Home is where the Central Cardio-pulmonary Organ is

Going back in time

2012-02-07T00:46:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, one of the things we looked forward to was getting the new Eatons and Sears catalogs. Many hours were spent flipping through the pages, dreaming of being able to buy some of the stuff in there. For many years, the Eatons catalog was the only way people in rural areas could get a lot of their supplies, and the items listed reflected those diverse needs. Eatons stopped their catalog service in the 70's, if I remember correctly.

Going through this 1920-21 Eaton's Fall and Winter Catalogue is a fascinating glimpse back in time. Enjoy!

(You can use your keyboard arrow keys to flip through the pages.)

This is fascinating!

2012-01-31T16:22:00.000-07:00

How Superconducting Levitation Works.

Welcome

2012-01-28T09:06:00.003-07:00

I've noticed quite a few new visitors from Blazing Cat Fur coming over for a visit through my other blog. Welcome! I hope you enjoy your stay. :-)

Beefy Lentils

2012-01-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I caught an old episode of Iron Chef America. My favourite Iron Chefs have always been Morimoto and Batali. They are awesome! As I don't watch tv much, it was a surprise to me to find out Batali isn't an Iron Chef anymore, and they've got these threee new chefs, instead. New being a relative term, I guess, since I think at least one of them has been there for a few years now.

Did I mention I don't watch tv much? *L*

So there was this episode with Batali, and the secret ingredient was lentils. By the time it was over, all I could think of was the bag of lentils I had in my cupboard and, my goodness, wouldn't those be great!!

So the following recipe was inspired by Iron Chef America and whatever I scrounged out of my cupboards and fridge, and it was so good, even my lentil hating Eldest liked it.

It was all I could do not to finish the pot off last night. Instead, it made an even better lunch.

Beefy Lentils

2 cups brown lentils
about 3 1/2 cups liquid (I used some bullion powder to make a beef broth)
seasonings to taste (I used some Emeril's Essence, approx 1/3 tsp)

1 medium onion, chopped fine
2-3 stalks celery, plus the inner heart of the celery bunch, with its leaves, chopped fine
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
about 3 tbsp butter

1 small cooked and seasoned beef roast, cut into cubes

Pick over the lentils for any odd bits and pieces that don't belong. Get rid of any shrivelled ones, too. Rinse and set aside.

Prepare your liquid. I just used some beef bullion powder in water and stirred in the Emeril's Essence, but go ahead and change it up however you like.

Melt the butter in a pot large enough to hold everything. Once hot, toss in the onion and lower heat to about medium/medium low. Slowly cook the onions in butter until they are just starting to get transluscent. Add the chopped celery (I had intended to use carrots originally, only to discover we were out, so celery it was). Raise the heat a bit and cook the celery until it's starting to get soft. Add the garlic and cook a minute or so longer.

Add the chopped beef and cook until heated through.

(I buy warehouse packs of beef roasts, which usually have 2-3 hunks of meat in them. I roast all at once, seasoning them with my favourite steak spice mix first. If your meat isn't already seasoned, you may want to add more seasonings to taste later on.)

Add the liquid, raise the temperature again, stir and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the lentils. Bring back to a boil and cook at a boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring occaisionally. Reduce temperature to medium low, cover and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes.

Taste the lentils to check doneness. I like mine rather toothsome. Adjust seasonings, if necessary. If there's more liquid on the bottom then you like, give it a stir and simmer a bit longer without the lid.

When done, cover and let sit for a few minutes before serving, or cool and refrigerate. Reheat and serve the next day for even better flavour.

Between the beef broth, Emeril's Essence and the seasoning on the beef, I didn't need to add any salt or pepper. Adjust your own seasonings to taste.

I'll mention right now, this is not the most visually appealing dish! *L* The whole thing comes out a rather greyish brown colour. Including some finely chopped carrots instead of (or along with) the celery would have added some colour. I'll have to make it again the next time I've got carrots and see what a difference it makes.

Oh, and it's AWESOME eaten with buttered rye bread.

Okay, I've gone and made myself hungry.

Confessions of a Filthy Addict

2012-01-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

The following post is an exploration of a theme about gaming and its affects on people. Particularly the evil affects of gaming on boys.

This is the sort of thing that gets discussed in our household a fair bit, and since I, according to Eldest, I am a filthy, filthy addict, I figured it'd be something to explore here.

We are a gaming family. At the moment, Dh plays hour upon hour of WoW. Youngest has switched allegiances to the new Star Wars MMO. Eldest used to play a lot of WoW, but she's stopped playing it altogether. These days, she mostly plays with doll building games.

I don't usually think of myself as a gamer. Certainly not these days, as I no longer play PC games or Xbox, and I never got into the online RPGs. Yet when I stopped and thought about it I realized that, yes indeed, I most definitely fall into the gamer category. I just don't fit the usual stereotype.

I think the first game I became thoroughly obsessed with was Civ II. The game was already old when I bought it. I had taken the Greyhound to Edmonton for a weekend seminar. I checked out of my hotel on the Monday morning and walked over to the Greyhound station, but had over an hour to kill. Looking around, I saw a Staples nearby, so I headed over. It was a place to fill time, looking at stuff. In my wanderings about the store I found a bargain bin. In it was a Civ II CD pack that I decided looked interesting. It was cheap, so why not?

It turns out that this is the sort of game I really, really love. I like empire building games, and soon I was building roads and cities, farms, mines and so on. At the end of the game, I would deliberately leave one opposing faction barely alive, just so I could finish building the space ship to Alpha Centauri. So many hours were spent on that game!

Then I discovered the Age of Empire games and their expansions. Then Alpha Centauri, which I enjoyed even more. Why that game never went on into new versions, I don't know, but I wish they had. Empire Earth came out, then its expansion. I think at some point, I even picked up Civ III. I spent so many late night playing these various games, it would be easy to label me an addict.

Dh, meanwhile, had no interest in such games. He preferred Diablo and Starcraft. As the girls got older, they preferred the games he played over mine.

Then we got an Xbox.

I didn't get into the Xbox at first, much preferring my empire building PC games. I had no interest in shoot-em-ups or snowboarding or car racing. I left those to Dh and the kids. Until...

Until...

KotOR.

Knights of the Old Republic.

When we first got that game, Dh played it obsessively. Every spare moment he had, he was in the game, pushing through the levels to the end, with the occasional hunt online to figure out how to accomplish certain goals. He reached the end, then immediately started over, playing a different character. Then he did it again. I'm pretty sure he finished the game 3 times before I finally gave in and gave it a try.

What sucked me in was the storyline. As Dh played the game (and the girls played while he was at work), different aspects of the characters stories emerged. The choices made in the game also affected things. My curiosity piqued, I picked up controller one evening, shortly before everyone else went to bed. Dh helped me figure out the controller, but I play very differently then he does, so it wasn't long before I had to tell him to stop back seat gaming while I played. *L*

Once I got into the game, I got into the habit of starting it after everyone else had gone to bed, and often played all night. I play very methodically, not leaving an area until I've explored every inch of it. I also questioned all the characters I could, and sought out the back stories of the NPCs that made up my character's team. By the time I finished the game, I had a character developed to a level Dh had no idea was available, simply because he had been more interested in pushing through to the end then exploring and digging. I discovered nuances to the storyline and game place that hadn't been explored.

The action and fighting in the game were tertiary to me. I played for the story. After finishing it, I played it again making different choices, which brought about different responses from the NPCs. Then I did it again. And again. And again. Eventually, I had figured out just about every possible variant of the game.

But only for half of it.

You see, there was one thing about the game I simply could not do. I could not be a Dark Side character.

KotOR allows the player to make a number of moral choices. These choices place the player's character on a scale between Light and Dark Side. Dh played it as a Dark Side character to get the alternate story lines, and see how it changed the way the NPCs interacted with the player's character, but for some of these choices, he actually felt bad making them. When I played and was faced with choices that would push the character towards the Dark Side, even when I *wanted* to explore that part of the game, I found I simply couldn't choose them. It was curious to find myself responding this way, since making such choices affect only the game play and have no real world consequences. Yet I still couldn't do it.

When KotOR II came out, we bought it immediately. More obsessive playing.

It was glorious!

There's only so many times you can play a game, however, and by the time I'd explored all the avenues that interested me, I promptly got bored with it and stopped playing. Instead, I went back to my empire building PC games. Eventually, however, we upgraded computers and the old games no longer worked on them, and we weren't willing to spend the money to buy the newest versions.

I still like playing Civ II, but it's too obsolete to play on our current desktop, though I'm sure there are online versions available I can get. I miss Alpha Centauri, too. That was a good game.

I haven't touched the Xbox in ages, and while I can play Empire Earth on our current computer, I can't install the expansion version (lost the registration key), and I now find it very boring.

Instead, I play Facebook games.

When I first got on Facebook, I had no interest in getting any apps or games, but somewhere along the line, I discovered Hatchlings and started playing it. Before long, I was trading game tips and tricks with other people to get as many eggs as possible, feed all the hatchlings with only one egg, and get the rarest of eggs. When I was playing it the most, I would sometimes have two or three browsers up, each with 20-30 tabs open, using keyboard shortcuts to go through all the tabs as quickly as possible to get the eggs before someone else did. I never reached number one on the local leader boards, but I was able to get into the top 10. It was not unusual to find me up in the wee hours of the morning, hunting eggs on Facebook.

After a while, though, it got to be just too much. Too many new eggs, too many levels, too many hatchlings to feed. My play time dropped to just enough to keep my hatchlings fed, to allowing the hungry hatchlings to run away, to not playing at all anymore and blocking it from my feed.

There were a couple of other games I started playing as well, but only two others really caught my attention. Frontierville and Farmandia.

I had not intended to get into any of the "ville" games, but I'd accidentally clicked on "accept" on an invite instead of "cancel." Once I was in, I figured I may as well give it a try.

Before I knew it, I was playing it for hours at a time. As I increased in levels, new goals required more "neighbours," which required adding people to my friends list. I ended up adding about a hundred people I didn't know to get enough neighbours (though I vetted them somewhat). Hour after hour was spent tending my own Frontier, then visiting my neighbours - all of them - to tend their crops and help them reach their quest goals, too.

As the game play increased, with larger and larger Frontiers, I found myself spending more time waiting for things to load then actual playing. Ah, well. That's what tabs are for. While the game was loading, I'd be catching up on my email or reading the news or something in other tabs. Then they added the Pioneer Trails. Never really liked that one as much, and especially didn't like how long the game took to switch from one area to another. At Halloween, they added a whole other town.

By the time Halloween arrived, I'd stopped playing it altogether, and blocked the game from my feed. I also unfriended most of the people I'd added to my list because they were there only for gaming. I kept some of them, though. I've actually met some really great people through Facebook games!

Now, I'm down to just the one Facebook game, Farmandia. I like this one because I can set it to do things, then open other tabs and do something productive while the game plays itself in the background. I have only one "neighbour" that actively plays it. I've levelled up ridiculously high, but without more neighbours, there are certain areas I can't advance in. I also limit myself to visiting the game only once or twice a day.

So you'd think I am done with gaming, right?

Nope.

We picked up a tablet not long ago, and I upgraded my phone to something with a wi-fi hotspot so we can go online with it even when in areas without free wi-fi. As long as I can get a cell signal, I can go online. Tablets and phones, of course, come with apps. I ended up downloading a Solitaire app.

And discovered Forty Thieves.

How did I never encounter this game before?

Which means that I now sometimes find myself lying in bed with either my phone or the tablet, playing Forty Thieves in the wee hours of the morning!

Now, for all the gaming that I and my family do, none of us are "addicted" to games. We are obsessed with them, sure, and spend way too much time playing them. Time that, arguably, be much better spent elsewhere.

Game detractors dismiss these not only as time wasters (which I would have a hard time arguing against) but as harmful. Especially for children. Video games were being portrayed as being the cause of violence, ADD/ADHD, obesity, laziness, and general dysfunctional behaviour. "Experts" write books and articles about the evils of gaming (making a pretty penny to do it, too), just as they did for DnD, heavy metal music and TV in years past.

Can gaming become a problem? Absolutely. When gaming takes over a person's life completely, it can definitely be a problem. The mistake being made, however, is blaming the game for this. If the games themselves were the problem, all people who played them would show these signs. Of all the misconceptions and myths about gaming, this idea that the games themselves are addictive and causing harm is dishonest and misleading. They may be part of the problem, but the are not THE problem.

There is no doubt that people, adults and children, develop an unhealthy obsession with gaming. But who defines what that limit is in any individual? How much is too much? Dh, in his WoW gaming, has got to know some other players outside of the game, too. One has become a pretty good friend. She's a nurse, with husband and family, who plays the game obsessively. Is she playing too much? I have no idea. Another gamer friend also played obsessively, but he also recognised him himself an addictive personality. He ended up turning his account, with everything in it, over to Dh and stepped away from game playing completely and almost all computer activity as well. They still keep in contact, and this guy is really turning his life around and getting ahead.

Did WoW cause all the problems he was having? No. He had the problems first, and obsessive game playing was simply a symptom that helped reveal the problem to him.

The more we learn about addictions, the more it become clear that there are people who, for some reason (which seems to have a strong hereditary component) become easily addicted. Where one person can go out and get drunk every weekend and never become an alcoholic, the addictive personality is endangered by a single drink. Some people can smoke for years, then quit cold turkey without any side effects. Others are never able to quit, no matter how hard they try.

People don't just get addicted to "bad" things. Anything can become a source of addiction. Here's just a list of things, off the top of my head, that people become addicted to.

TV
Video games
musical genres
shopping
yarn
arts and crafts
gossip
eating "healthy" (orthorexia)
sleep
tidiness
overeating
exercise/fitness
movies
books
dieting
illness
work
play
sex
surgery
keeping up with the Joneses
travel
social causes
shoes
fandoms

That's just a short list. The point is that people can become addicted to just about anything. Some of these things, however, are considered "good" and others "bad." I contend that, whether someone is so addicted with being "healthy" they starve themselves to death, or someone buy so much yarn their houses are jammed and their bills aren't being paid, they are not really any different than someone addicted to alcohol or cigarettes.

So for parents, what about when it comes to our own children?

My personal philosophy is that, in the end, even kids who are absolutely obsessed with games and gaming are going to be fine. They're going to get bored of them and move on eventually. Or, they might end up becoming game designers and start their own companies. Who knows?

A concern that had been brought up is that gaming affects developing brains. Well of course they do! So does everything else. But gaming doesn't *cause* the addiction. It reveals it.

So when does a parent know it's time to intervene? At what point does an obsession with an activity cross over to being harmful? That is up to the individual. You, as a parent, know your child best. What is a problem for one child may not be for another.

Our personal philosophy has been to give our kids a lot of autonomy. We made sure they knew what certain things were expected of them (we expected them to do their chores, eat regular meals, and get out and about for fresh air and sunshine, for some examples). Beyond that, we left them free to make their own decisions. We didn't always like the choices they made, but they were theirs to make. Only rarely did we have to put our foot down and tell the kids it was time to stop, get off the game, put down the book, or whatever, and move on to something else. I honestly can't remember the last time we had to do that.

This would not have worked for a friend of mine. She recognised an addictive personality in herself. Her sister is addicted to TV, and she knew she herself could easily fall into that trap, so she didn't watch it at all. She had a computer, but it was almost never used. She recognised the same response in her daughter, so she allowed only rare times of TV watching (movies, actually, as they did not have access to any channels where they lived). As her daughter got older, she was able to cautiously allow more screen time.

She knew her own limits, and she knew her daughter's limits. It wasn't TV that caused the problem. The risk was there, with or without TV or computers. By using controlled exposure, she was able to teach her daughter how to control her addictive tendencies towards anything with a screen, something I never had to do.

That's the call we parents have to make.

Now excuse me. I have some crops to harvest.

When things turn out better then you think

2012-01-21T02:03:00.002-07:00

You know those times then all sorts of things go wrong at once, and it all seems to be falling apart? You know what's nice? When all those things turn out to not be anywhere near as bad as you were afraid they were!

Like just about everywhere in Western Canada, we've gone from an incredibly mild winter to a sudden deep freeze. It's a bit of a shock to go from temperatures as high as +8C during the day, with no wind chill, to -25C with windchills bringing it down to -40C or so. Nasty stuff!

A few days back, after some delays, I finally got to doing our major shopping. We usually do a big grocery shopping trip every other Friday, buying things in bulk to last us a while, then only needing to do small trips during the week for things like milk and such. Now that I teach crochet classes on Fridays, I don't have the time to do the major errands, so it gets pushed aside for a few days. This time, that meant doing the shopping on Sunday. The temperatures had already started to drop by then, but not severely, yet.

First, a trip to Costco to get the big stuff. We took our time about it, and I'm glad we did, as we found a really nice folding chair for Eldest to use the next time she's selling her paintings in her booth. We'd been using folding camp chairs. They're a bit low and have seats that are slightly rounded, so getting in and out of them when a potential customer walks in is rather ungainly. This chair, unfolded, looks like a regular dining room chair, so it'll be perfect.

After getting all the stuff we use Costco for, we had to stop at a different grocery store on the way home to get the stuff we need that Costco either doesn't carry, or aren't worth getting there. Sometimes, their bulk quantities are just a bit too much!

That done, we head home with a very full van. Rather then park in our spot and make numerous trips carrying ungainly things across the street, I usually pull in near our front steps, which has me facing the wrong way on the side of the street, so we have to be fast about it.. I unload the van to the first landing of the stairs, Eldest takes stuff up the stairs to inside the door and Youngest takes the stuff from her to the kitchen. I then quickly park the van in our spot and, if there's still stuff left outside, help Eldest haul the last of it in. Usually, it's all in by the time I'm parked.

Now, we did have a cold spell before this winter. Just a few days of extremely cold temperatures that had us bringing the stray cat and her kitten on our balcony indoors, even though we're not allowed to have more then 2 pets. They wouldn't have survived those temperatures. This means that we also set up the extension cord for our block heater and battery warmer. We plugged the van in for all of two nights, I think, but left the cord out, wrapped around the driver's side mirror. So it's not like plugging in would have been inconvenient. I just wasn't in the habit of doing it yet.

Perhaps you already see where this is going.

Sure enough, I didn't think to plug the van in after parking it.

That night, temperatures plummeted.

Dh has been having a lot of troubles with his back since before Christmas. Totally laid him out with massive amounts of pain. Things have improved, but I have been driving him to work in the mornings. He used to usually walk in, which he can't do right now, and even taking the bus would be very unpleasant. More so in the mornings then the afternoon, so he's good to take the bus home now and again, but it's still not a good thing.

Monday morning, I go to start the van to drive him to work. I chastised myself for forgetting to plug in the van, but we've had it unplugged last winter in similarly cold weather, so I wasn't too worried. In I go and turn the key. The engine started to turn over and

RATTLECLACKCLACKCLACK!!!

