for me to acknowledge it.

here's the long and the short of it...

i had my first boyfriend when i was 15. it was rough and rocky. a bad start into boy-girl stuff. from there, i had a series of 5 boyfriends, over an 9 year period. each relationship was more intense, dramatic and screwed up than the last one (with the exception of joel, which was healthy, but simply not a good fit). by the end of my last relationship when i was 24, i was a hollow and unwell person. and as an unwell person, i pinned all my hopes for wholeness, worth, belonging and identity on one person (who happened to be that last boyfriend). it took about a year and a half (probably shortly before starting my blog) for me to be fully over that break-up. although, at some point, it really stopped being about that one person and/or relationship, but an imaginary version and projections that i had developed in my head. those were ugly years for me. and painful, because the process of emotional and healing is not an easy one, and there are no shortcuts.

after all that, two distinct things happened:

1) i buried everything. i took those experiences and buried them like old-timey garbage disposal. i gathered up that personal history and recognized that i did not want it. it was not who i am, it had no place in my personal narrative. so i buried it with a massive mound of earth. if i don't talk about it or acknowledge it, than it didn't happen. period.

and this has worked well for me. it really did help me to leave it behind and not bring that baggage with me. sometimes it will briefly come up in conversation or in passing, but i am very intentional to not linger on it. i'm certain that i change the subject very quickly. with one exception... one time, when we had first started dating, brendan and i laid on my bed, holding hands and staring at the ceiling, while i told him my whole 9-year dating saga. just so he'd know, and i wouldn't have to gradually tell him stuff over time. he's in the loop.

2) i have grown angry. i've felt protective and outraged on behalf of my younger self, who was so damaged by life's experiences that i ended up in a bad bad place. i have demonized one specific person, so much so that i have literally daydreamed about seeing him in public, and confronting him with swear words and curses. not because i was done wrong by him (i'm actually super glad and thankful that he ended that relationship. so much so, that i owe him a thank you). no, just because (and not surprising) that part of me that i've buried has festered.

spotting him in the grocery store left me unsettled. and i couldn't understand why. it didn't stir up positive or negative feelings. so why did it impact me? well, because my buried mount of personal history was exposed to me. it was like the earth had shifted, and i could see all that crap that i had buried. it was still there, and i saw that it was still real. my emotional time capsule had been uncovered.

this has been troubling me for the last 2 days. and i decided i needed to write about it. not in a private journal, where it could remain hidden and buried. or to a friend, where it could remain mostly hidden and private. or to brendan, would be personally brought into that story and unintentionally have those burdens placed on him. no, i decided i needed to blog about it. i needed to return to my source. the place i decided to bury it and properly deal with it. i don't need to bury it anymore, but i also don't need to hang on to it either. i'm truly done now. the last thing for me to let go of is my residual shame. i know that i'm not that messed-up 20-something anymore. and i don't need to convince you of that either, because you know who i am. i don't need to bury that part of me for me to be free from it. i acknowledge that i am not proud of that time in my life, but it does not have the final say on who i am. i don't need to hide to prove that i am better than i was then. i am well loved, i am whole and complete, i am part of a community, valued and respected, and not despite my past damage. i have grown strong out of that brokenness. whole, holy, complete, competent.

there. that's it. my therapeutic blog post :p

regrets collect like old friends,
here to relive your darkest moments.

stripes and patterns

buying a post-baby bathing suit is always a challenge. but last week i found one that i'm very excited about. i have very specific preferences with swimwear, and it was difficult to find something that met my requirements. 

today, i took the fellas swimming, and i felt good. it supported me in all the right places. 

i'm really looking forward to our trip. we'll be doing a lot of swimming, so i'm glad i have something to wear that fits properly. 

scans

i've picked up some freelance work. i'm enjoying it. the main challenge is that i'm not skilled at properly quoting a job. today i overlooked a large portion of the job and way under quoted for it. thankfully, my client was very gracious about it, and even told me that my quote was ridiculously low. i hope to get better at that part sooner than later. 

phillips

this year with my tax return money, i bought myself a bluetooth speaker. i've been wanting to be able to play music on my computer and hear it in different rooms in our house. shannon told me the other day "it'll change your life". well, it arrived in the mail today, and i can say it's already doing that! i actually cleaned the kitchen today because i wanted to listen to music. i danced, cleaned and sang. it was great.