I immediately turn the ignition off again. What the heck was that? I try again. The engine starts to turn over and...

RATTLECLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK!!!

I stop trying to start the van, concerned that my attempts to start it were causing more damage. Back in I go (after plugging the van in, belatedly) and tell Dh what's happened. This leaves him in a rush to get to the bus stop to get to work.

After looking at the forecast and seeing that temperatures were only going to drop further, I ended up cancelling Youngest's guitar lesson. I had originally thought to drive her to her lesson and just drop her off, but that was obviously not an option anymore. We usually walk it, but with the temperatures as low as they were, even a 15 minute walk is rather dangerous.

Some time later, after giving the block heater and battery warmer some time to do their thing, I did try the van again, and the same thing happened. It was thoroughly dead.

But what happened?

We've had some very bad experiences when it comes to vehicles and breakdowns. The most severe was when we rented a car in Victoria, BC, to drive to Manitoba and surprise our family for Christmas. We stopped in Saskatoon, SK for the night, on a night when temperatures hit -61C with the wind chill. Long story short, the engine block cracked. Other adventures include dropping a valve and damage caused by what turned out to be unethical garage mechanics who "repaired" our vehicle, but drained it of fluids.

As you can imagine, I was expecting the worst. From the noise, my thoughts were that the starter was blown. Unfortunately, we didn't have the money in budget to take the vehicle into the garage. Sure, damage would most likely be covered by the insurance we'd bought, but even then the insurance doesn't cover everything, and I wasn't going to send the van in if we didn't have the funds to cover anything unexpected like that.

The next day, the van was still quite dead. Unfortunately, busing to and from work in the cold on the Monday wrecked Dh's back again, so he worked from home. Wednesday, he was better so he bused in again.

Talking to the folks at work, someone suggested that it might just be the battery, and that all we needed was a boost. That hadn't occurred to me. The noise had me thinking starter, but there was also power to the dashboard lights and such. We've had batteries die on us before, and when they did, nothing worked at all. I decided to call our roadside assistance to have a tow truck come and give us a boost. This roadside assistance was one of the selling features when we got the van, so I didn't think there would be an issue. As far as I knew, we were covered for the length of our contract, which is 5 years.

Of course, things are never so simple.

It turns out that our van's roadside assistance was still under the name of the previous owners - a company - and it expired in June. So I talked to the dealership and had it changed to our name. I called the roadside assistance back and...

It's still considered expired. It seems we didn't actually get the roadside assistance we thought we did, because someone else had already bought it and it was still good for another 2 1/2 years, which no one told us about, so we had no idea about any sort of expiry. Nothing in our paperwork said anything about it, other than listing the toll free number we were supposed to call if we needed roadside assistance.

Back to talking to the dealership.

After much time on the phone, I finally got to someone who could help me figure out it. After explaining to me that we had only been covered by the previous owners buying a 5 year roadside assistance plan, which was now expired, and me being quite unhappy, I hear an exclamation from the woman I was speaking to. Looking through our file, she found that yes, we were covered, but not through the roadside assistance program. You know, the one with the toll free number on our paperwork, telling us to call it if we needed assistance. Also the number on the free keychain they gave us, while touting roadside assistance as a selling feature. No, that's not where we were covered. You see, when we bought the van, we paid a bit extra for "new vehicle" coverage, as well as the highest version of repair insurance they had available. It turns out that this insurance company is also the company that provides us with roadside assistance. The only place that toll free number was available was inside a pamphlet that I had to hunt for. She also gave me the certificate number I would need when I called them - a number that was no where in our paperwork.

*sigh*

By the time all this was figured out, several hours had passed. Meanwhile, I was on the computer, so I could check my news or whatever while on hold.

Part way through one of my calls, I lost my internet connection.

So while I was on the phone, I was also trying to repair my internet connection, which included restarting the modem, restarting the computer, and all the standard stuff to run through when such things happen.

No go.

My cell phone was still working, though (our cell phones are with the same company that provides our home internet), so I texted Dh and asked him if he could call our provider and find out if there were problems at their end, since I was still on the phone and couldn't call myself.

Eventually, he found out that our provider was having an area outage, so it wasn't just us, and likely due to the temperatures. It was a hardware problem, too, so someone would have to physically go to the box for the area and do a repair. They had no way of knowing how long it would take.

Frozen van, frozen internet.

By the time I finished up on the phone with the dealership, it was getting late enough in the day that I didn't want to call the insurance company's roadside assistance number. We could wait until the next day. As for our internet, it stayed down. At this point, I was really glad I upgraded my phone to one with a wi-fi hotspot, because that became our way to go online. I could use my phone or the tablet, but there's only so much you can do with those. Touch screens just can't compare to using a keyboard for things.

I was really glad we got our grocery shopping done when we did, though. If we hadn't, we would have been in a bit of a pickle.

Busing in had done a number of Dh's back again, so he was home from work on Thursday, but with no internet, he couldn't work from home. He called again in the morning and found out they were having multiple failures, and they didn't know why they were happening. I found out later that other providers were having troubles, too. Not good.

Meanwhile, I called the insurance company and arranged to have a tow truck come out and give us a boost, hoping it was just the battery but fearing it was much worse. It took over 2 hours for the truck to come, but I was sure glad to see him. I told him that when he greeted me and asked how I was doing, too. He laughed and told me he was getting a lot of people saying how happy they were to see him lately! And no wonder. This sort of weather means a lot of people are needing to call for assistance, and at times like that, there's nothing more beautiful then the site of a tow truck!

Anyhow, he hooks up the van, we give it a try and...

It starts immediately!!

Yay!!

Talking to the driver, he told me to leave it running for at least 20 minutes. I did. I headed back inside for a bit, but wasn't going to leave the van running and unattended, so I spent most of that time sitting in the van playing solitaire on my phone. *L* I lost track of time and it ended up being more like 30 minutes. I got back inside and went to plug my phone into it's USB cable to charge when I happened to look at the modem and discovered all the right lights were on. Yay!! again! We had internet!

I knew I'd need to take the van for a run, but things needed to be done, so it was a couple of hours before we could head out. Eldest asked to come along, so off we went to the van and...

RATTLECLACKCLACKCLACK!!!!

Oh, no.

Sure enough, I'd waited too long and the van was once again dead. Calling for roadside assistance again wasn't an option, as it's limited to one such call every 24 hours. I went into our co-op's office and asked our administrator if she knew anyone we could get a boost from. I found out that our maintenance guy will do that for members, which I really wish I'd known about the day before. He only works for us 3 days a week, so he wasn't there. She couldn't think of anyone else.

Someone I know on facebook happened to mention that cab drivers will boost cars for a fee, so I ended up calling a cab company and asking about it. Sure enough, for a set fee you pay whether the vehicle starts or not, they will send a cab out to boost vehicles. We arranged for it and off I went to the van to wait. It took less then 10 mintues for the cab to arrive, which is shockingly quick. It started without any problems. This time, I was set up and ready to take it for a drive right away, just waiting long enough for Eldest to join me. While doing my errands, I left the engine on, with Eldest in the van to make sure no one would drive off with it. Then we went on a route march, taking a freeway across the city and back again, just to give the altinator more time to charge the battery.

The van has been working just fine ever since.

And I have been diligently remembering to plug it in, every time! LOL

It sure has been a relief to find the fix was so simple, and I am once again able to drive Dh to and from work. It did make me think about how much we appreciate having it. We went without a car for a couple of years, so it's not like we don't know how to make do without it. It's just that things are so much better with it!

I like my van.

Check it out

2012-01-16T15:34:00.003-07:00

In Praise of Homeschools - and excellent read.

Starting Anew

2012-01-01T23:57:00.002-07:00

Here we are, coming to a close of the first day of 2012 (at least in my time zone). In my efforts to update this blog more often, here's what today has been like.

The main goal of the day was to get Youngest out for a driving lesson. It had been my intention to take her to a nearby mall to practise in the empty parking lot. Alas, the mall was open today, and quite busy, too! So we went on a route march to find someplace else. We ended up at the park we used to go to weekly park days with a local home school group. It was actually busy, too, though there was a section of parking lot that was largely empty. So we went there and I got her do to some parking. Just backing in and out in different directions and moving the van to different spots to park in. I'd thought to let her drive on the road through the park, which has a 20kph speed limit and is one way, but there was a remarkable amount of traffic. After she practised in the parking lot a few times, we were going to go somewhere else where she could do some straight driving.

As we went around the loop to the exit, however, I noticed that all that traffic we'd been seeing disappeared about half way around, and people pulled into various parking spaces. The second half of the loop was pretty much empty. So we went around again, then I pulled over and we switched places.

She was nervous driving, of course. She was also following the speed limit. Which meant that we soon had vehicles coming up behind us, which made her more nervous. Most people take the drive at 30-40kph rather than 20kph. I have to admit, I usually do, too. It's surprising hard to drive that slow. Anyhow, she pulled into an empty parking area for a while to let cars go by, then we continued on. Near the end of the drive there are three little parking areas in a row, and I got her to pull into the first one. That wasn't done particularly well, so I got her to do it again and go into the second parking section. That was a bit better. We switched off and I demonstrated to clarify for her by pulling into the third section. She'll need to get used to the feel of the van and where the tires are, and the more she drives, the more confident she will be. For now, she just wants to do short little drives like we did today. Will have to make a point of taking her out often. She's got a minimum of 1 year on her beginners license to practise before she can take the test for the next level, so it's no hurry, but I still want to give her plenty of opportunities.

Besides that, it was a quiet day. We were all up quite late with our New Year's activities. The BBQing mostly worked. Despite soaking the skewers for the kabobs, the first batch started to burn, so Eldest took them in and did the second batch under the broiler. Then, just to be safe, she put the first batch in for a bit, too, as the shrimps were still looking a little blue. They turned out great. They were a real group project, too. Youngest pre-cooked bacon half-strips. Eldest cut up the veggies. I wrapped scallops in bacon while Eldest put them together - each kabob had a piece of bell pepper, a prawn, a section of onion or shallot, a bacon wrapped scallop, and a chunk of mushroom. Because the food tends to spin on the kabobs once they start cooking, we used two skewers per kabob. When a few were ready, I started brushing them with olive oil; a job Youngest eventually took over. That was all we did with them - not even salt or pepper was needed. My goodness, they were tasty.

Though the kabobs on the bbq didn't quite work out, the steaks sure did. Unfortunately, by the end of the day, only Dh was hungry enough for steak! We'd had a cheese fondue earlier, as well as other small appetizer type snacks throughout the evening, and he'd had less of those than we did, so he was the only one not stuffed by the time the kabobs were eaten. Then, before we could go to bed, the leftover scallops, shrimp and veggies needed to be cooked. Eldest broiled the seafood, and the veggies were pan fried in the leftover bacon grease. Soooo tasty!

Which meant that today, there were stacks of dirty dishes waiting to be done! *L* Ah, well. It was worth it!

With so much steak left over, however, I didn't bother cooking the turkey I was intending to do today. Will have to do that tomorrow.

Looking forward to it! :-D

Transition

2011-12-31T20:39:00.001-07:00

A few quiet moments for a few quiet thoughts.

New Year's Eve is upon us, as we transition into 2012. I hope that the upcoming year will be one full of blessings for you and your loved ones.

The girls have taken on a lot more of this year's preparations. Well, quite nearly all of them, actually! *L* It's been a quiet one. Eldest and I headed out for a while to see what was happening downtown. I had expected to see things going on, as in the past the city had started events in the early afternoon at various venues. This year there's something completely different, and it looks like everything that used to be spread out is now in one area. They were prepping and doing sound checks as we went through, but nothing had started. Ah, well. We found a liquor store that was still open, so we picked up a cheap bottle of sparkling wine to crack open at midnight. :-D

Youngest is all excited to make the cheese sauce for a fondue we'll be doing later - we've already taste tested the two cheeses Eldest picked out. One is a smoked cheddar we've tried before and love, but it rather expensive, so it's a rare purchase for us. The other is a new cheese from Ireland with a bold taste that will be perfect for a fondue. As we get closer to midnight, Eldest will taking on stuff for the BBQ. It's been years since we've done a New Year's midnight BBQ. Steaks are marinading, and there will be seafood skewers as well. I'm looking forward to it.

Dh has been struggling with feeling completely useless lately. Because it's painful for him to stand for any length of time, bend, or even sit without squirming, he hasn't been able to help with anything at all. Frustrating.

It's been an odd sort of year overall. Not a particularly good one. I just got news yesterday that another fixture of my home town passed away. She was only in her mid-60's, too. I knew she had struggled with her health for a long time, but it's always a shock when someone who's been such a permanent part of one's past is gone. She is the second such person we've lost this year. I saw both of them last when Youngest and I went to my brother's memorial on the anniversary of his death. The woman who just died catered the reception for us, along with just about every other event held in our town.

I know that, as I get older, I will be losing the people I know. I expect that. What I didn't expect is for so many of them to be younger. My parents are in their 80's now, and the people who have been passing are all about 20 years younger; sometimes much more. Some are the same ages as myself and my siblings.

Looking back, it feels like this past year has been one of little progress on my own part. It hasn't been for my children. Eldest is doing quite well with her art, and I am quite proud of how things are going for her. Youngest has been going through a slump, but she's enjoying her guitar lessons and just got her beginner's drivers license (I've promised to take her for a driving lesson tomorrow - it'll be the first time she's been behind the wheel since our trip in the summer).

The last few months have probably been hardest on Dh. He's struggled with his back issues off an on for years, but for it to crash on him so badly these last few weeks has been the worst of all. I'm just so thankful that the company he works for is so supportive for him to be working from home.

Other family members have had their struggles as well. Dh's sister's girlfriend was suddenly diagnosed with cancer and has been in and out of the hospital. Who knows how long it was there before they found out about it. Thankfully, she too has an understanding employer who has been really supportive of them (she and her girlfriend work for the same company). I try to keep them in my prayers as much as I can, along with my FIL and another SIL, who have been struggling with health problems that are unusually similar, right down to long term problems from bug bites, of all things. At almost the same time, too!

It all makes me extra grateful for my own parents. Sure, my dad has had a lot of past problems that he's still dealing with. He just got his pacemaker replaced with an upgrade, which is a pretty awesome thing to think about. He continues trucking along, steadfast as ever, even with having to deal with my mother's oddball behaviour. My mother, meanwhile, is barely slowing down. She's staying active and travelling. If I'm still going as strong as she is at 80, I'll consider that a huge accomplishment.

As for myself, I don't know what to think. I've become a crochet instructor, but I'm not sure how to work things out with the store I'm working with. There's a specific type of manager I'm supposed to work through. I'm responsible for promoting my own classes and making sure the registration forms are all up to date, etc. I still have to go to the store itself to do that, but it seems like I'm an inconvenience every time I have to ask to get into the office to use their computer system and print things out. There's a specific managerial position I am supposed to deal with, and 4 people have gone through that position since I started. One was in and gone before I ever met her, and there's a new one now that I've yet to meet. I think the most frustrating part is that I spoke to the previous person about a week before I found out she was gone, and she had never mentioned anything. My family has been telling me to break off with the store completely and just teach independently. I think I should at least finish my instructor's course, though. The first part is waiting at my instructor's office in New York to be graded. The second part is what will give me the official "professional" designation. The curriculum I use at the store is by the same company that I signed up for the course through. I can download and print off my curriculum from their site. However, the registration process, and its accompanying paperwork, is only available through the store's computer system. It's all a bit of a convoluted mess, partly because of their antiquated computers and software that borders on obsolete, partly because of problems actually getting use of those computers and being able to set up classes. I have 6 new classes to start teaching, the registration paperwork is printed out and in the book, but because of the manager change, I haven't got any dates scheduled to teach them. Heck, just picking up my paycheck is more trouble than it's worth. They can mail them to me. :-/ Don't get me started on trying to set up automatic payroll deposits!

I am encouraged by my NaNoWriMo success, though. I did my 50,000 words, which of course is not enough to actually finish and entire novel. I wanted to continue, but with December being the busiest month for us, I decided to take a complete break from writing it in December. My biggest concern was that, if I stopped writing, I'd lose interest in the project and not want to get back to it, or just forget about it in the business of our days. That didn't happen. I've actually been itching to get back to it! I'll start up again in January. I will continue to set myself monthly word goals, though not 50,000, since I have other commitments I need to pick up again, but 25-30,000 isn't unreasonable, I think. Who knows what will become of it. Perhaps it'll even get published and give us the income that will allow Dh to quit his job? *L* Yeah. Not likely. From some of the topics I touch on in the book, I doubt I'll find a publisher willing to carry it. Mind you, the publishing business has changed so dramatically these days, who's to say what will or won't get carried anymore. Lord knows, some pretty horrible stuff is on the bestsellers lists these days. The bar isn't exactly high.

We shall see what the New Year brings.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T22:33:00.002-07:00

Wishing you all a joyous Christmas and happy New Year. May this be a time of peace and good will for you and yours, and may 2012 be a year of good health and prosperity.

Our Menu

2011-12-22T15:43:00.001-07:00

This is the menu we have decided on for this year's Wigilia feast on Christmas Eve.

Starter: Devilled eggs, with bacon and shredded cheese

Salad: Spinach Salad, with yogurt dressing and quail eggs

Main course: Leg of lamb with fresh rosemary

Broccoli cooked a la Julia Child

Pierogi filled with potato and cheese

Dessert: whatever looks good at the bakery

Drink: Cranberry punch with frozen berries

Red wine

We are going to focus on a few things to make ourselves, then allow others to do the work for the rest! lol For the sake of time and space, we will be buying our pierogi and the dessert. We have never done leg of lamb before, but it is a simple dish to make. The eggs can be cooked in advance. The spinach salad recipe calls for hard boiled eggs, which we will use whole quails eggs for, instead. We have long wanted to try quails eggs that haven't come from a can. ;-) For dessert, I see no point for us to make our own when bakeries can do so much better then us! lol It's just not worth the extra time, energy and stress to do any of that ourselves this year.

Later on,I will share the recipes for the lamb and spinach salad.

Getting Ready

2011-12-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

This has been a very unusual Christmas season for us. Dh's back seems to have given up on him entirely. He is in massive amounts of pain and barely able to move. He has been almost completely housebound for about two weeks now, and the rare forays out has taxed him to the limit. Thankfully, he has been able to work from home. I must say, we are really appreciating how supportive his employer has been, though I imagine they are getting pretty frustrated over the situation by now.

Dh is working right now, actually, so I am currently posting this from the tablet. I apologize for any weird typos in advance. lol

Meanwhile, our Christmas preparations continue, if slower than usual. We didn't get our tourtiere done until a few days ago. The temperatures have been too mild to store our pies on the balcony as usual, so we could only do as many as would fit in our fridge freezer. We ordered 12 pounds of ground meats this year, and made deep dish pies. That translated into only eight pies. We have had one so far, and they turned out quite well. We won't be doing deep dish again,though. The meat to crust ratio is better in a regular sized pie.

Our gift shopping is done. We gave the girls some cash from the gift budget, in addition to anything they had saved up themselves. Dh hasn't done any shopping at all, of course, so I have done all the gift buying at our end. Youngest decorated the tree this year, and Eldest has decorated the house. The tree is full of gifts under it, which has been entertaining for the stray cat and her kitten that we have taken in for a while.

All that is left right now is to do the final food shopping, which should be done tomorrow, though I am thinking of doing it tonight, instead. I will post the menu separately. Hopefully, once that is done, we won't have to go shopping again for a good while!

That'll be me...

2011-12-09T21:36:00.001-07:00

The girls decide to take in a movie at the second run theatre. No problem. They will take the last bus from our area, though it will get them there an hour early, and I will drive them home. They leave for the bus with plenty to catch it.

Half an hour later, we get a call. The bus never showed. So I throw on some slippers and head out to give them a ride. Along the way, I decide it's not worth making the drive twice, so I will hang out in the area until their movie is out.

Aside from a grocery store and a coffee shop, the only place open this late is the Walmart. I just realized I am going to be spending almost 2 hours there, wearing a pomegranate stained sweater, my husband's sweats and grandpa slippers.

Half expecting to find myself in People of Walmart some day.

Let's try this again

2011-12-03T00:22:00.001-07:00

I tried to post earlier, but blogger was having technical difficulties. Here's hoping they're fixed, and my post actually keeps... :-/

It's been a month since I last posted, so there's a bit to catch up on, both good and back.

In the good news...

Eldest talked me into doing NaNoWriMo, which has a goal of writing 50,000 words in the month of November. The first day was a very good start, which promptly fell apart after the second day. That stalled me a bit, but I slowly started to catch up. In the end, I completed the goal a couple of days early! Doing her part to encourage me, Eldest agreed that if I completed NaNoWriMo, she would sing at an open mic night. A nearby coffee shop had weekly open mic nights, but they closed for renovations and, since reopening, I haven't seen anything to show they're still doing it. We'll have to figure it out.

In the more neutral news, Eldest has left her job. She liked the work well enough, but there were a couple of issues. One was the surprisingly bad public transportation to the location she worked at. We knew it wasn't good - that's partly why she applied to a different location in the first place - but good grief, it sucked. It's one thing to be driving her in for 3 or 5 am shifts. It's another to be driving her home again because the buses in the area don't run on Sundays. Or evenings. Or that it take 3 times longer to take the bus compared to driving. There were other issues, though, and she did tell one of her managers about it. It turns out there's plenty of reason for this location to have such a high turnover rate. She's going to take a bit of a break, then start handing out the resumes again. The job market has really perked up, and not just for Christmas, so it should be interesting to see how that works out.

Then there's the bad news. A few days ago, our younger cat suddenly started having difficulties walking and lost all bladder control. We thought she might have had a spine injury or something. It turned out to be massive kidney failure, and she had to be put down. She was not a particularly nice cat, and was really rather dumb. She could be pretty nasty, would sometimes go after the older cat for no reason, and generally didn't like people. Yet when she was in a friendly mood, she could be the sweetest thing. Most of the time, though, she would just lay around like a fluffy black puddle on the floor. I swear, that cat had cartilage for bones! It was sad to have to put her down. Especially so suddenly. She was only 3 years old. She was Youngest's cat, too. This is the second pet we got for her that ended up being put down.

Now, we're not sure what we're going to do. You see, we still have a stray and her kitten around. They had been on our balcony, but when the temperatures dropped, we brought them inside. We're not allowed to have more than 2 pets, so we've been trying to adopt them out. We had a couple of potential takers fall through. I don't think there are too many people willing to take on both mother and kitten. I was just about to contact my friend at the pound to find how to turn them in when we suddenly found ourselves down a cat. Youngest has been wanting a dog for ages, but this kitten has been loving on her like her own cat never did. The mama is pretty high strung, but friendly and playful. We got tacit permission to hang on to them a bit longer. If nothing else, we'll wait long enough for the kitten to be old enough to be separated from his mother. In the end, it will be Youngest's choice.

Aside from that, we're slowly getting into the Christmas mood. We've put the tree up, without decorations, to train the cats to stay out of it. So far, it hasn't been an issue. I really expected to have troubles with the kitten getting into it, but he seems content to leave it alone. Of course, once it's decorated, it might be a different story. So far, so good. Decorating will start this weekend.

We haven't ordered our meats for our annual tourtierre this year. Partly it's because we suddenly don't have the money. Getting the cat to the vet, then put down, ended up costing us over $450. That was money that was supposed to go for Christmas preparations. Not that we could make our usual number of tourtierre, anyhow. It's not cold enough! After a brief deep freeze, the temperatures went right back up again and are now bouncing above and below the freezing level. Our only freezer is the top of our fridge, so we relied on being able to keep the tourtierre frozen outside. It's not cold enough! So I'm thinking we'll place a meat order for perhaps a dozen pies. There isn't room for that many in the freezer, but wee can fit a few in and still have a couple to give away or something.

I haven't done my annual Christmas decorations this year yet, either. I had an idea in mind, but it required access to the kitchen sink, stove top and counter space. Every time they all got cleared, they immediately got covered! So I'm trying to come up with something else that will be quick and fairly easy. I've got some papier mache ornament shapes as bases, as well as some paints and glue. I have other supplies in the craft cupboard to use as well. I'm thinking, for some of them at least, I'll be doing things with spices. I've usually been doing items that reflected light in some way. I think this time, I'll be more rustic. We shall see how that works out.

A quick run through

2011-11-01T13:59:00.000-06:00

Just a quick run through what's been going on lately.

First up, we've got a new tablet. No, not that one. It's a NEW new tablet. After having it less than two week, in between activities, I picked up the tablet, pushed the button in the corner to "wake" it, and nothing happened.

Push and hold.

Nothing.

Push and hold longer.

Still nothing.

Plug the USB into the computer.

Can't view it. It was as if it wasn't there.

The next day I took it back to the store. While chatting with the salesperson about it, describing what happened, he tried the press and hold thing, too. After about half a minute, just as he was about to let go because it obviously wasn't going to do anything, it suddenly started to reboot! Once up and running, it was fine. Because it was so recently purchased, however, they would to a straight exchange for me. It shouldn't have shut off on its own like that (shutting it down requires a prompt as well as pressing and holding the button, so there's no way I'd shut it off by accident). They didn't have one in stock, though. They ordered one in from another store, telling me it would be in the next day. They would phone me when it was in. Meanwhile, I took what I had home again.

Next day, no phone call.

Second day, no phone call. In the evening, Dh called the store for me. He was told it wasn't in (though they had plenty of a model with less memory) and might not be in for a week or something like that. The person he spoke to had no clue what he was talking about. Dh was not pleased.

I went back in person the next day. One of the managers had to go digging in the back somewhere, but she found it. Complete with my name and phone number taped to the box! A quick check of the old one to make sure all the parts and pieces were there, a signature on some paperwork, and I had a new tablet. Eldest had come along with me, so we walked over to a nearby Second Cup, where they have free wi-fi, to test it out. I had to plug it in to turn it on, since the battery had no juice in it, but it worked fine. I had some apps to reload, but things like my calender were backed up online, so those simply reset themselves. Handy.

So now we have a working tablet again, and I'm really liking it. Eldest hasn't been using it, but Youngest has. Lately she's been using it to go online and practise the written test to get her learners permit.

Yes, unlike her sister, Youngest wants her license and is eager to drive.

Taking the written test... well, the computer based multiple choice test... costs less than $20 and has a minimum 80% pass requirement. Youngest has been consistently getting in the 80-81% range, but she wants to do better on the practise tests before she takes the formal one. Once she passes that, she'll be able to get behind the wheel legally, during the day and with either myself or Dh in the vehicle with her. This will give us a chance to take her somewhere where she can practise. She has to have the learners for at least 1 yr before she can get the next graduated license, and then another 2 years before she can get her full license.

Things sure have changed from when I got mine! I got my beginners at 15 1/2, then could take the driver's test at age 16. It took me two tries, but I got my full license at 16. Granted, that was in another province, but my home province has the graduated license now, too.

Meanwhile, Eldest has a part time job working in receiving at a Michaels. Not the closer one she had applied for, but not the farthest away, either. Her shifts start before the buses run, so I've been driving her to work in the mornings. It's a pleasant thing to do, giving us a chance to chat. My sleep patterns have been increasingly all over the place, though, and it's not going to be getting better any time soon!

Eldest has talked me into doing NaNoWriMo this year. It officially started last night. I stayed up until midnight for the official kick off. The goal is 50,000 words in the month of November. Daily goals are 1666 words. Last night I verified my word count and finished at 3033 words. I could have kept writing, but I wanted to get at least an hour of sleep before driving Eldest to her 6 am shift. The buses start running at 5:30 and it takes her 2 buses and about 1 1/2 hours to get there, so even a 6 am shift requires a ride. Our city has made some noises about starting 24 hour bus service - it was even supposed to start up this past summer, but got cancelled for some reason. Considering how much traffic and activity we see in the wee hours of the morning, I think we've reached the point where it's a needed service.

Along with that, I've got other writing to do (including the blogs, which are falling woefully behind), crafting and writing about crafting. *L* I've got a commissioned scoodie to make that's taking longer than it should, the Christmas crafts to do, some patterns to write, my instructors course to finish, and new classes to start teaching. Oh, and some charity crafts to finish, too.

With all this on my plate, I've pulled back on a lot of things. For the next while, I'm focusing and writing and crafting and very little else.

Except kittens. We have a kitten. Sort of. Some strays have started visiting our balcony. One of them was a pregnant female. We can't keep them, but have been trying to adopt them out. Meanwhile, the female had her litter somewhere. As the temperatures have been dropping, we worried about the little ones. We'd made a shelter out of our pet carrier in hopes she would have her litter there, but she didn't. Then suddenly there was a kitten! I don't know when she brought it in, but I'm glad she did. I'd found someone who works at a vet's office that offered to take the mama, but she had her litter before that could be arranged. Now that we have her and her kitten (I'm guessing a lone survivor), I'm hoping this person is still willing to take them in. We're not allowed to have more than 2 cats, but if we can't adopt them out, I might have to see if we'll be allowed to bend the rules a bit.

Well, that's where we are right now. I'm sure there's plenty I'm forgetting, but I have to move on to the next item on my to-do list. With writing being on my list of priorities, though, I'm hoping to have posts up more frequently.

Trying out my new gadget.

2011-10-13T20:42:00.000-06:00

This is mostly a test post. This blog is supposed to be where I record our activities as a homeschooling family. Lack of access and time on the desktop has meant posts are few and far between. As of today, I now have a tablet. The girls and I are currently at a Second Cup, having made a trip to the library.

The touchscreen keyboard is a bit of a pain, but it`s better than trying to blog on my phone!!

The girls are waiting on me to finish this before we head home, so I am off for now. I hope that this thing will work out to be a useful tool for us.

Running

2011-10-12T14:11:00.000-06:00

The last while has been pretty ridiculous. I feel like I've been running around constantly! We had some unusual stuff pop up and that had us rearrange pretty much everything. When it all settled down, I expected things to slow down a bit and get back to normal.

They didn't.

With our Christmas season soon to kick in (yeah, I know, it isn't even Halloween yet, but I'm a crafter, which means getting started requires more time), things are just going to pick up. Throw in my husband's health issues and Eldest's new job, and I find myself heading out about 3 times a day.

Did I mention Eldest has a new job? :-D

Locally, the job market seems to be picking up dramatically. I'm seeing "help wanted" signs everywhere. Part of it is because businesses are looking for more staff for Christmas, but it started picking up before that could be considered the reason.

Eldest had dropped her resume off at a few art stores, but they haven't been looking for much lately. Then she filled out an online application for Michaels. She specified a store that we usually frequent. A day or two after she finished submitting the online application, she got a call from a different store. They called on a Wednesday, asking if she could come in for a Thursday morning interview. She walked out of the interview with a job! She applied for, and got, a job in receiving. They asked her to come in on the Saturday at noon to do some paperwork, saying it would be about 3 hours. She finished the paperwork after about an hour or so, then they put her to work in the back! Her first shift was 3am on the next Monday, and today she just finished another shift with a 3am start.

The down side of a 3am shift is that the buses stop running at 1:30am and don't start again until 5:30am. Which means I have to drive her. She could take a cab I suppose, but the cost is prohibitive, and we don't exactly have reliable cab service in our city. There are plenty of cabs out there; their service just sucks.

I don't mind driving her, though. I tend to be up late anyhow, and it gives us a chance to chat. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make up for the lost sleep by sleeping in. Whether it's running errands that are time dependant, needing to pick up Dh from work because his back has gone bonkers again, or whatever, I just haven't been able to get any real sleep. The things that need doing aren't a problem; it's just that I'm not getting any chance to catch up on things in between, whether it's my email, my course work or just plain sleep! *L*

My crochet classes are getting sign ups now, though. I had my first official class, and it was a blast. I've got classes booked every week; it's just a matter of getting people to sign up for them. I've finished the first part of my instructor's course and have started on the second part, but with all the running around, I've accomplished little.

We've had some issues with our van, though. Some weird electrical gremlin is affecting our lights, inside and out, and it's getting worse. For the first time in 2 years, I contacted the dealership asking about our coverage for that (if the coverage we paid for does cover it, it'll only cost us our deductible. Otherwise, I have no idea what it will cost to fix), along with a couple other questions. After 2 yrs of no claims against our roadside assistance, we were supposed to get some money back. I was told to talk to the insurance company and they had no idea what I was talking about. What they had was a different type of coverage, and it would require claims free to 2015. Which means if we get our van fixed using our coverage, we lose the rebate.

We were supposed to go into the dealership on Thanksgiving afternoon to talk about that, including the possibility of a trade in (that would allow us to have lower interest rates, though I doubt it would have given us lower payments). The dealership has moved since we bought that van and, while I had a vague idea of where it was, having driven past it some time ago, the salesman gave me directions to the entrance, which isn't on the main road.

We never found the place. His directions sent me someplace else completely. This actually exemplified why I had numerical street systems. Dh tried calling for directions while I drove around, trying to find the street the salesman told me I should take (it turned out to be an avenue), but after following the directions from the receptionist, who somehow got it in her head that we were coming from a different direction, we got to an area that was primarily residential. Dh even used google maps on his phone, which was so vague, I still didn't know where it was supposed to be. We decided to just go home. Dh phone again, this time to leave a message for the salesman we were supposed to meet, but the receptionist couldn't get past his name (a French version of a common English name). He was so pissed, he gave up trying to leave a message and we just went home.

Once home, I looked up the place online and that's where we found out that the place was no where near where we were told to go, and that the avenue (not street) their entrance is on didn't even extend to where we were told to go - it was cut off by the residential area we saw, instead.

So I fired off an email to the salesman explaining why we didn't make it, expressing our unhappiness, and asking the one question they weren't addressing, even after asking 3 times; did our coverage include the sort of electrical problem we described.

It's been 3 days and he still hasn't answered. I don't think he will.

So now I'm driving around with a van with only one headlight in the front, one set of lights in the back, a break light that pops on and off, sometimes dinging, sometimes not, at random, a left signal that blinks at double time, but not sometimes doesn't turn on at all anymore, and a right signal that sometimes becomes a left signal, then back again on its own. I've already been warned that trying to track down a problem like what we're having can be extremely expensive - and that's before the cost of repair.

Beyond this, I'm really happy with our van. I have no real desire to trade up, though if it would have resulted in lower payments, I would have been okay with that. I'm just ticked that we're not getting our questions answered, and then that weird runaround, and now no contact at all.

Irritating.

Well, I'm feeling myself fall asleep as I type this, so I'd better finish up. Not that I can go for a nap or anything. Time to go do dishes, then dirty them up again to make supper. Assuming I don't get a message from Dh asking for a ride, which I expect will happen within the next half hour.

*sigh*

Outlines

2011-10-07T01:18:00.000-06:00

Eldest's friend, Raider King, has been visiting with us recently. For those who missed out on previous posts, he moved in with us for a few months until he could find a job and his own place.

He did, but the place turned out to be a disaster, including a black mold that started growing everywhere after the basement flooded during heavy rains. The room he was renting was in the basement.

Long story short, he ended up moving to a nearby city with his bio-dad, where he got another job and his soap opera life continues. It's been good to have him back again for a visit. And to feed him.

We'll not go into that long and sordid tale.

Our library system has a Writer in Residence program, with a different local author every year. It seems our city is teeming with excellent writers, and they are willing to share their expertise in a number of mentorship programs, talks, workshops and so on.

Eldest has been trying to talk me into doing NaNoWriMo this year. When I saw the library was doing a NaNoWriMo related event with their Writer in Residence, I signed all three of us up (Youngest has no interest at all). We went to it tonight and it was really quite interesting.

The topic was making outlines for novels, ranging from the vague and general, to one with a bit more detail to outlines that flesh out all the major events in the plot. The author was informative and enjoyable to listen to. There were a couple of unpleasant things. He had use doing a couple of exercises. One was a game where we were to make four statements about ourselves. Three were to be true, one was to be a lie. Then we were asked to split off into groups (not with the people we came with). We'd read our list out to our partner(s), and they would ask questions to try and figure out which statement was a lie.

I had the hardest time coming up with a lie. Eldest didn't take part at all.

The purpose was to demonstrate how asking questions about our characters would help us flesh them out and make them believable. The game, however, didn't seem to go much to demonstrate that. As Eldest said later on, while she understands why it's used, she finds this style of teaching very manipulative. Why not just tell us what we're supposed to know? We could never do well under the Socratic Method! *L*

My problem was with the "lie." I don't lie. I hate lies. I had a revelation about lying when I was a child and decided it was more important to me to tell the truth and deal with the consequences then it was to lie and get away with something. My personal sense of integrity was more valuable to me than not getting in trouble. So being told to tell a lie about myself, then make it convincing under questioning, just rubbed me the wrong way.

Of course, there was no need to "lie" about anything. This is an exercise in fiction writing. Why not say, "make 3 non-fiction statements and 1 fictional statement," instead? There's a big difference between saying something about yourself that is a lie and creating a fictional scenario. I suppose it's a matter of semantics, but accuracy in wording is important to me.

Anyhow.

The whole thing took about an hour and a half, including the Q&A portion. Afterwards, the author stayed to talk to people and answer their questions. Eldest, Raider King and I headed out, but got so engrossed talking about outlines, writing, character development and so on, we ended up stopping at a coffee shop so we could sit and chat about it some more.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening, and I'm glad we went. It wasn't as much use for Eldest, since her focus is very different than novel writing, but Raider King does a lot of writing and plans to do NaNoWriMo this year, so it worked out for him.