i've thought often about how i used to dance in the kitchen at my pine street house. and i used to dance in my bedroom at our york street house. but i haven't really done much dancing in recent years. i wondered what had changed in me. but it wasn't me at all! i just didn't have music handy!

brendan is currently at a john mayer show in toronto. he's so funny because he called to tell me that he'd arrived in toronto. turns out he got super lost trying to find the ACC. he is not much of a navigator, and that does not bother him in the slightest. me on the other hand, i take a lot of pride in my ability to navigate and be an efficient driver. i get this from my dad. funnily enough, my dad was here when brendan called, and we were both gobsmacked that b had missed the DVP. it's a big highway. i'm pretty sure the face my dad made when i told him that brendan wanted to know if the DVP was before or after yonge street is the same incredulous face i make all the time. 

anyway, so i'm enjoying the evening watching netflix on brendan's computer using my new bluetooth speaker so everything is louder and easier to hear. usually we have to use the captions on shows because the laptop speakers are so quiet. 

bluetooth

life is funny and strange. yesterday, i was expecting one thing to happen, but then another thing happened instead. a big life-changing thing that didn't happen. so i'm still in the same-old same-old sinking ship. BUT on the other hand, since nothing changed i'll just continue as usual. no impact on the big picture. sometimes i'm just a coward and want to get out of doing hard stuff the easy way. i'm just going to have to muster up the courage to say 'no thanks' when the time comes.

all crypticness aside...

otis has started sleeping much better again. for 3 whole months, he slept quite badly. his first 4 months were unbelievable (he only woke 2 times a night, most of the time), but since christmas it was many, many times. often times it was hourly. however, this week, i started giving him baby cereal before bed, and that has made a HUGE difference. he's back to waking 1 to 2 times a night. i'm VERY grateful. 

who will catch us as we fall

i was at the library last week, and only had a few minutes to select a new book. it's been a while since i've had to choose a new book, since the last 5ish i've read were either given, lent or recommended to me. i'm not great at picking a book cold, so i stuck to the featured book section, and picked one of the librarian recommended ones. when i first started it, i wasn't sure if i was going to get into it, but i have and am really enjoying it. 

goggles

on the weekend, i bought each of our parents (my mom, dad and mother-in-law) a book called "all about me – a DIY memoir" to record stuff about their lives. it asks a variety of questions, and i want to have all this info (random, and nonsensical) to have as a keepsake. my dad turns 72 today, so i wanted to give it to him so he has lots of time to work on it. i told him, that it's a project we can do together. i'm going to give my mom and nancy's theirs later this week. i'm excited to have these mementos. they're kind of like the opposite of baby books :p 

i bought eamon a backpack from MEC last week, and it arrived today. it was 30% off, and a nice/quality little bag. it arrived today, and it made me really excited. i think i'm in-love with the thought of this being the first of many MEC backpacks. hopefully when he's an adult, he'll get a big travel pack and have many adventures of his own. maybe he and otis will travel together! i'm do damn proud of them :) they're starting to become such neat little buddies for each other. 

we've leased our main street house! hooray!

imma getting ready!

i've prematurely flipped our calendar to april, because then i can properly countdown to our trip to mexico in 3.5 weeks. i'm excited and am starting to think about what to bring, and what we (if anything) we need to buy. 

i was on the mec website the other day (looking for something else), when i found a great kids backpack on sale. so i got that for eamon for when he starts school in 6 months, but thought it would be a great carry-on bag for him too. 

i want to keep things simple. bring only toys a few toys that i know they'll play with, instead of bringing a bunch of stuff they might play with. 

AND i think i need to buy a new swimsuit. i was gonna just use my maternity swimsuit – i decided it was fine after trying to swimsuit shop in february, and came out of the store depressed and quiet, and got into the car without discussing it with brendan. he asked me "did something bad happen in that store?", nope, it was just bathing suit shopping, post baby, while still breast-feeding. basically, nothing fits. BUT i'm gonna try again since i've discovered that both old navy and loblaws (joe fresh) sell swimsuits. i like their clothes and find them well priced. i couldn't justify forking out 80+ bux for something i didn't really like at the bathing suit store. wish me luck!

journey

yesterday, while walking to the bus to catch a lift to KGH for an appointment, the bus arrived slightly before i arrived at the stop. even though i was wearing my baby, i started to run. for a split second i thought "i can still make it!" i ran and waved my arms around, i yelled "wait!" "tell the bus to wait!" i ran, straining under my extra human's weight. roughly 3 seconds before i would've made it, the doors closed and the bus started to take off. i was really upset. 1) because that is the one major downside to public transit in a middle-sized city (the wait between buses is longer) and, 2) how is it possible that NO ONE saw me and called out to the bus driver "oh wait! there's a woman with a baby coming. stop!" hmph.

thankfully, our closest main bus line has several routes, and after a 10 minute wait another (less direct) bus arrived and i was able to make it to KGH (on time) with only one bus transfer.

motivated

ok, let's just to this. i want to let more people into my world and vice versa? well, let's start here.

1) for two days, i had a massive, painful zit on my lip. i was happy this morning, when it was clearly ready to be popped. and now that part of my face is on the mend.

2) i've been feeling concerned about my job situation come august 11 (when my EI ends). financially, we will be covered for our daily expenses, but extras such as outings, birthday gifts, daycare for otis (1 to 3 days a week), and stuff like oil changes or contact lenses, will need to be addressed. i'm currently working at next once a week, but i'd like another job so that i can work approximately 24 hours per week (including next). so i'm gonna start slowly working on my resume, and then once we return from cancun at the end of april, i'll ramp that up, and perhaps start sending out unsolicited resumes to the places i'm interested in working. i'm hopeful that 4 months will give me enough time to find something suitable come september (when the tiny man is old enough to start at daycare). as an aside, i really love that all the staff at eamon's daycare adore otis, and that boosts my confidence with enrolling him in the fall. i know he will be well loved, and it will be really good for him.

anyway, that's what's going on with me today.

got to get

i've found that my life at this current time is not lending itself to expanding my world beyond my own home. it's not that i haven't tried. the fellas and i get out on mondays and fridays. i work at next on wednesdays. and other semi-regular social engagements. but my daily interactions are with brendan and two small boys. it makes me feel as though brendan is carrying too much weight as my social engagement, my sound wall, my co-worker. that probably won't benefit either of us in the long-term.

it's not an uncommon concern of mine, to worry that my world is too small. but this is probably the smallest its ever been. i'm hopeful though that it can only get bigger from here. i do think though, that my introverted nature makes me often choose solitary tasks or outings. and i should probably start to make different choices.

brightspots

it's been three-quarters of a year since eamon dropped his nap, but both yesterday and today he's asked for one. part of me is excited to think he's recognizing the benefits of taking a mid-day nap, but the other part of me thinks this is more a side effect of being sick over the weekend. but who knows.

despite the fact that my days are full and therefore tiring, i'm feeling encouraged at my two-kid parenting. i'm getting the hang of certain aspects, and they're both developing in ways that are very helpful. i know i felt that the first 6 months with eamon was very different to my second 6 months with eamon, so i'm looking forward to these next 6 months with otis. perhaps life is about to shift gears.

vacancy

as landlords, this is our fourth time looking for tenants, and our first time when it's taken longer than one showing to lease it. it's got me feeling stressed. i know it's the time of year, and i think that's partly why i'm anxious. we're in the low rental season at the moment. there's a lot of vacancy, so listings need to be competitive. we've had about 10 responses, and done 4.5 viewings (the half being a phone call with an out of town prospective tenant), plus one open house where no one showed up (there were 4 potential tenants interested, but none showed up). because of this being the low season, we've lowered the rent. i'm pretty discouraged. i think people are turned off by it being exclusive. one girl actually asked us to cover the utilities (AND lower the rent to fit her budget) on the bright side, there are rumblings of a 25% cut in hydro costs, but i can't tell people what their utilities MIGHT cost with those changes, since there is no guarantees. 

it seems that regardless of any nice features (wood floors, basement for storage, in-home laundry facilities, etc), size matters most :S yes, the rooms are small, but we lived there as a family of three, and really, the main issues was there was no backyard/play space. 

anyway, it's really hard for me being in this position of waiting. i like to be proactive. and this is just a waiting game. i might make an add and take it to the seniors' centre. maybe instead of a young professional, we should be going after the single, senior and downsizing market. 