As for me doing NaNoWriMo, I'm still not sure if I'm going to take the plunge. My problem is that I've no idea what I would write about. I have several potential projects, but none of them are the sort of thing I'd want to do for NaNoWriMo. Of course, there's also the never ending problem of carving out the uninterrupted time to write, even if I did know what I'd write about.

We shall see how it works out.

You ate what?

2011-10-02T16:06:00.000-06:00

I unabashedly admit that Eldest is braver than I am.

As someone who has such an interest in food history, culture, and trying new things, I'm actually a total suck. As much as I'd like to explore new flavours, I often end up being very safe about it in the process. Some is with good reason. I have no tolerance for spicy heat. I love the flavours, but what is mild or moderate heat for others leaves me in a whole lot of burning pain. There's a reason for this, but I won't regale you about the condition of my tongue. ;-)

Other foods, I just can't bring myself to eat. Like raw fish, or Eldest's favourite canned eel. The smell alone sends me running. While Eldest happily noshes away, analyzing flavours and textures, I'm off on the side with my fingers in my ears going LA-LA-LA-LA-LA and trying not to hurl.

She laughs.

One of the foods Eldest has been wanting to try for a long time is preserved duck eggs. I finally succumbed and bought a package. She tried one on rice, but I could only bring myself to taste a tiny bit of the "white" (which isn't white anymore) and that was it. I didn't really eat enough to be able to taste it. That left us with a package sitting around and no one quite knowing what to do with it.

Well, today, I finally girded my loins, did some research, brought out the camera, and did a taste test.

Here is the result. Click on the photos to see them in larger size.

First, the package. This is the type we got, and I've no idea what the brand name is. It was found at a local Asian grocery store, though I've seen the same brand available at Superstore. They come in a Styrofoam box and are not refrigerated. Visit here (pdf) to learn more about their history and how they are made.

Inside, each egg is lovingly wrapped and nestled in it's own little pocket.

Unwrapped, they look like this. They're really quite pretty!

Ah, but what do they look like inside!

I used the back of a spoon to carefully start cracking the shell. After the second hit, I heard a weird little pop, and a hole appeared. I'd hit it over the air cell and I think there had actually been a bit of a vacuum, as the broken piece of shell had got sucked right in.

Is that good? Bad? I have no idea.

The shell is quite thick, as is the inner membrane. It peeled rather easily, though, revealing this.

Again, it's really quite lovely! The branching pattern in the white is a result of the preservation.

I believe the outer layer on the shell is part of the preservation, but I'm not sure.

While a bit startling to see such a dark colour where one would normally see white, I find it quite appealing. The colour and semi-transparency, with the branching "fireworks" patterns are beautiful.

After cutting it open, however...

Uhm...

Yeah.

This is the point where I look at it and wonder, "just how hungry did someone have to be to look at this and think it's edible?"

I mean, I can still appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the colours and textures from a purely visual standpoint, but as food? No. If I were to stumble upon this by accident somewhere, as it is guessed some ancient person did, I would not think this is edible. I would think this is something that's gone rotten and might make me ill.

Quartering it didn't make it any better. That squishy, slimy middle just...

No. Uh-uh. I am definitely getting nervous at this point.

In looking up how to eat these, I really didn't find much. It's served in quarters like this with pickled ginger as an appetizer. It's cut up and eaten in congee. It seems they are mostly eaten just like this, though it's recommended the people not used to its pungent flavour eat it in small amounts or with something else. There was little to tell me what that "something else" could be.

I did find a few recipes that described serving it with pork or on rice. Well, I was making pork for supper anyhow. I'd cut up some pork loin and wrapped it in aluminum foil with olive oil, a hint of vinegar, soy sauce, and spices. After sitting overnight in the fridge, I roasted it still in the foil, opening the foil near the end to let things brown a bit. To go with the pork, I made some quinoa, cooked in half water, half home-made turkey stock.

Then I made it all pretty for the picture. There's only a small amount of quinoa and pork here, and I was afraid using an entire quarter of an egg would be too much. Cutting it into little pieces did make it seem more like something I could eat.

My first taste, I made sure to have a bit of everything. Some yolk, some white, some meat and quinoa. When I finally tried it, I was totally amazed. It was just bursting with flavour!! I couldn't believe how good it was! The egg added an earthy, mushroom-like flavour that I just loved. It was awesome.

Eldest tried it, and she enjoyed it too, but the real litmus test was Youngest. She doesn't like quinoa. She was thoroughly turned off by the appearance of the preserved duck egg's yolk. She dislikes mushrooms, too, so saying it had a mushroom-like flavour didn't exactly win points for her, either.

She tried it anyhow and even she enjoyed it! Quinoa and all! After eating she announced that yes, she liked preserved duck eggs.

The flavour was still very strong, and small amounts are recommended. It's not something I'd have often, but we're not going to have any problems figuring out what to do with the remaining four eggs!

What we've been doing.

2011-09-26T12:54:00.001-06:00

So it's been almost a month since I last posted. Shame on me!

Overall, things have been pretty routine. There's been one major issue that is affecting our schedules. Dh's back suddenly wonked out on him, badly. If that wasn't enough on its own, he had a sciatic attack on top of it. He was on medical leave for a while, then hobbled back to work rather than extend the leave further. Walking is one of the things that is recommended - one of the few things he can actually do - to help his back out, so he's been walking to work pretty much every morning.

Lately, Youngest has been getting up early to walk to work with him, then she walks home on her own after they part ways. That last part bothered him quite a bit at first - she's still his baby, after all! She's also 15 years old, for crying out loud, and I think she can navigate a straight path for 20 minutes! *L* Okay, so yeah, the walk *does* involve navigating aggressive panhandlers along the way. They tend to be out in greater force early in the morning. I have more concerns about them than the prison up the block from our place. About the only thing to worry about there is the sweet medicinal smoke wafting through the windows of the healing centre. Sweetgrass, I think. That's only in the evenings, though. At least that we've noticed.

Eldest has a lot on her plate these days. She's working hard to get the first few chapters of her web comic done before she goes live. She also wants to get a few paintings done to replenish her inventory. There has been some delay in all that, as we had a hot spell. Working with pen, paper, ink, watercolour paints and markers does not go well when one has sweaty hands. We moved the portable air conditioner upstairs, which made it livable up there, but that was about it. It's cooled down a bit since, and she's finally getting a bit of work done.

One of the things she likes to do while working is listen to lectures from the Great Courses. Here's a sampling of what she's been listening too.

The History of the English Language (in several parts - and Youngest has been listening to this one, too)
Consciousness and its Implications
Popes and the Papacy: a history
Skeptics and Believers: religious debate in the Western intellectual tradition

That's on top of the books and movies she's been taking out. I really ought to bring back the library lists. They have been remarkably eclectic! We've been doing a monthy movie night with our co-op, so she's always on the lookout for some rare gem.

Youngest has spent the summer plowing her way through the library's mythology and manga collections. She avoids Greek and Roman mythology in favour of Nordic and other Northwest European tales. At the moment she has several different versions and translations of Beowulf, which Eldest is finding fascinating as well. The use of language is quite refreshing to them, I think. Quite the contrast with the manga series she's been reading, like Fruits Basket, Ouran High School, Nausica (the books are better than the movie), Death Note, Rurouni Kenshin, and so on.

Youngest's guitar lessons have undergone a bit of a change up. Her instructor has been having a hard time finding a balance between lessons and his job. It's a long bus right and, buses being what they are, he would sometimes arrive late. Not that we noticed much. I always bring my crochet project bag and Youngest keeps a book of word searches in her purse, which she does while listening to music on headphones, so we don't even notice the time much. Still, he was having problems, so he's reworked his schedule to have days just for teaching. We're pretty flexible with our schedule, so when he asked if we were good to change days, we were okay with that (the alternative was to have the same day, but a couple of hours later). So starting today, her lessons will now be on Mondays, and a bit later in the afternoon.

I'm glad she's interested enough to keep going for another year. It's been quite different from her voice lessons. She started those off very eagerly, but by the end of the year, she wanted to move on. She's also interested in adding piano and has asked me to each her. I can teach her to read music, but I'm trained in organ, not piano. We do have a piano - a 200 yr old upright grand (they don't even make those anymore) and family heirloom - so the option is there. I picked up a book for beginner piano that is aimed at adults that will be very useful. Every now and then, after she practices her guitar, she'll head downstairs and work on the piano. Unfortunately, the piano is like all flat surfaces in the household. It doesn't take long before it's covered in stuff. My fault for a lot of it, as I look at my committee binder, paperwork, file folders and other stuff scattered all over the bench and front of the piano. :-(

This piano is a fascinating instrument. Being an upright grand, it has a number of removable parts. When the keyboard cover is lifted, there's a front panel that tilts open at the bottom, as usual. The front half of the top is hinged, so you can open that up, which allows the front panel to be removed completely. Then there's the panel under the keyboard, above the foot petals. That can be removed, too. Take those out, and the that grand piano sound is in its full force! It's a beautiful instrument, too, with it's carved panels, trim and columns, in a deep, rich dark colour. It's an honour to have inherited it (it was supposed to go to the eldest of the family, but they didn't want it). On the down side it's 1000 pounds and, on its own, cost about $1500 to have it brought out here. The movers had a heck of a time getting it up the stairs. When they were done, the owner told me that if we move, don't call them! *L*

So that's a bit of what we've been doing for the last while.

Pretty boring.

I'm good with that. ;-)

So you're thinking of home schooling, part two: How much?

2011-09-05T22:39:00.000-06:00

Ah, yes. "It's the most wonderful time of the year" again, as that gawdawful Staples commercial tells us. That time of year when parents joyously send their miserable kids off to school.

Or not.

For those crazy enough to actually want to keep their kids at home and *gasp* spend more time with them, home schooling is another option.

Time to write another post for those who are thinking about it, but not quite sure they're ready for it. The first post was, Can you?

Let's now go to another question I often hear from parents.

How much does it cost?

Short answer?

As much as you're willing, or able, to spend.

It all depends on how you do it, and what's available where you live.

In one sense, home schooling can potentially be very expensive. There are so many home school curricula out there, so many neat educational tools and toys, and so many things out there to do. It would be so easy to blow great wads of cash on all this stuff.

Don't.

First off, check things out where you live and see what's available. In Canada, for the most part, you're on your own. Even for some provinces that technically are supposed to offer resources to home schooling families, like in BC, that doesn't mean the board you're registered with will. Or perhaps you live in a province like Manitoba, where all home schoolers are registered in one office, where you can also access grade level correspondence course (though they haven't called them that in many years), for varying costs. Or you might live in Alberta, which actually passes on school funding to registered home schoolers, either through purchase orders or by reimbursing receipts. Be wary of funding, though. Funding tends to come with strings attached and government bureaucrats wanting to tell you how you can or can't teach your own kids.

Some home school support groups have a number of things available, ranging from group field trips at reduced cost to lending libraries, and even some that have equipment and resources that can be borrowed, such as scientific equipment or courses on CD or DVD.

Public libraries can have all sorts of resources as well. My own kids have started up The Great Courses again. These are pretty awesome. Along with a plethora of books, audio/visual resources and software, many also have organized events and classes, book readings, lectures and so on.

If you're just starting out and not confident that you can teach to your legal requirements, packaged curricula can be useful. Especially if home schooling is going to be a temporary thing, due to health problems or other extenuating circumstances. They can be ridiculously expensive, though. I've heard from way too many home schoolers who started out with visions of their kids happily at the kitchen table, working on some fantastic curriculum they bought that they just knew their kids would love, only ... it just didn't work out. Sometimes, the curriculum didn't fit their children. Sometimes it didn't fit the entire family. They regretted spending all that money on curriculum, wishing instead that they'd spent the money on museum passes or whatever their kids turned out to be into. On the other hand, I have also heard of families who found a purchased curriculum that fit their families perfectly (FIAR is one a lot of families have spoken highly of).

When it comes to packaged curricula, I would advise waiting before buying. Especially if you're pulling your kids out of school. Give your family some time to figure things out, then decide if a packaged curriculum is worth spending the money on.

There's one expense I would hope you don't have to shirk on, though.

Books.

Yes, I know, electronic books are all the rage right now. They're cheaper and you can fit many hundreds into a single reader. That's probably quite useful. Even so, nothing is quite the same as books. I'd still recommend getting lots of real, printed books. Haunt the second hand stores for unique finds, or get to know a local book seller who can order the more esoteric stuff in for you. Yes, I know you can order books online, but aside from supporting your local book store (yay, capitalism!), a real person knowledgeable in the trade is a gold mine. A lot of local book stores also have interesting events available, too. Take advantage of them.

And for crying out loud, don't go using up their time to find a book, then go order it online. That's just tacky and rude. Very bad form.

Other things I would recommend spending money on if you can. Family passes at museums, nature centres, science centres, art galleries, recreation centres, etc. Some cities offer passes that include a number of facilities. These often give you discounts in any shops they might have. There are even national passes available. If you are low-income, you may qualify for some of these passes for free or at highly discounted prices.

Join a local support group. Any memberships fees tend to be nominal. Aside from networking opportunities, activities and social support, some group membership cards will also be honoured by some businesses for a teacher's discount.

Join trading or exchange groups. Many places have freecycle groups and it's amazing what you can get through them. Some groups have book exchanges, clothing exchanges, or other types of exchanges (our group has had yarn and fabric exchanges). For these, everyone brings stuff to contribute that are still good, but their own families have grown out of. These get set out for everyone else to look at. People pick what they will find useful. Anything left over either gets taken back by their owners or donated to charity. The big challenge with this is to not come back with more than you brought! *L*

Then there are lessons and classes. Music lessons (with the accompanying cost of buying or renting instruments), voice lessons, art classes, dance classes, cooking classes, language classes, craft lessons, and even tutoring for any areas your child might need some extra help on. Don't forget sports - team sports, solo sports, martial arts classes, and all the necessary equipment they need, too. It would be way too easy to spend huge amounts of money on such things.

Be very selective and creative. If money is tight, some teachers are willing to barter for lessons (be generous with what you are offering; the teachers of these classes would be giving up income for this, so make sure it's worth it for them). There may be programs available to cover the cost of them. Perhaps there are family members who have skills they can pass on (and it can be a great way to get doubting family members engaged).

With our days no longer controlled by the school schedule, it can be very tempting to fill that time with all those cool things we can sign our kids up for. Resist and be selective. It is not beneficial to burn out the entire family, trying to get to all these lessons and classes. You may want to try one thing per child one year, then give them the option to try something else the next.

For us, when we did take part in such things, we had one rule. If we were going to spend money on these things and take the time out of our day to get them to and from their lessons, the girls knew they had to finish it. Unless there was something drastically wrong, they couldn't just decide to stop in the middle of something that we've agreed to pay for for the entire year, or however long it might be. These were things they told us they wanted to try, and sure they might decide they didn't like it as much as they thought they would. They still had to finish. They knew from the start that they were making a commitment for X amount of time, and part of the deal was that they'd keep that commitment. We expected them to take full advantage of what was being offered, and not blow it off. Sadly, this has sometimes meant that our kids were the only ones actually engaged in the class they were taking, while others in the class wasted their time. Perhaps I can convince Eldest to add a blurb about just how "fun" the one art class she ever took turned out to be.

Aside from such things, however, the basic stuff required for home schooling can be very cheap. After all, you are no longer required to buy a years worth of pencils, pencil crayons, binders, notebooks, glue sticks and even facial tissue (I was shocked to see that on an old neighbour's school list; each of their kids had to bring 6 boxes of facial tissue for the classroom supply cupboard), and so on. There are no more extra fees sprung at you or fundraising events. Oh, and you can buy your kids new clothes when they're needed, rather than because it's the start of school and they just HAVE to have the same things all their friends are getting.

Most of what you'll need, you probably already have, and what you do need to get, you can get little by little as you need them and can afford them, rather than all at once.

As you can see, there is no simple answer to how much it costs to home school our kids. Some people manage to do it while spending almost no money at all. Others spend thousands of dollars.

Take a bit of time to figure it out. Get to know what's available, what your kids need, and what they want. See what fits for the entire family. What works for your own family is likely to be quite different from others. That's just fine. There are no hard and fast rules.

Instead of having a school system telling you and your family what you have to pay for, you get to take control and decide for yourselves.

Which can be pretty exciting!!

First concert

2011-09-04T14:59:00.001-06:00

Thanks to a friend, we got some tickets to a local radio station's music festival. It just occurred to me that this is the first rock concert the girls have been to! I haven't been to one in so long, I was surprised by the police bag check.

I am happy to note that, in spite of the crowd and deafening volume, they are both actually enjoying this. I just wish the friend who got us the tickets had not had to bow out at the last minute because she wasn't feeling well.

Not Back to School

2011-09-01T16:28:00.001-06:00

I ended up taking an inadvertent break from this blog over the summer. Time to get back into action.

Today was our local Not Back to School picnic. The girls still have no interest in taking part in the park days, but Youngest came along with me for the picnic. We spent most of the time chatting with a good friend, so we had ourselves a great time.

It was a rather odd picnic this year. So many new faces! There seemed to be fewer old faces, too. Youngest saw some kids she knew, but barely recognised anymore. The local paper had done a very positive story on the picnic yesterday, which may have brought some curious families out to join us. Perhaps some will go on to join the group, too. There are always some who take in the picnic and pretty much nothing else with the group throughout the year, too. Whatever works. ;-)

Now that we're officially up and running for the school year, plus the summer activities have started to die down, posts should be more regular again.

Back again.

2011-07-10T02:29:00.001-06:00

Wow. Take off for a couple of weeks and Blogger changes everything. Will need to get used to this new posting format!

I probably shouldn't be posting right now - it's already past 1am, and I've got a demo to do tomorrow - but I know if I don't do it soon, it won't get done at all. Too many things getting in the way!

Our trip was long and tiring. The visit had its good times and bad. The trip back always seems so much shorter than heading out. I know it's just a time zone illusion, but it still feels that way.

Youngest and I headed out on the Saturday, drove until we found one of the rare rest areas in Manitoba, then crashed in the back of the van for the night. We stopped much, much later than I intended to. We had brought a couple of foam mattresses but forgot our bedding, other than a sheet to cover the mattresses with. That turned out okay, since we always keep blankets in the van anyways.

The rest area we found was a full service one, with indoor bathrooms, lots of parking and plenty of motion activated light. One area was filled with semi trailers and a few RVs in amongst them. The area we parked in had a few other cars and trucks, but was otherwise rather empty. I'd parked in a spot at the end of one side, which turned out not to have been a good idea. We kept getting blinded by the motion detection light, which I think was being set off by birds or insects or something. I vaguely considered moving the van, but since we'd had to move the seats forward as far as possible, then put our luggage, etc. all in front, there was just too much to move to make it worthwhile.