i'm not very thick-skinned. this is making me doubt the merits of rental properties. 

charcoal

i'm currently on my third period after otis. i still find it a drag each month when it arrives, because not having a period for all those months was pretty great. so much so, that i would consider the depo shot or something, that makes it go away for long periods of time. now that i'm retired from baby-having, it feels unnecessary to keep getting a period. but on the other hand, i'm not really comfortable with toying with my hormones, so i'll just have to get reacquainted with it.

anyway, now that i've had two babies, i'm finding that just a diva cup isn't cutting it anymore. especially at night time when i get up to nurse. so i decided to order some lunapads. getting to choose from an assortment of patterns was pretty fun. even though i'll be the only one who enjoys them.

i'm excited about this. after using cloth diapers, i came to love reusable things. if there's a reusable version of something, why get a disposable one!

that said, otis is nearing 6 months, and i'm only just getting into a groove with his cloth diapers. for a while there, we only used cloth at home and disposable out of the house. partly because early on, i was caught several times without proper cloth diaper supplies, and the complication of that was more than i was willing to deal with at the time. especially when eamon was in the hospital, etc. so i'm glad that we're settling into a good cloth diapering routine.

circling around the sun

there is one thing i can be pleased with. something that is exclusively mine. something internal to me, that no one else can share claim to. since otis was born 5 months ago, i've lost 35 lbs. this is extra exciting to me, since i only gained 25 lbs during my pregnancy. which means i'm 10 lbs less than i was before i got pregnant. i didn't get even close to my pre-pregnancy weight with eamon, even after a year! but not even 6 months later, i'm fitting back into pants i wore after eamon was born. AND they're not middle-aged women pants :)

state i'm in

brendan is out tonight at jared's birthday gathering. it seems lately that mostly just write when he's not home. it's not that we spend our time exclusively together, when he is home, but having an empty house helps me pause and think enough to write. i enjoy downloading my thoughts better in privacy.

this weekend i've felt very tired. not physically tired, not emotionally tired. maybe drained is a better word? i don't know. but i'm feeling pretty worn out from parenting. i feel kind of tired of it, like i want a break or some normal time out as an adult. i share this with reluctance, because i don't want to sound like i'm complaining. i know that we are very fortunate to have two healthy, happy little fellas. and i'm so glad and thankful for them. with that said, it feels like i'm getting it from each side. every time i turn around, one of them needs something or is in dire straits (usually otis at the hand of eamon, but sometimes eamon too). it feels unrelenting. i feel like i don't know what i'm doing. and what makes it extra difficult, is that it seems unfamiliar. i have no memories of my parents seeming like they're at their wits-end. they always seemed like they knew what they were doing, or at least if they didn't, i have no specific memories of that. so i can't comfort myself (from experience) with this being normal. even though, i'm sure it is. 

at this point, i'm looking forward to otis learning to sit up and start on solids. and i'm looking forward to eamon learning that despite the fact that "it's easier to say i'm sorry than ask permission", that it's not worth the relationship drama or disruption to life when he's done something self-indulgent.

further to my troubles in parenting, b and i have had a somewhat rocky weekend. now, i should preface this by saying, that sometimes i get super incredibly comfortable that i don't move. so comfortable that i decide not move. most frequently it's my legs. i'm getting close to that right now. but occasionally, it's my mouth. i get so comfortable that i don't want to talk. the way my tongue feels in my mouth. this usually happens before or after sleeping. and it generally super annoys b. it's pretty rare though, maybe once a year. anyway, that happened on friday night, and as a result we had some conflict to resolve on saturday. afterwards he said to me "can you understand how out of character it is for YOU, lesley lorimer, who talks all the time about everything, to not talk!?!?" thankfully that broke some tension and we were able to laugh about it. i've been told before "sometimes you say too much, and sometimes you say too little". that's probably true.

anyway, i don't know if writing this out is much comfort to me. but it's truthful and honest. i don't know how to get the rest or rejuvenation that i'm looking for. maybe it's just a matter of time, and i need to be patient. or maybe i just need to stay up late tonight and enjoy doing stuff i don't normally get to do during the day. enjoy the peace of this space, the heat from our wood stove, the sound of my cat's heavy breathing, this snuggly blanket. some books, some king of the hill episodes, some hot tea. 

it's like a breeze blowing deep beneath my skin.