We had intended to sleep in, but the morning was just too bright to let us! We'd brought food for the road, so we took the time to have ourselves a lovely little picnic. Which is when I realized the spot I parked in probably wasn't meant to be a spot at all, since it had a curb cut to access the picnic area. Oops.

I'm happy with out things worked out food-wise for the trip. In past road trips, we tried to bring food along, but often ended up eating gas station sandwiches or beef jerky. *L* This time, I had a couple of insulated bags. One is actually a picnic backpack, complete with a 4 pc set of dishes and cutlery, glasses, a large insulated pocket, two insulated side pockets for bottles, and a plastic backed picnic blanket. I found it at Goodwill, which meant it was missing two of the butter knives and two of the plastic "wine glasses" were cracked, but it's still the best $9 I ever spent! *L*

We also brought along one of my insulated grocery bags. We kept stuff that only needed to be cool, not cold, in there, while the stuff that needed to stay cold was in the backback with reusable icepacks. We packed 3 different kinds of deli meats, a small wedge of brie, some smoked cheese we'd never tried before, a bit of provolone, celery and carrot sticks, apples, a bottle of V8 for Youngest and some grapefruit juice for me. Some buns, a bit of mayo for the sandwiches, and a tiny cutting board with a paring knife finished things off. The sandwiches we made were soooo good! Love brie in a sandwich. :-D

Sure beat gas station food! *L*

A few more hours of driving, and we made it to my parents' farm. My mom was at church by then, so it was just my dad. I kept family updated through facebook until we reached the cell phone deadzone. Where my parents live, I found there was enough signal to send a text message (sporadically), but not enough to make a phone call. We reactivated Dh's old Blackberry for Youngest (yes, we are now a 4 cell phone family!), as my own phone does not get service in Manitoba. My parents don't have a computer, but I was able to keep my computer literate family members updated, and they in turn kept my parents updated. I sent one last update before hitting the dead zone, and my sister called my dad to let him know we were almost there, so that worked out really well.

This time, we stayed at the farm with my parents. There was some doubt as to whether this was a good idea, but I'm glad we did. We were running around so much, there wasn't much chance for disaster anyhow.

It was good to see my father. He's having a harder time getting around and I really wish they had home care coming in to give them a hand, but they won't accept it. My brother's death has really taken a lot out of him, but my parents are survivors. Painful as it is, they've seen so much death in their lives, it's not going to destroy them. My dad turns 88 this year, and he plans to hit 100. He might actually do it, if my mother doesn't put him over the edge.

Seeing my mother was its usual manic depressive experience. One minute, things are going good, the next she's ranting about religion or politics or telling me how we should live. In the past, I would never have left my mother alone with the girls, but Youngest is old enough and capable enough to handle my mother. My mother seemed to take advantage of every opportunity to get Youngest alone and talk to her. She had a few negative things to say about home schooling, myself and Dh for not "allowing" them to go to school, and so on. She was thrilled with Youngest mentioned she was kinda interested in going to college and offered financial help with that. By the time we left, Youngest told me that, if she did end up going to college, she would certainly NOT accept money from her Babcia! She knows full well that sort of thing comes with strings attached.

Overall, though, it worked out well. There were a few unpleasant moments, but not enough to completely ruin the time we spent there.

Of course, we did our best to visit other family members. My middle brother lives up the road from my parents, and now that my youngest brother is gone, he's born the brunt of helping them out. There's a whole soap opera situation there. My brother is in a lot of pain - both physically and emotionally - and has a lot of bitterness and anger going on. My oldest brother and his wife was able to come out soon after we arrived. Normally, my oldest brother can only make it out once a week, but there's been a lot going on, so he's been out more often. The farm is getting old and falling apart, and it's getting to be a major issue. My late brother could do a lot of the stuff himself, but there's none among us that can match him on that. With one of the big jobs that needs to be done right now, a plumber is going to have to come in with an excavator and dig down to the bottom of the foundation! My oldest brother is doing the best he can, but he's got a full time job, a small farm of his own, and it's an almost 2 hour drive for him to come out. We were able to go to their place the day before we left, and it's looking so great. Their neighbours laughed at them when the bought the property because of flooding issues, but after years of hard work and a whole lot of money, the place is looking amazing, while their house and driveway remain high and dry.

We got to visit my sister as well. Her farm is about an hour's drive away, and we ended up staying overnight. With all the flooding going on in Manitoba, the creek they live on is really full. They're not in any danger where they are, but the water is the highest they've seen for this time of year. My BIL has been helping my oldest brother out with a lot of the work at my parents, but his own parents are getting on in years, too. They share the same yard, so they see each other every day. One day my BIL might be at my parents' farm, helping dig a trench, then redoing the floors of his own home, the floors of his parents home, plus the usual work of tending cattle and field, fixing tractors, and so on - all with an injured back. My sister, meanwhile, has a job in a nearby city, plus her own farm and garden work, as well as the odd freelance design job. My sister tries to visit my parents regularly, but there's only so much they can manage.

The most difficult thing about the trip, of course, was the memorial. I visited my brother's grave a few times. Short visits, unfortunately, as we'd be driven away by the mosquitoes. During the memorial, I made sure we were slathered with bug spray!

We had the memorial on Canada Day; the day before my brother died 1 year ago. There was a morning mass, then we all headed to the cemetery. The company that made the permanent memorial stone did a great job. It's quite beautiful. The priest did a little ceremony for the blessing. There where quite a few people, both at the church and at the cemetery. It was mostly family and friends of my parents. My brother's friends stayed away. I think my mother's behaviour had a lot to do with that. My niece made it out with her boyfriend, but my nephew said he didn't want to be there. My brother's widow wasn't there, but that was no surprise. She's cut us off completely. I need to work on not allowing myself to feel very terrible things about her and her behaviour since my brother died. Nothing I'm going to write about here, though!

There was a reception later on, catered by a neighbour. It was a very long and difficult day for my dad, but he made it through okay. Between cane and walker, he got about all right. We drove him to the church, but he found the van too high for him to get in and out of, but he was able to get in and out of my SIL's care much more easily, so that worked out. It must have really hurt for him not to be able to go to the funeral last year, since that was in the city. He wasn't going to miss any part of it this time.

I went back to the cemetery the next day, which was the actual anniversary of my brother's death. Clearly, I was not the only one. Some more flowers had been added, and there were a couple of empty bottles of my brother's favorite beer. My family had left a couple of lawn chairs by the monument (which came in handy during the blessing ceremony) and they were set up in front of the monument together. A candle in a glass hurricane lamp my mother had left was burned right down. At least two people had spent quite a bit of time there. No idea who. My mother swings by regularly to tend not only my brother's grave site, but other family members there as well. She regularly finds things people have left for my brother; everything from his brand of cigarettes, to a bottle of whiskey of particular significance. He's getting quite the collection of solar powered garden lights - something else he was fond of - and a whole lot of flowers, both real ones in pots and fake ones in vases.

My brother's passing has left a huge hole in a lot of people's lives.

The cemetery is in a lovely little spot. There was one time Youngest and I swung by after dark, as I wanted to see how the lights looked. It's in a secluded little spot, surrounded by trees on three sides. It was so beautiful. The garden lights glowing softly (including ones at a couple other grave sites), fireflies blinking all over the place, and a ground fog glowing brightly in a farmer's field across the road. The only down side was the insane amount of mosquitoes!!! My family already knows that this cemetery is where I want to be buried, too.

My own family were not our only visits. We got to see Dh's parents a few times as well. They're just a short drive from my parents, and they have cell phone and Internet service. *L* Thankfully, Dh's brother and his family were able to come out from the city and visit, so we were able to see them as well. Had they not been able to come out, we would have missed them entirely. It's always fun visiting Dh's parents. They're such interesting folks! I have to admit, I'm always struck by how *young* they are. At least compared to my own parents. There's about a 20 years age gap between Dh's parents and mine. I keep forgetting that my parents started a family fairly late in life.

With all the visiting and preparing, Youngest and I were constantly on the go while out there. When it was time to head home, I intended to take it easy and we'd find a rest area to stop for the night again. We took a different route home this time and, while it was longer, it had a lot more rest areas! In the end, the closer we got to home, the more it seemed to just not make sense to stop for the night! It was just a few more hours to home, after all.

It was about 2:30 am when we got home. *L*

You'd think we'd finally get to take it easy after that, but the last week has seen us running around almost as much as while we were away! So much to do. I think yesterday night was the first time I finally got to sleep in! Not tonight, though. I was supposed to have my first crochet class yesterday, but no one had registered for it, so tomorrow I'm doing a demo. Now that I'm home, I'll have to see about drumming up some business and get some students!

Testing

2011-06-24T21:43:00.001-06:00

Trying out blogging from my phone.

Away

2011-06-23T00:21:00.001-06:00

Just a quick note to say I'm going to be on the road and out of province for a while, so there will be no posts again until sometime in July.

So you're thinking of home schooling, part one. Can you?

2011-06-17T02:33:00.005-06:00

Things sure have changed since we started home schooling!

Before we had kids, we had only a vague notion about home schooling. It was something crazy religious people did. Or hippies. And it was bad. I didn't have a really defined reason for why it was bad, but it was. It certainly wasn't something I ever thought I would do.

When we began our own home schooling journey, any preconceived notions I had about it were quickly overturned. Then they got overturned again. Kinda like my notions of parenting, except not so extreme.

At the time I first began exploring home schooling, there were plenty of people doing it, but you had to look for them. It seemed most people didn't know any home schoolers, and quite a few had no idea what it was.

Until our kids reached school age, it wasn't something that came up in conversation with other people all that much. Certainly not with complete strangers. As they got older, though, there were the inevitable questions about when they'd be going to school - or why they weren't in school. On telling people we home schooled, the reactions ranged from slightly confused and mildly curious to downright offended and defensive. I recall being in the waiting room of a dentist with Eldest, who was about kindergarten age, but not of an age where we were legally required to register her in the province we lived in at the time. Among the toys in the waiting room was a bucket of foam tangram shapes, and she and I were playing with them together. A woman in the waiting room with us started to chat, asking the usual sort of "so, are you looking forward to starting school?" questions we were getting at the time. When I mentioned we planned to home school, she went from being friendly and relaxed to tense and defensive. Angry, almost. It turned out she was an elementary school teacher, and she spent the rest of the time we shared the waiting room going on about how much better it was for kids to go to school.

Thankfully, she had to leave soon after.

Over the years, though, things changed.

First, there were more people starting to say things like "I know people who home school. They're doing really good, but I could never do that."

Then there were more and more people - especially older people - saying things like "I wish I'd known about home schooling when my kids were younger." I remember one particular elderly gentleman (a Jehovah's Witness who came knocking on our door, actually) who, on finding out we home schooled, got the saddest look of regret on his face. He told me how he wished they'd home schooled their own (now adult) children because of the incredible torment they'd experienced in school. His kids were all grown and parents themselves and doing fine, but he would have spared them that pain, if he'd known he could.

When the girls were younger, I got a lot of people asking about high school and sort of assuming I'd start sending them to school. I'd get questions like, "how can you teach them high school level subjects?" Never mind that I did go through high school myself, so I kinda had the basics already, plus there are plenty of resources. Lots of assumptions about testing and curriculum (because in high school, you just HAVE to use a curriculum, right? And have teachers watching over you?) Dealing with that question while also revealing that we didn't "do" school anyhow (no one seemed to know what "unschooling" was) didn't generally invoke positive results. Interestingly, those questions stopped by the time girls actually reached their teen years, and I never get them at all now.

Now that the girls are older, and Eldest is a legal adult, things are really different. Pretty much everyone knows about home schooling, it seems, and most people have positive associations with the term. More parents are telling me they plan to home school their own kids, and quite a few people who don't even have kids yet have said the same. More people seem to be aware of different styles of home schooling, or at least that it doesn't always mean school-at-home. There are still a lot of misconceptions, but it's improved a great deal.

I do still get a lot of people saying things like "I wish I could do that." Now, however, I'm getting more people asking, "can I do that?" They don't mean it in a legal sense, since most people do know that home schooling is legal (even if some of them still think it shouldn't be). They know that they are allowed to do it.

No, what they're asking, in a round-about way, is "am I really good enough to teach my own kids?"

This is an interesting question. Where did we (and I include my pre-home schooling self in there) get to the point that we feel ourselves unable to educate our own kids? Since most of us are products of the school system ourselves, I think it's the inevitable result of going through a system that tells us learning only happens in special buildings, with specially certified people, at certain times and with information doled out at certain ages. It's become so normal, we tend to forget that this is really unusual in human history.

What the public school system has done to a lot of us is undermine our confidence in our own abilities. Not just in educating our children, but raising them, too. We're increasingly pressured to send our kids away to "experts" who have been specially trained to do what used to be done by families and communities. More and more of us grew up in daycare, followed by pre-pre-schools, then pre-schools, then kindergarten, then on through the grades. Then after that, a lot of us went on to college or university. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves unable to believe we can do something like educate (or even parent) our own children?

Home schooling isn't right for everyone. Some people just aren't in situations where they can, or should, home school.

Henry Ford said, "Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." This is true in most things, but home schooling is a bit different.

I forget what organization looked into it, but it was found that there was little difference in how well home schooled kids did when taking into account their family dynamics. It didn't matter if the families were rich or poor. It didn't matter how much formal education the parents had. Race, religion, and even style of home schooling also showed little difference. Home schooled kids still did equally well overall, which was generally better than their schooled peers, in both academics and sociability. This is quite different from the school system, which shows significant differences in outcomes between demographics.

In other words, even if you aren't sure of yourself, go ahead and do it anyways. It would be very difficult to do any worse than the school system is doing.

Can you?

Yes.

Things are picking up

2011-05-28T02:07:00.002-06:00

Well, our busy season seems to be kicking in faster than usual this year!

This whole past year has been an odd one for us. Some things dropped off entirely, such as our park days and Youngest's singing lessons. Others are new, such as her guitar lessons, while still others just aren't what they were, such as our library days. Those have gone from regular one-day-a-week things to perhaps none one week to 3 or 4 visits the next! The kids are as likely to go without me these days - or even without each other.

Of course, having Raider King living with us for a while changed our habits, but that's to be expected. Now that he's got his own place, things just haven't gone back the way they were, really. Though I suppose I never really expected them to.

This weekend is a double whammy for us. Our co-op is doing another garage/craft/bake sale. I don't know why I bother signing up for a table. Only the very first one I did was any success - and I was one of the few that made any money! The others have been utterly dead. I really ought to set up in actual craft sales, rather than our co-op sales, but the craft sales that are around are pretty huge and require a substantial amount of money to book a spot. For one of them, there was a group of my fellow crafters that considered getting a spot together, but at a cost of $400, it was just too much. The crazy thing is that, even though they have so many people booking spaces (for some local crafters, these two sales a year are all they do!) at such a high cost, the place still charges an admission from customers just to walk in the door!

Anyhow.

So I've got the sale on both Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, the art festival Eldest is booked for in the summer is having an advance "block party" sale to promote the event. It's very small, with space for only a handful of artists to set up, so it was great that Eldest could get a spot at all. It's just for the one day, and the hours are the same as for my sale! Which means Dh is going to have to do the driving to get Eldest and her supplies out there. She's been busy choosing and preparing which paintings she will include for this small sale, with some framed pieces while others are without. For those, she picked up some special plastic bags to protect them. Though Dh will have to drive her, he won't be able to help her set up. His back went nasty on him a few days ago. He ended up missing three days of work and is walking with a cane again. He's banned from lifting anything right now. Even driving will be uncomfortable for him, but the alternative is for him to sit with my stuff at the sale, and that won't be any easier on his back than driving. It'll be okay, though. Eldest needs to figure out how to set up in the spot she's been allocated (and a good spot, it is!), and it'll be easier for her to figure it out on her own, anyhow. Hopefully, he'll be able to swing by later on, though, and take over at least long enough for her to have a bathroom break! That's the down side of these events. Unless you've got someone with you to help out, you're stuck watching over your own merchandise for the entire time. Granted, the artists tend to keep an eye out for each other, and are known to watch their neighbours' stuff so they have a chance to get something to eat or answer the call of nature.

Youngest might be joining me off an on over the weekend. She's got a few of her own pieces in the sale, too. Of course, anything of hers that sells, I'll keep the money separate for her. Like my stuff, however, hers really should be in a different sort of sale. She's got a lovely triangle shawl in the sale that was made with a really neat yarn that has a metallic thread running through it for a bit of sparkle. It has to be priced to at least cover the cost of the yarn, and that stuff wasn't cheap. Garage sale goers, on the other hand, do tend to be cheap - after all, bargains are what people are going to garage sales for. That this is also a craft and baking sale doesn't change that much. People still aren't likely to care that something was hand made with high quality materials, excellent workmanship, and is an original design. That's boutique stuff. Well, I hope at least her little child-size hats sell. They're adorable.

On top of all this, I have a new job, of sorts. I've been hired by a major craft store franchise to be their crochet instructor and, if things go well, may even start teaching other crafts as well. The reason I say "of sorts" is because I won't have any sort of regular hours and get to make my own schedule, to a certain extent. The classes are a new thing for the store, so there are none actually booked. Until then, I will be doing the occasional demo. That part gets paid by the hour at minimum wage. For the classes themselves, I'll be paid a very generous percentage of the registration fees. Meanwhile, I'll also be taking a distance certification course at home through them. I only need to do the first two levels to get the instructor certification, but if I can do the third level as well, I will get to include the word "professional" in there, too. That part of the course requires, among other things, designing a garment - something I've already done, so it's no big deal for me. The main part for me is that my name gets into a database for North American instructors, which opens me up to other possible contracts. Looking over the course descriptions, there's nothing in them I can't already do. Of course, the group that runs the course gets to determine if I'm actually doing them well enough to be certified.

I'm not too concerned about that. *L*

Dang it. Just looked at the time. I need to get up early to get a start on the sale tomorrow. What am I doing still up at 2 am? Time to go to bed!

Have a good night, all!

That Olde Tyme Thang...

2011-05-19T03:34:00.000-06:00

In the last little while, I've been enjoying the blog, Ridin out the Recession. I heartily recommend bookmarking it and visiting often! It's been a fantastic read.

It's a blog that has got me to thinking food again. If you've been following either of my blogs for a while, you may have noticed I have an interest in food history. You can learn alot about people by what they eat, how they prepare their food, and the customs and traditions surrounding food. I find it fascinating.

Ridin out the Recession, in their posts talking about different ways to put up food for the future, has reminded me about this a lot. Our modern society, with its technologies and international trade, has not only made an astounding variety of foods available to us, but it has made preparing and preserving our food for the future much easier, more consistent and safer. Modern canning methods sure have improved from the days I helped my mother top her jars of jam with a piece of string and paraffin wax! (The string was allowed to hang outside the jar so you could pull the wax up to "open" the jar - but sometimes the wax would just break apart, and we'd have to use a knife to get the rest out, then fish little bits of wax off the top later on.)

Not too many people preserve food anymore, beyond sticking things into the freezer, though doing so was regaining interest even before the global economy tanked. Much like traditional crafts often see a resurgence in popularity after being displaced by industrial versions, increased numbers of people have found that these old methods are satisfying and enjoyable skills. It feels darn good to do things for yourself! Being able to grow a garden, then fill your pantry with food for another day really does something for you! Even those who aren't DIY'ers are increasingly appreciative of hand made items.

I love old cookbooks. While I enjoy recreating historical recipes, some of my favorites are just a generation or two old. As much as I like the recipes in modern cookbooks, I find myself less willing to try them out. With so many of them written and published in the US, for example, they tend to call for ingredients that aren't so easy to find in Canada, if they're available here at all. New cookbooks also tend to use a lot of packaged ingredients. While the use of canned, bottled or powdered ingredients makes things handy, we just don't buy a lot of prepared foods. I have little interest in buying them just to try out a recipe.

The old cookbooks don't have these prepared ingredients, since they didn't exist at the time. Of course, there's also the problem of the old recipes using ingredients that were common then, but aren't anymore! Others are foods that were common and cheap at the time, but are now expensive, luxury items. Like rabbit!

Among my favorite cookbooks is The Canadiana Cookbook, by Mme Jehane Benoit, published in 1970. This was one of those flea market finds that are such treasures. The book is organized by province and territory, with plenty of Mme Benoit's wonderful commentaries strewn about.

In the Manitoba section, she has a recipe for Pemmican (Chippewa), which she in turn found in the Prairie Pantry cook book. Pemmican played a huge part in Canadian development and trade, and in Metis culture. Many of our modern highways closely follow the Pemmican trails - the Metis trade routes. Pemmican was a vital food for a very long time, and was originally made using bison, elk or venison.

I haven't tried this recipe yet. In the cookbook, Mme Benoit says she made it using smoked venison instead of beef. If you give it a try, please let me know how it turned out!

---
Pemmican (Chippewa)
The Canadiana Cookbook, pages 144-145

1 pound dried beef or smoked venison
3/4 pound dried crushed chokecherries*
1/2 pound fresh beef suet, chopped fine
1/2 cup light brown or natural sugar

Pass all through meat grinder, except the sugar. Add the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Pack in a bowl and keep covered and refrigerated. Serve with sourdough bread.

* I dry my own chokecherries in a 200 F oven. They are usually easy to find in Health Food stores. Dried currants can replace them, or fresh lingonberries when available.

---

Well, I don't know if you can get chokecherries in health food stores anymore. Besides her recommended alternatives, cranberries, saskatoons and blueberries can be used, too. The fruit is actually optional, and a more modern addition. This is the only recipe I've seen that uses sugar.

We've made our own beef jerky, and if you want to dry your own meat, it's easy to do. Get a cut of very lean meat, such as flank steak, and cut it very thin, against the grain (partially freeze the meat to make it easier to cut, if you want). We laid wire cake racks over cookie sheets, then spread the meat out over them evenly. After letting the oven warm up to the lowest setting (about 150 - 200 F), we put the meat in and left it overnight with the oven light on, but the oven off. The oven can be heated back up as needed, though it just needs to be warm, not hot enough to actually cook the meat. If you take the meat out to turn it, though, make sure to warm it back up again. It can take a very long time to thoroughly dry the meat (I've seen as long as 15 hours - we didn't take as long with our jerky, since we wanted it to still be chewable).

In the days before meat grinders and food processors, the dried meat would be pounded into a powder. The fat would be rendered and everything would be put into special leather bags and mixed together.

Pemmican was valuable because it was extremely nutritious, portable and, properly wrapped, could last 4-5 years. It can be eaten as is, though I've read of the Voyageurs adding it to boiling water to make a soup.

I don't know how economical it would be to make pemmican now, with how much meat costs these days. At least for someone who has to get their meat at the grocery store. For a hunter or beef farmer, it might be a practical way to preserve some trail food.

Officially done for the year

2011-05-19T03:29:00.003-06:00

Well, that's it for this year! At least on paper. We've had our facilitator visit (which was a huge amount of fun, as usual. :-D), got our paperwork done for next year, submitted our receipts, and our school year is done. We've decided to extend Eldest another year, rather than "graduate" this year. It gives us access to resources she can use to help get her going with her art as a business. We were even able to get her a laptop this year (and many thanks to Dell for letting us get it at the originally quoted sale price - a savings of some $400. We ended up ordering it online, using a purchase order, and the guy that helped us was really great). She has no plans to use it on the internet, so we haven't bothered setting that up. It has the capability to do quite a bit, should she choose to. In fact, I think it's better than our latest desktop! The old desktop the girls had been using is basically a big paperweight right now. :-P

As usual, the official year end doesn't really change much for us. Summer is always our busiest time of year for activities. There's just so much out there! That reminds me. I have to find out if Youngest's guitar lessons break for the summer or not.

Dh and Eldest went geocaching again, in the wee hours of last Sunday morning. Youngest got interested, too, so they went out again after Dh had a chance to take a break (Youngest is like me - NOT a morning person! *L*). She had a blast! They are now on geocache as a team, and plan to go out regularly. One of these days I'm going to have to go with them, just to take pictures of some of the interesting places they're finding in the process. Eldest was telling me about their last trip out, which took them into the river valley, exploring a park we've passed through, but never checked out. It's always amazing to be wandering around the woods, with nothing to tell you you're actually in the heart of a major city!

Hopefully, my summer will be busier. I've just been hired as a crochet instructor at a local Michaels! I'm pretty excited about it. It's not exactly regular hours, though - I will have classes as people register for them, and the franchise is just getting into these classes (they're also going to be having knitting, beading and scrapbooking classes). I'll be taking a certification course at the same time, and the hours I teach will count towards completion of the certification. So far, I've only done a single demo, which was fun, but I spent more time answering questions on where to find things around the store than about crochet! Though there was the one woman who asked advice about making a baby blanket as a gift, so I ended up helping her make some decisions and choose a yarn. I hope that works well for her.

I'll have 4 different courses to teach (each a 2 1/2 hour class) for different levels, from bare bones beginners to more advanced techniques and stitches, and I get paid based on how many students register for the classes. If things go well, I hope to be teaching at least those 4 classes a month. It might take a few months for word to get out that they're available, though. I can make myself available to other locations, too, even just as a back-up instructor. Once my certification course is done, I'll be in a database for all of North America as an instructor, too. The course I'm going to be taken is Levels I and II, but there's also a Level III Professional available that I will want to take as soon as I can. For that one, I'll have to design a garment (something I've already done) and take an exam, plus have a higher number of hours teaching to be done within a year.

I'm really looking forward to teaching my first class - even though right now, it's so new, I don't even know what I'll be teaching (other than the specific stitches), and neither does the woman heading the program in the store that hired me! The classes are already planned out for the instructors, including patterns and material lists. I'll just need to focus on actually teaching.

We're still hoping to get a trip in to visit the family back in Manitoba at the end of the summer. Not sure how that will work out, or even if all four of us will make the trip. We're trying to set aside money for it, but with the gas prices going up so high and taking everything else with it (I'm going to have to increase the grocery budget again - which means cutting from somewhere else, of course), I'm starting to wonder if we'll be able to at all. My parents were planning to have a permanent gravestone placed on my brother's grave a day shy of the anniversary of his death, with a mass and blessing from a priest, followed by a get together with friends and family. There's no way we can make it out for then. They haven't been able to find a priest available for that date, though, so they might have to move it to later on. The permanent stone would still be placed before then. We'll see how things end up working out.

Meanwhile, we're looking ahead to a summer filled with activity, from taking in as many of the local festivals as we can, including Eldest's art display, geocaching, and general out-and-abouting on top of our usual routine.

Hopefully, that means I'll be posting more often, too! *L*

Interesting times

2011-05-07T19:57:00.000-06:00

Well, I've got a bit of catching up to do!

The biggest news is that Raider King found himself his own place. It's the basement of a co-worker's house, and at an amazing rent - especially considering all the utilities are included, and it even comes with some furniture and a TV. He's got Internet, too, but they haven't figured out how to set him up yet. He's been there for about a week now, and it's working out really well for him. Ah, I remember those days of living in one's very first independent home! We're really happy for him, and he's finally not only got privacy, but space, as well.

I haven't even tried to do library lists lately. The girls have been plowing their way through several series of Manga comics. These days, our library trips involve putting a whole bunch of things on hold, then going in long enough to pick them up. This past week I finally went for a regular library day with Youngest, bringing Eldest's card along so we could pick up her holds (Eldest had to get a new library card, now that she's an adult, which means her card is no longer free. Not that it costs much, anyhow). I hadn't been to the library in ages, so Youngest and I split up. I went to the crafting section while she picked up the holds, then headed for the mythology section. We met up in audio/visual, where I found a few dvds to borrow. By the time I was done, she was waiting for me, reading one of the books she found. Then she showed me the rest of the stack she'd picked! When we got home, she insisted on weighing the backpack. It was about 17 pounds of books! *L*

We've been doing an awful lot of running around lately, which has been a bit frustrating for Eldest. She has to get ready for the art festival, and has been working on quite a few new paintings, along with her other sketch work, etc. The festival is in July, but there's lots of preparation in between. Her biggest challenge, I think, is going to be finding frames.

Dh had brought up the idea of geocaching recently. He's got GPS on his phone, so yesterday he and Eldest headed out in the wee hours of the morning to find some nearby caches. It turns out there are seven of them near our place, some of which we've gone by many times without knowing they were there! Of the seven, they found four this morning. A couple of them were nano-caches - these are so small, they recommend bringing tweezers along to take out the log "book." It's actually a tiny roll of paper that the finder dates and initials. They also found a micro-cache, which is about the size of one of those magnetic boxes used to hide spare keys, plus a regular sized cache. One they didn't find, they plan to go back to, as Eldest is now sure she knows where it is. The other two, there were too many people around for them to be able to look for them.

Youngest now wants to go out geocaching, too!

Meanwhile, we're winding up our official school year. Our facilitator visit is this Friday. Looking forward to it. :-)

Youngest's guitar lessons will continue through the summer, though, as far as I know. At least her teacher hasn't mentioned anything about a summer break. She's still enjoying the lessons, though pains in her wrist (which, it has been determined, has nothing to do with her guitar playing) have been a bit of a problem.

On a completely different note...

I quit. I've thrown in the towel. I give up in defeat.

(and no, Eldest, you are not allowed to feel guilty about this)

I've whined and moaned previously about how much I hate shopping. In particular, how much I hate grocery shopping, due to the diverse nature of likes, dislikes and dietary requirements. It's not usually much of an issue. Dh has breakfast at home before I wake up, and usually has leftovers from supper as a lunch at work. The girls have been making their own breakfasts and lunches for quite some time now. We've basically had one major meal of the day, which I usually do, though the girls certainly have stepped in fairly regularly.

The problem?

Well, I got tired of throwing away food.

You see, every now and then, no matter what gets made for supper, it just doesn't get eaten. Oh, sure, some of it does, but very tiny amounts. Then the leftovers get put aside for Dh to make a lunch for work, except he doesn't for some reason, so it sits there. Next thing I know, I'm throwing away almost entire meals. This *really* irritated me when that involved throwing out a lot of meat. It got to be a real problem. Sometimes, it was because leftovers were tucked into the oven or something, with the intent of it being used right away, only to be forgotten about. I always made a habit of leaving the oven light on when something was set aside in there, but it would get turned off, and promptly forgotten about until the next time someone needed to use the oven.

Not good.

Well, about a week ago, I went to start supper, only to discover some food that had been sitting for 3 days, virtually untouched. I'd made extra specifically so there would be enough left over for Dh's lunch, and not even the normal amount of it had been eating. Few things bother me more than wasted food!

So I quit.

We are now responsible for our own meals.

Not that we don't cook for each other once in a while. We've started using the BBQ now that the weather has finally improved, for example. But overall, I've washed my hands of meals.

We'll see how long that lasts.

:-P

First Vote

2011-04-25T16:57:00.002-06:00

Today I took advantage of the advance polling and voted.

Eldest, having turned 18 last month, was eager to vote for the first time. Raider King turned 18 after the last election, so he hadn't voted yet, either. Both of them needed to register, and I had no idea how to go about that, so we all trooped over to the polling station together.

It turned out to be very easy for them to register. They just needed several ID. I was in line with my voter registration card and the table they were at was next to me, so when it came time to get the address information, I just handed over my card. Eldest went first and I was just a couple of people farther into the line when I got my card back. Still close enough to hear at least a little of what was going on behind me.

Once Eldest was done with her registration, Raider King took his turn. Shortly after, I hear the woman at the table saying "oh, you two are living in sin! Good for you!"

I was left standing there, thinking, "did I just hear what I thought I heard??" LOL

I found out afterward that Raider King never heard her comment at all (he's lost his hearing aid. :-( ), and Eldest just laughed and mentioned that he was just crashed on our couch until he got his own place. (As an aside - he's got his own place! Much to my shock, he's found a 2 bdrm basement suite for only $500 a month! He'll be moving there on May 1st. We're pretty excited for him. :-D )

This is hardly the first time Eldest and Raider King have had people mistake them for a "couple." You know, it'd be nice if people could be friends with each other without others assuming there's something romantic involved. :-P

Once the paperwork was done, they were sent off to one of the two polling station lines. I found it odd that they were sent to a different one than I was in. Sure enough, they got to the front and were told they had to go into the other line! Oops.

So now it's done. Eldest and Raider King have cast their very first electoral votes!

Easter preparations

2011-04-22T03:34:00.000-06:00

We've been well into our Easter preparations for the last while. As usual, this includes our traditional Easter basket. We'll be making a few additions to it this year.

For the usual items, we'll have butter, sausage, a small ham, salt and cheese. We've also got a chunk of fresh horseradish root, rather than the prepared paste. Tomorrow (er... later today, I should say) we'll be baking bread and colouring eggs. We'll be making a egg and milk bread that will be baked into some fancy shape. For the eggs, we'll be colouring some by cooking them in onion skins, while others will be made into "dragon's eggs" for the pre-shelled eggs. We're not going to bother doing colouful dyed eggs this year. For that, colour will be from the tiny candy coated chocolate eggs we'll be adding, plus some foil covered chocolate eggs - the only sweets we'll include this year.

One of the traditional Polish items we never really used was bacon. This year we've decided to include prosciutto as a sort of substitute, even though it's really a ham. We also decided to add a small bottle of olive oil and two types of olives. It seemed appropriate, considering how important olives and olive products were in Biblical times.

For my crafting this year, I ended up doing stuffed, crocheted eggs. I'm still doing them, actually. They're quick enough that I can do a simple one in a smooth yarn in about half an hour. I'm making some using textured yarn, some with colour changes, and others are being given a texture through stitch variations. They're all a variation of the free Lion Brand egg cozie pattern (you will need to sign in to see it). I skipped any of the embellishments to the basic cozie shape. Instead of ending it with an open bottom, I stuff it, then add a couple more decreasing rounds, then close up the bottom while sewing in the the yarn end. I'm rather happy with how they're turning out.

We're going to try something different for our Easter dinner. We'll be doing a leg of lamb, which is a first for me. Will have to look up different recipes and decide how I want to roast it. For the dinner, we'll also have some barscz - I'm cheating, having bought it packaged. To go with the lamb, Eldest suggested doing broccoli the Julia Child way, which is always a hit. I'll be doing polenta, as well. Though it's considered an Italian dish, I remember my mother making it when I was a child. We called it by a Polish word that translates as porridge, and it was years before I found out what I knew as a child and polenta were the same thing! *L* I am planning to make the polenta on Saturday, then pan fry slices of it for dinner on Sunday.

We'll likely pick up a wine to go with dinner as well. Hmm... we should probably pick something up for a dessert, too. I'd forgotten about dessert!

Saying Goodbye to George

2011-04-03T17:13:00.000-06:00

Back again! Feeling really good - too good! I know myself well enough to recognize that I am very prone to overdoing things too early, so I'm being extra careful. Chafing at my level of inactivity like crazy! I want to go for a walk. I want to arrange my balcony planters and bags of soil, now that they're no longer buried in snow, so they can thaw out faster. I want to go hiking in the valley.

As good as I'm feeling, I still get tired a lot faster than expected, and I need to be extra aware of any pulling, tugging or strain in the area where George used to be. The last thing I want to do is tear something and end up back in the hospital!

So how did George's eviction go?

Quite well, actually.

The Saturday before the surgery, I went in for my pregnancy test. The lab was in a mall I knew the location of, though I'd never actually been in it before, so Dh and I gave ourselves extra time to wander around trying to find the place. It ended up being right near the entrance we came in at, so we were almost half an hour early. So we handed in my paperwork and settled down for a long wait. It ended up being a short wait. I got called in after about 10 minutes. The test itself took only a few minutes - the tech even commented that it was the first time he'd taken only a single vial of blood at a time! *L* We were done almost 10 minutes before my actual appointment!

The evening before the surgery, Dh helped me with all the stuff I needed to get ready for (you know you've got a solid marriage when your spouse actually volunteers to help you with an enema! *L*), including packing a few things in the off change I ended up staying at the hospital longer. I made sure to eat something late in the day, just so the fasting would be less of an issue by the morning. Of course, I made sure to pack my project bag and a book, so I'd have something to keep me occupied during any inevitable waits before the actual surgery. The last thing I needed to do was use the antiseptic sponge in the shower before we headed for the hospital.

We got there early, as Dh dropped me off at the door before finding someplace to park that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. Early didn't matter, it turned out, as I got my wrist bracelet from pre-administration right away. My next stop was on a different floor, so I waited at pre-admin for Dh to join me, only to find him calling me from another floor, where he'd followed the signs for Day Surgery. I took the elevator up to where I was supposed to go, but he'd taken the stairs, which apparently didn't go where he thought they did! He ended up having to take the elevator to find me. By the time he did, I had already been taken in my "room" in the pre-op area. This was where I'd be taken after spending some time in the recovery room. That early in the morning, there was no one else there, though a couple more patients joined me over the next few hours.

I had about 2 hours before the surgery itself, with various things needing to be done at specific times before then. Though I was still on a food and fluid fast, I was given some pills to take with just enough water to wash them down. A tiny cup of another medication was measured out and waiting for me to take when the porter arrived to take me to the operating room. I didn't get hooked up to the IV for about an hour, so I was able to get some crocheting done while we waited. Dh brought a book. Unfortunately, once the IV was in the back of my hand, I found I didn't have enough range of motion to manipulate a hook, so no more crochet. I couldn't even get at my book, as it was in a locker with my clothes, and the locker was blocked off with my bed tray and its awaiting medications.

While the nurse was going over my paperwork at the start, I asked again about getting a picture of George. She told us that they should be able to get a laparoscopic image for me, which sounded a lot better than the original plan of getting a picture of George after he was removed in little bits and pieces! She made a note on my paperwork about it. She mentioned that it wasn't the first time she'd had such a request. Somehow, I wasn't surprised to hear that!

Of course, hospitals being the way they are, I didn't go into surgery on time. It was only 15 minutes late, though, so that was pretty good. The porter made sure I went to the washroom before he took me away, then made sure I took the last medication what was waiting. It was something to fight nausea. Considering how I felt when they added the antibiotics to my IV, I'd hate to think how bad it would have been if I didn't get any! But I get ahead of myself.

The operating rooms were on another floor, so I got an elevator ride. The effects of the medications made that rather interesting. You know that weird feeling you sometimes get in your head and stomach in a fast elevator? Well, it wasn't a fast elevator, it was going up, and I was lying down, but it felt like I was standing in an elevator the suddenly dropped 3 floors. Blech!

I was first wheeled into a sort of staging area. A nurse went over my paperwork meticulously, including all the assurances to make sure I was the right patient getting the right surgery! Then she noticed my red bracelet for my bloodwork had expired. ?!? She was able to get an extension on it, however, so I didn't need to get another 4 vials of blood tested, thank God. I had several nurses who would be working on me come by to introduce themselves. The gynecologist swung by and talked to me for a bit. He assured me again that all my blood tests came back clear of any markers for cancer. (Oh, and I'm not pregnant. LOL) Everything looked like George was nothing more than a really large cyst. The surgeon that would be working on me came by to introduce himself as well. The nurse had me make one last trip to the bathroom, just in case, and then I was off to the operating room.

Operating rooms are cool looking places! I thought it was neat to see all these various lights, screens and other things were on movable arms hanging from the ceiling. They made me think of octopi.

I got introduced to a couple more nurses (so many people!) as I got transferred from my stretcher to the operating table. Actually, I was able to move myself without any problem, with the nurse making sure I was lying where I needed to be. There was an opening in the operating table I had to line my butt up against. There was one arm rest set up already when I got there and, once I was settled on, a nurse attached a second arm rest, which had me lying there with both arms extended. The anesthetist put a mask for oxygen over my mouth and nose and got me to do some deep breathing. Then the antibiotics were added to the IV. I promptly started feeling quite nauseous and got the weirdest dizzy feeling in the top of my brain. They gave the meds a little while to kick in, then the anesthetic was injected into my IV and I was asked to start counting.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room.

My memories are a touch vague at this point. I still had the horrible dizzy feeling at the top of my brain. Odd that it was such a localized feeling. I immediately started doing my deep breathing and wiggling my feet around for the recommended leg exercises. I was feeling really cheerful and had a strong urge to sing. In my befuddled state, the only song I could think of was an old Polish love song my mother used to sing. I've long since forgotten the words, but the melody has always been a favorite of mine, so I started humming it.

As cheerful as I was feeling, I do remember wishing my stomach were feeling more stable, and appreciating the anti-nausea meds they'd given me.

I don't know how long it was before I was wheeled back to my room, where Dh was sitting in a chair with his book, waiting for me. The nurse quickly dashed away to get something for me. A print out with three images of George! I would have been happy with just one, so getting three of them was extra cool.

Meet George.

Weird looking, eh? Somehow, I wasn't expecting to see so many blood vessels, though now that I think about it, I'm not sure why I thought that.

I'm assuming that the silver thing that's pulling on George is what was used to suck him out in little pieces.

Here's George from another angle. Another unexpected detail - I hadn't expected George to be such a pasty white colour.

Looking at the images, George looks rather bigger than 13x11cm.

I didn't bother scanning the third image, as George isn't really in it, other than a small white patch in the back. At least I think the white patch is George. It looks a lot different than the above images, so it might actually be something else. I want to take the print out with me for my follow up visit so I can ask what is in that image, because I'm just not sure what's what!

As the nurse checked on my incisions, she told me that there were three of them, and had made some comments that had me thinking the surgery was bigger than they expected it to be. There was the expected incision in my naval, one directly below it (right in a crease, too... :-/) and one to the right of my naval. It wasn't until I was home later on that I realized she'd actually missed one more on my left. It was far enough to my side that it was covered by my hospital gown and blankets when she checked on me. Only the lower incision was of any concern, needing a bit of gauze to absorb a small amount of bleeding.

I did end up getting a D&C, but also found out that they were able to leave the ovary and fallopian tube intact! George had been beside my ovary. I'm not clear if he was completely unattached to the ovary or what - clearly he was attached to something that got twisted up enough to send me to the emergency! I'll find out more about that when I go to my follow up with the gynecologist after 6 weeks. I'm curious to find out how big George turned out to actually be, and if they weighed him.

The next while is still pretty foggy in my memory. Dh updated the family on how I was doing. I was to stay there as long as I felt the need, and could go home any time I felt I was up to it. After a while I tried sitting up, which got the dizziness in the top of my head going quite a bit. I wanted to get up and about and try going to the washroom, but the wave of nausea with the dizziness was a bit much. Dh got a nurse to get a barf bowl for me, which came in handy. A quick "cough" into the bowl, and I immediately felt better! I was able to go to the bathroom and walk around for a bit before I had to lie down again.

The nurse brought me a muffin and some apple juice for a snack to eat as soon as I could. Though I was hungry for my fast, I ended up dozing off instead. When she came back later and offered to take it away, I found I was feeling stable enough to eat.

I have no idea what kind of muffin it was, but right then, it was the most Delicious thing I'd ever eaten! LOL

Though I was still feeling that weird dizziness, I quickly improved and soon felt ready to go home. I figured I'd do better then than in the hospital. We got me dressed and ready, then Dh helped me to the nurses desk. There was a bit of paperwork to do, and they even gave me a couple of barf bags for the car, just in case. LOL I didn't need them.

Dh helped me down to the lobby where I could sit while he got the van. I was able to walk out to it on my own when he got there. The ride home was not the most pleasant, what with feeling every bump and lump in either my head, my stomach, or where George used to be, but it actually wasn't that bad. I did the steps to the front door all right. Once inside, I sat for a while. The girls had cooked supper and I was actually able to eat! We got all caught up, then I decided it was time to head upstairs to bed. Eldest stayed close to help me if I needed it. I almost got to the top when I had to stop and send Eldest running for a barf bowl. :-( Like in the hospital, I felt a LOT better after that. I kept a bowl nearby, anyhow, just in case. What I really needed was some rest, so bed was where I headed as soon as I could. I ended up down for 3-4 hours, and felt much improved for the sleep.

The next few days were careful ones. I was to get my stitches removed in 3-5 days, 7 at most. For that, Dh made an appointment with my regular doctor on the Friday. Dh's work laptop was brought up for me, as well as my project bag, and a library book I was working on. I commandeered Youngest's bed, since it was the easiest for me to get in and out of, but it's a queen size bed so I wasn't actually kicking her out of her room. She's got our old tv set up in her closet, so we were able to have a bit of a Star Trek marathon (we're working our way through season three now). Though I tried to be up and about as much as I could, I got tired so very quickly. Stairs were a bit much to do, so I avoided them as much as possible. Thankfully, there was little need for me to take them. The family took excellent care of me!

The hard part was not being able to stay in any one position for very long. I could sit, but had to lean back to keep pressure off my lower abdomen. I could stand and walk, but for only short lengths of time. I could lie on my side, but had to switch from one side to the other after a fairly short time. Still, it wasn't that bad. I had been given a prescription for some T3s to take as needed. I took one before going for that first nap after coming home from the hospital, but felt no need to take another until the second night after. I haven't taken any since.

It took a while for the dizziness to go away, but my stomach was pretty steady. I was able to eat without restriction, but felt the need to stick to light fare, so I had myself a lot of fruit or berries mixed with cottage cheese.

Dh had booked the Tuesday after my surgery off to help with me, with possible extensions beyond. He did stay home on the Wednesday as well (his employers have been fantastic about all this!), but I felt good enough that he went to work as normal on Thursday. The girls took over the running of the household completely, and have done a great job of it.

On the friday, it was time to get my stitches out. Dh worked from home until it was time for my appointment. Because of lack of parking in the area, Youngest came along. He dropped us off in front of the clinic and she helped me with the doors to get in while Dh tried to find somewhere to pull over until I was done. Though early for my appointment, I didn't even get a chance to sit down before Youngest and I were taken in. This was the first time my regular doctor knew anything about what had been going on, so he was a bit surprised by why I was there. He did a quick check, then he had one of his assistance do the actual stitch removal while he tended other patients. She had a bit of a time of it - the stitches were tied extremely tight, and one of them was stuck in a scab and needed to be soaked for a bit before she could get it out. Everything we healing up great, though. My dr saw me one more time, and then we were done. I doubt it took as much as 10 minutes, altogether.

This had been the first day I had done more than just go up and down the stairs, though, and I was really surprised by how tired I felt by the time I got to the van (Dh had managed to pull over in a loading zone nearby, so I didn't bother calling him to come and get me). In the drive home, the dizziness was back, and I could feel every pothole and crack in the streets! With how well and quickly the stitches had healed, I somehow managed to forget that the area where George used to be needed healing, too. *L* Once home, I pretty much went straight to bed and slept solid for a couple of hours. Dh worked from home for the rest of the day to be available for me.

Saturday (yesterday) had me feeling a lot stronger, and today I'm feeling even more improvement. I'm almost completely pain free - just the smallest of twinges where George used to be if I over do things a bit. I'm able to do the stairs almost as normal. I still get tired faster than usual and have been feeling the need for naps a lot more often, but otherwise feel great. I still get little reminders that all is not quite back to normal. For example, as I've been writing this, I haven't had to stop and go lie down, as I did in my last post, but I have had to pause, lean back and straighten out my waist to relieve pressure on the area where George used to be. I want to walk, but can't go far without feeling exhausted.

Overall, though, I'm really happy with how my healing is progressing.

I've also felt really comfortable with letting the girls take over around the house. They've done the cooking and cleaning, run what errands they could that don't require driving, and Youngest kept up her guitar lessons as normal.

Eldest is 18 now and Youngest is turning 15 soon. Clearly, they are both quite capable of running a household on their own.

Pre-op preparedness

2011-04-02T15:12:00.003-06:00

My apologies for the lack of posting. As of now, I've had my surgery and am in recovery. Things went well, but it's taken a lot more out of me than I expected. More on that later.

First to back track to the pre-op.

The pre-op and pre-administration took place just under a week before the surgery. It was an early morning thing, at the women's hospital section of our nearby hospital. There were several other women waiting with me by the time a nurse came out with our wrist bracelets. Then the whole lot of us were taken in (Dh had to stay behind in the waiting room at first) to a media room.

Once everyone who was expected to be there was in, we got to watch a 20 minute VHS movie on what to do after surgery to speed recovery from the anesthetic. There was the coughing (to help prevent possible infections or pneumonia) while protecting any incisions we might have, deep breathing, and leg exercises to get the blood flowing, in case there were any restrictions during surgery. It was stressed that we should get up and about as soon as possible, with how to do so safely, again with emphasis to protecting any incisions.

After the video, the nurse that called us in got our heights and weights, then took any paperwork we had. After that, I was led to an examination room while the other women stayed in the media room to see another movie. Once there, I was able to go and get Dh to join me.

We weren't there long before the nurse was back and giving us the lowdown. She spent the most time with us of all. There was a quick run over my paperwork and medical history. I even had to mark on a line drawing of the human body exactly where the surgery was to take place (which made me curious as to what happened in the past to make that necessary). I was reacquainted with what was expected to be done, with a description of a laparoscopy, including being inflated with CO2 and any potential discomfort that might lead to. At best, the gynecologist was expecting to do a single incision in my naval. At worse, I'd have an incision from sternum to pubic bone to remove any oddity they might find. In between were multiple laparoscopic incisions to a "bikini cut" incision for a hysterectomy. Also discussed was the possible D&C. All the bases were covered.

Then we got to what I was supposed to do the day before the surgery. Oh, joy. First, I was given a bottle of enema solution. Yup, the evening before the surgery, I was to give myself an enema. I understand why, but... ick. Then I was given a seal package with an antiseptic sponge. I was to use it to wash my entire abdominal area before heading for the hospital. I was also to start a complete fast beginning midnight before the surgery. No food or fluids of any kind. I already had a date for the surgery, but she gave me the time during this visit. It was for 9:55 am, so a fast from midnight wasn't going to be too big of a challange.

She then described who else was to come in to see me. She was a bit perplexed that I was to have someone from Internal Medicine to come in to see me, as she could see nothing in my paperwork that showed I needed it. All my tests had been coming back healthy. She did mention my weight, though I had assumed it was because she had just weighed me, along with all the other women, a short time ago but Dh said it was suggested as a possible reason for getting a visit from Internal Medicine. I found out afterwards that, based on previous discussions I'd had with him about it, he was actually looking out for when and how my weight would be brought up. I'm glad he did.

Shortly after she left, we got our first visit. An electrocardiogram was to be done. The tech wheeled in the machine and hooked me up to something like 8 wires, including two attached to my legs, just above the ankles. She wasn't with us for long, but long enough to tell us that, according to her printout, I have a very healthy heart.

Next in line was Internal Medicine. She was a very brisk person, and it made for a very short visit. Like the nurse at the start, she was perplexed as to why she was even there, as there was nothing in my paperwork that told her she was needed. Everything was showing normal and healthy (other than the presence of George, of course). Again, she thought it might have something to do with my weight. We had a brief talk about my medical history and past surgeries, almost none of which had anything to do with her department, and then she was gone.

We had a bit of a wait for the next person. Another four vials of blood was taken. That was a quiet one, as she had nothing to ask of me, really. She took the samples, then put a red, waterproof bracelet on me, making sure I knew to leave it there. If it was gone when I came back for my surgery, they'd have to take the samples again. I was quite done with giving blood samples by then, thankyouverymuch!!

Oh, I had forgotten! There was one more blood test the nurse at the start had written me up for.

A pregnancy test!

In the day or two before my surgery, I was to go in to a lab somewhere and get a pregnancy test done, no matter how unlikely the chance of me being pregnant. It was standard proceedure. In asking the nurse, she said that apparently there had been a pregnancy in a patient discovered during surgery. Considering the type of surgery being done, they just don't take any chances. If I forgot to get the pregnancy test done, the surgery would be cancelled. We weren't about to let that happen!

The last person to speak to us was supposed to be the anesthetist. We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, Dh went out to ask if there was a problem. He was told that the anesthetist was called away to an emergency patient. A few minutes later, the nurse came by to let us know that the anesthetist was "upstairs" (in surgery) and that he'd be with us as soon as he could.

We had some time on our hands. I got some good progress on the hat I was crocheting at the time!

Considering why he was called away, I was actually a bit surprised it wasn't longer before he came to see us. He was still in his scrubs and hair cap. He apologized for the delay, then started going over the paperwork. He asked questions about whether or not I had sleep apnea, and if I had any caps, crowns or removable dental work. He was quite happy with my electrocardiogram and the results of my blood work. Then he made a questioning comment about how, other than my weight, of course, my health was excellent.

Uh huh.

Then he was bustling out again. After that, we only had to wait for the nurse to come back and cut off my wrist bracelet (not the red one for the blood work!), and we were done.

On the drive home, we chatted about how it went and Dh pointed out the comments on my weight that I had missed earlier. We found it rather strange that, despite test after test showing how healthy I am, it still was brought up. Strange, but not surprising, I'm afraid. Dh hasn't encountered is as much as I have, so now that he's more aware of it, he's catching on to how it comes up in the oddest of ways, sometimes. It was actually much better than when it usually comes up - no one actually tried to blame anything on my weight. Easy enough, since there was nothing that could be blamed on my weight, other than it being the possible reason Internal Medicine was called in to talk to me.

Overall, they were all pretty excellent in preparing me for all possibilities and making sure I had opportunity to ask questions. They left me with no questions I needed to ask!

After we got home, we had the problem of finding a lab to get my blood test done. Because the surgery was booked for a Monday, we had to find someplace open on the weekends. The lab we usually go do is open weekdays only (though covered by our medicare system, the labs are privately owned facilities. Most of the local ones are part of the same franchise). A friend suggested one place she knew was open on Saturdays, possibly Sundays as well, which was a big help. Normally I wouldn't bother booking an appointment, but considering the necessities surrounding this test, I actually made an appointment. I was able to get one of the few open blocks just before they closed on the Saturday, so that worked out rather well.

That done, it was just a waiting game for the surgery. I will have to write about that later, though. Sitting in a position I can type in gets uncomfortable rather quickly, and I need to move around.

They're gonna do WHAT?

2011-03-20T23:16:00.003-06:00

We've been out and about for the last bit. Time for me to catch up. Some I'll write about in other posts, but before I get to them, I want to follow up on my previous posts.

I got the call from the hospital I was waiting for. My pre-op is booked for Tuesday morning at 8:30am. It'll take a few hours. The surgery itself is booked for the following Monday. I'll find out what time I have to go in during the pre-op, where I will also be pre-admitted. Handy, that. Dh was able to book those days off, plus the day after my surgery, with a tentative extension in the unlikely event that things go wrong. Things are moving along smoothly, and I'm quite happy with how it's all working out.

I spent a bit of time going over the information pamphlets I got from the gyno. They described 3 different possible laparoscopic surgeries, including a hysterectomy.

The one describing the procedure I'll be getting had a few details the gyno forgot to mention. One of them was the inflation. I actually did know that this would be done - an old friend had described her laparoscopy some years back and mentioned it. I had completely forgotten about it, though. I'm going to be pumped full of CO2 so they have room to look around.

It takes a while for the gas to go away on its own.

Joy.

I'd better make sure I bring along some very loose clothing to wear when I'm done.

Then I got to the image in the pamphlet and discovered there was something else the doctor neglected to mention to me that had me spouting come choice words that had the rest of the family wondering what the heck was going on. Seriously?? WTH?!?!

It wasn't the ballooned belly in the image that bothered me. Nor was it the laparoscope through the naval. The second image showing a surgical instrument inserted through another incision didn't bother me, either. Nope.

It was this.

Yeah, that other thing. That thing that looks like a medieval torture device. The thing with the hinge. A friggin' uterine manipulator.

W.
T.
H.

Stick something through an incision in my belly, I've got no problem. Pump me full of CO2? Go for it.

Sticking something through my vagina and INTO my uterus? Then wiggling it around?

THAT gives me the willies.

*shudder*

I know I'm going to be out for this and I won't feel a thing if they do end up using it. It doesn't matter. It's bad enough I've had to put up with all those friggin' pelvic exams. I don't like the idea of someone paying me a visit, shall we say, and I certainly don't like the idea of hosting a guest in my parlor.

Ew.

Ew. Ew. Ew.

Ew.

I really, really hope they don't need to use it. Unfortunately, it's probably likely they will. As my MIL (who has assisted many a surgery in her medical career) told Dh, aging, having children and weight changes has things moving around and settling in places they didn't start out. Considering the difficulty they had trying to find things during the ultrasound, I imagine my bits and pieces have moved around a fair bit. This is normal. It just makes it a little harder on the doctors during surgery.

My MIL had assurances for Dh about the cyst, as well. They're pretty normal and I may have had it for decades. Had George not decided to do the twist, I may never have discovered him. Of course, I told him this as well, but sometimes it helps him to hear it from somewhere else. Hearing it from his own mother, with her background, probably did more to reassure him than hearing it from anyone else.

As for me, I'm looking forward to Tuesday. I'll have to remember to bring my project bag along. I imagine I'll be spending quite a bit of time waiting in between the tests and whatnot they have to do. I've been told it'll be 2 - 3 hours altogether.

I wonder if I'll have a chance to visit a friend who's been stuck in that hospital for a few weeks now? I haven't seen her in a while. A visit would be nice. :-)

Meanwhile, I've been tentatively active. Eldest escorted Youngest to her guitar lesson for me, but I've been able to walk to the library and back without issue, though I do tend to slow myself down. Today I was on my feet a lot more than usual and felt fine until the last leg home. There was just a bit of pulling in the area. Not something I haven't felt before, but now I realize it's George, saying hello.

George, your days are numbered!

The continuing stooooory...

2011-03-13T18:25:00.000-06:00

Ah, finally an almost quiet moment to continue the tale of George.

Which means I expect my husband to come down the stairs, wanting the computer, any moment now. Because that's just the way it seems to go in this household. ;-)

After getting changed and packed up, Dh left me in the waiting room of the emergency while he brought the van around to pick me up. He'd used a parkade this time and, much to his shock, had to pay $25 for the four hours it was there. Keep in mind that, in the downtown parkades a few blocks away, they charge a maximum of $14 or so a day. So that was an unexpected hit. All the hospitals have really expensive parking like this, I've heard, so we knew it would be high, but sheesh!

I was feeling almost normal by then. The last dose of painkillers may or may not have worn off by then. I wasn't feeling any pain, which was the important part. Well enough to leave the waiting room and wait for Dh outside. Ah, sweet fresh air!

Dh dropped me off at home, where Eldest came out to make sure I was able to get up the stairs okay, while he went on to pick up my prescription for painkillers. He was laughing at me about having to take suppositories until I pointed out that he'd be the one ... applying them, shall we say. It's a good thing we buy latex gloves in bulk for when Eldest needs to top up her colour (her hair is bright blue at the moment).

The girls were doing the dishes when I got home (they're so sweet!) and Youngest promptly glommed herself onto me in a giant hug. :-) I spent the next while sitting at the computer, which had me facing the kitchen, and regaled them with all that had been happening in the last while. I also sent emails to family to let them know I was home and telling them more than we could pass on through text messages and facebook status updates. I found out later on that my sister, who is on dial-up and had connection problems for a while, wasn't actually able to get any of the messages I'd sent until I was already home. Dh was home with my prescription soon though. It was covered 100% by his insurance, which was nice.

The family took care of everything for me - including making sure I had something to eat pretty much as soon as I got home. It had been some 18 hours since I'd eaten that lonely little hunk of pork chop I'd managed to have before heading to the hospital. And water. Lots and lots of water. I was feeling pretty dehydrated again by then!

I was completely exhausted. I didn't want to go for a nap, as I figured it would mess up my sleep patterns, but in the end I just couldn't stay away. I made up a pile of pillows so I could sleep reclined, as I had in the hospital, since lying flat even for a little while had caused problems. I slept for a solid four hours. What bliss! No weird guy yelling all the time. No interruptions from people wanting to poke and prod at me. No test after test after test.

I so needed that nap! It ended up not messing me up, either, as I found myself going to bed early, too. Well, early for me, which means at about midnight or so. Dh tried to set up a better incline for me - one that didn't use his body pillows, which he needs because of his back injuries. It didn't work, unfortunately, and I ended up sleeping with Youngest. She didn't mind at all. :-)

The next day, Saturday, I was feeling almost completely normal. The only thing that reminded me of my ordeal was stiff and sore muscles on my entire left side. Go figure! *L* By Sunday, even that was gone!

On the Friday, we called the office of a gynecologist I was recommended to. Actually, Dh tried to call while I was going down for my nap, but they had to talk to me directly. We called a bit too soon, though. They hadn't received my file yet. The receptionist took down my info and said she'd call me back.

That call back came on Monday morning. Early! They had an opening the next morning. Could I come in that quickly? I said yes, of course. The quicker the better, as far as I was concerned. I was surprised to have a 7:50am appointment, though. I'd never encountered a doctor's office that was even open that early before! Our own family doctor's office opens at 9pm, which seems to be pretty standard.

Dh was able to book the time off from work to take me to the appointment. His employers have been so fantastic! Not only were they supportive when he sent an email (from the hospital, via Blackberry) to let them know he wasn't coming in on Friday, but he was assured that he could work from home any time, if I needed him to take care of me. I'm just really impressed with this company and how they treat their employees.

So Tuesday morning had us heading out to the medical centre my gynecologist works out of. It's right near to the hospital emergency entrance, actually. We got there early and Dh dropped me off while he went to find someplace to park that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. Early was good, since I had paperwork to fill out while I was waiting.

When someone came to get me and Dh, we were left in an examination room with instructions from me to strip from the wait down and sit on the exam table. Gotta love those paper blankets they leave to cover up with. :-P Dh and I chattered away while we waited, and I noticed a sign on the wall informing patients that, due to unexpected emergencies, sometimes appointments could be interrupted or delayed, with apologies and thanks for patience in advance.

When the dr finally came in, he was looking over my file and started talking to me about my cyst. I interrupted to clarify that they had determined it was just a cyst. He seemed almost surprised by my question - as if he thought I already knew. He flipped through the pages and told how the four different markers for cancer they'd tested for had all come back negative. It's still possible that George is actually cancer, but at this point that's viewed as unlikely.

(Shortly after the doctor came in, we got a knock on the door and he had to rush off to take care of something. We could see why the sign on the wall we'd been reading was necessary!)

The next step was to give George his eviction notice. I was to get a laparoscopy, which he started to describe in more detail. They'd be making an incision in my naval for the camera and surgical equipment. The cyst and ovary would be removed through the same opening. A sample would be sent for biopsy immediately. If it came back negative, they'd remove the cyst and ovary, close me up and send me home within a couple of hours. If it did turn out to be cancer, they'd make a larger surgical incision to see what they were dealing and remove what had to be removed, which might include the uterus and right ovary as well. I'd be in the hospital for however long it took, after that. Sort of a worst case scenario. Basically, it was what we were expecting to hear.

Then I got another physical exam and pap smear.

*sigh*

Dh just about burst out laughing at my face during the exam. That and the whole shoulder action from the dr. as he put his weight behind it. Ugh. No wonder I always feel bruised afterwards! He was apparently able to feel George right away, though. That made him a first! No other doctor had been able to until then.

I did remember to ask about the other findings of the ultrasound. The gyno at the emergency had mentioned that my uterine lining was unusually thick. Considering I was menopausal, they weren't sure if this was normal for me or not. When I brought it up, the new gyno actually had to go flipping through the pages again to find what I was talking about. Nothing about the uterus had struck him as unusual. Which turns out to be a moot point, actually. Yesterday (4 days after this appointment) I started my cycle - the first in some 8 months. *sigh* I was so hoping to finally be done with those! *L*

As we were chatting with the dr, we called the cyst by name. The dr. got quite the giggle out of it. It wasn't until later on that I clued in. The dr's first name is Jorge.

After the appointment, I had some paperwork to fill out for the hospital. More background info, allergy info, other health problems, if any, and signing that I'd have everything explained to me and understood it. I did have to ask what a "vendor representative" was. The release form stated that, by signing, I was okay to have a vendor representative in surgery with me. Vendor for what? I asked at the desk and the receptionist had to go find someone to clarify, so I guess they don't get that question often. It turns out that, if some new equipment is being used, the maker of the equipment might have someone in the room to make sure the doctors using it didn't have any problems. It doesn't happen often.

I also asked about the possibility of being able to see George. All this time, and I had yet to see anything besides a vague dark shadow on an ultrasound monitor I could barely view. Off the receptionist went again. When she came back, she explained that, because George out be removed in tiny pieces through a tiny hole, they wouldn't be able to get an actual picture of him, but the nurse promised that they would put the pieces kind of together and get a picture of the bits. Good enough for me! :-)

Yeah, I know. It'll be gross. I'm okay with that.

Which leaves me at where I am now. Waiting. I'm to get a phone call from the hospital telling me when my surgery is booked. I haven't got a call yet, but if it take a while, I'll call the gynecologist's office and see if I can get a bee in someone's bonnet over it. George has been served his eviction notice, and although he's behaving himself for now, he's not long for this world. ;-)

If, however, he does decide to take my ovary for another dance around my intestines, I'm to go straight to emergency, and George will be removed immediately.

Although I have no restrictions placed against me, I'm being a lot more cautious in my mobility. So far, I can walk to the library and back without setting George off again (a distance slightly less than the walk I took that triggered all this), though I did find myself slowing down a lot more than usual. The twisting and bending that I always took for granted will also have to stop. I'm going to be a lot more sedentary than I like for the next while, which is irritating.

Not much to complain about, in the grand scheme of things, though.

"Hullo, George."

2011-03-09T03:14:00.000-07:00

Continuing my tale...

I was now into the wee hours of the morning. My pain was under control. Dh had gone home to the girls, and I was more than ready to try and get some sleep.

Of course, there were a number of interruptions. Necessary ones, though, so I didn't really mind.

Having been turned over to the emergency gyno team, one of the team members came by to talk to me. He was actually an intern, working with the doctor heading the team that night. A very young, very soft spoken man with a gentle voice and mannerism. He had a whole lot of questions to ask me, and apologized ahead of time for some that would be of a rather intimate nature. There were the usual questions about my health history; was there any cancer in my family? Diabetes? Heart disease? Did I have any health problems? Past surgeries? (While it seemed odd to have to tell him about an appendectomy that I had 30 years ago, I did make a point of telling him that the dr had removed a cyst off my right ovary at the same time, just because he happened to be in there to see it, and it was unusually large.) Had anything like this ever happened to me before?

Then he had to ask the more personal question. Was there any chance of STDs? Had I ever been tested? How often did I have sex, and did I ever feel discomfort/pain/etc. during intercourse? When was my last menstrual cycle? Was there any possibility of being pregnant? He spent a good, long while with me, talking to me as much as asking the questions. Then he explained that the dr would be coming by later to talk to me and to do a pelvic exam; did I have a problem with that? Or with both of them having to do an exam? Blech. I hate pelvic exams. Not for any reasons of modesty - I assured him I'd lost those sorts of hang-ups long ago! They're just really unpleasant. Under the circumstances, it was rather necessary. He was quite thorough in explaining everything to me.

I had a chance to doze a bit before I was awakened by an apologetic trio who were loath to interrupt my sleep. The intern was back with the doctor and a female nurse to be my chaperon. The doctor was another young guy with a gentle speaking mannerism, though not quite as soft spoken as the intern. There were more questions and clarifications from the doctor, though it was more a matter of me assuring him I understood what was going on so far, and the possible repercussions.

Then it was exam time. Blech.

I made sure to go to the bathroom first.

The purpose of the exam was to find the mass and get a handle on where it was, what it felt like and how big it was. This first involved palpating my abdomen, then fingers reefed around internally while being pressed against from the outside in different areas and asking me if I felt any pain. Aside from being stabbed by fingers, that is. The intern went first, and he was pretty gentle about it. Then the dr had his turn. He was a lot more... thorough. By the time he was done, I was feeling almost bruised, inside and out! Going to the bathroom before the exam had been a very good idea. *L*

With all that, neither one of them could feel the mass, though I could pin point to them exactly where I was feeling the pain, even dulled as it was by the drugs. They talked with me a bit more about the upcoming ultrasound, then they shut off my lights so I could go back to sleep.

Sleep was not yet to come. Between the walk to the bathroom and the pelvic exam, things started acting up again. At first, I just ignored it. It was obviously triggered by walking to the bathroom and the pelvic exam, and I thought it would settle itself outsoon. Instead, it got worse.   Quickly.

Which left me back to my earlier dilemma. Do I nip it in the bud before things get too uncomfortable and ask for painkillers, even though it was still quite bearable? Or do I give it more time and see if it went away on its own? There had already been a couple of times when it felt like the pain was returning, only to fade away again, but this time was already well past previous levels of discomfort.

In the end, it was the speed at which the pain was increasing that decided it for me. Within less than 2 minutes after they left, I was calling the nurse back.   On telling her the pain was coming back, she asked me how, on a scale of 1 - 10, would I rate the pain?

I'd been asked that question several times through all this, and I find it one of the most annoying things to answer. Just how does one determine that? Pain is such an individual thing. I've always had an unusually high pain tolerance - one of the side effects of standard pain killers not working well on me. It makes getting dental work a rather unfortunate experience, among other things. Pharmaceuticals in general just tended to not work properly with me, though that seems to have improved as I've gotten older. Then there's my tendency to avoid using painkillers in general, so I've learned to put up with quite a bit of pain. So my idea of the pain scale was going to be a bit off. As the pain was increasing so quickly, however, I rated it higher than I normally would have. As this nurse hadn't treated me yet, I told her what I'd already had over the evening. At her questioning, I told her that I preferred to stick to the Toradol rather than go back to the morphine, explaining that while I could still feel things going on with the Toradol, I preferred it to feeling nothing at all with the morphine, and fighting the urge to go home. So off she went to check my chart to and get some Toradol.

She came back empty handed. It turned out that I was no longer written up for Toradol. Instead, I was written up for Voltaren. She explained to me the difference between it and the other meds, and why it was considered preferable. That it lasted for a full 8 hours being one of them. Less likely to cause nausea or stomach damage was another. The problem?

It was a suppository.

Eww.

I was told that I could administer it myself, if I preferred. No thanks! *L*

Thankfully, it worked rather quickly, and I was soon happily drifting off.

Then my neighbour, B, started up again.

Most of the time, it was the usual stuff, like body noises. At one point, I could hear someone wheeling around a cart in between sweeping, changing garbage bags, and restocking the rack of things like towels and facecloths, among other things. That rack happened to be located right next to B's room. I guess he had his curtain open or something. He started telling the woman doing her work to go away, come back after he was gone, stop what she was doing. A nurse came by because of the commotion and tried to tell him the woman was just doing what she was supposed to, and that she couldn't stop doing it just because of him.

Other times, he seemed to be giving his neighbour, the guy with 3-4 broken ribs, a hard time. There were a few times I heard him pipe up for B to just be quiet! B didn't appreciate that and would have a little snit.

Still, it wasn't too bad. I actually did fall asleep for a while. It wasn't very long, unfortunately, before I started hearing, "Oh! Oh... yuck! That's disgusting!"

Instantly, I knew exactly what happened. The thought just popped right into my head, without any doubt at all.

Sure enough, I soon heard exactly what happened, as did everyone else in the ward.

B had just shit his pants.

I heard him getting out of his bed, making disgusted noises the whole time, and could see his sneakered feet under my curtain as he shuffled across the ward towards the nurses' station. He then loudly began telling whichever nurse got to him first that he had thought he just needed to fart, but instead he had a squirt.

After a while, the nurse had to tell him he didn't need to be so loud, and remind him that other patients were trying to sleep.

He didn't appreciate that.

He shuffled around, calling out to the nurses, asking if they had any hospital pants he could have. I could hear someone come back and start changing his bedding, and he somehow thought it necessary to explain to this person what needed to be done. He shuffled off to the bathroom, then I could see him shuffling back - this time it was bare feet and bare legs I could see under my curtain - still loudly asking for a pair of pants. They didn't have any, but someone did bring him a pair of disposable underwear. Then I heard someone saying they'd go to the Social Services desk to find him a pair of pants.

He responded by telling her he needed a 32 inch waist and 32 inch leg. No thanks of any kind. Actually, he showed no gratitude at all the entire night, but somehow, the lack of it stood out a lot more this time.

After a while, someone came back with a pair of pants for him in the size he's specified. He was pretty talkative while trying them on, so it wasn't long before we all knew that they didn't fit and could she get him another pair?

Eventually, he was back in his stretcher, and I dared hope to finally get back to sleep.

Yeah, I should have known better. Soon, he started loudly moaning and groaning and calling for the nurse, with everyone being treated to the knowledge that he needed to go to the bathroom and he was afraid he'd shit himself again. The head nurse finally had had enough. When she went to help him, she admonished him for being so loud and keeping everybody up. I must say, she displayed remarkable patience and respect in her tone. I was impressed by it. Before we knew it, he was yelling at her and repeatedly called her a bitch. She promptly went to get security. He managed to get out of bed and shuffle off to the bathroom again. Security was waiting for him by the time he got back. The guard tried to talk to him, but B started yelling at the security guard and claiming that the one particular nurse was treating him so badly, and that she'd refused to put down his safety rail, and that she was trying to kick him out of the hospital (what she'd really said was that he was free to go if he didn't want to be there - it seems he didn't actually need to be there, but they were letting him stay to sleep off his high blood alcohol level that he denied having) then he was crying about how awful everything was, and on and on. Eventually, the guard got him calmed down, but by that point, I was wide awake again.

With all the stuff I'd been hearing from this guy all night, B was clearly someone who could turn it on and off at will. A total manipulator, trying to play different staff members off the other. His lack of success didn't stop him from keeping it up. Things did quiet down again briefly, but this guy just couldn't go for long without finding something else to whine about. This time, it was the lights. He wanted them off. Not his lights. The main lights for the ward. He couldn't sleep with them on - but he didn't want the curtain pulled, either.   After asking several people to turn off the lights and being refused, he tried a different tactic. While talking to one nurse, he started going on about how the hospital depended on staff like her, that she should be able to do whatever she felt was comfortable, that if she was comfortable working with the main lights off, she should be able to do that, and the hospital wouldn't be able to stop her. She emphatically told him she wouldn't be comfortable with the lights off, and neither would the 20 other people working in the ward. That finally got him to shut up about it. Finally... peace and quiet! Finally, a bit of sleep!

Can you guess what happened next?

Yup. It was time for my ultrasound. Someone came to get me just before 7:30 am. B had managed to keep us all up almost the entire night with his antics. I got maybe an hour of sleep after he finally quieted down. Either that or I was so exhausted, I simply slept through anything else.

The timing was perfect, though. I was just being wheeled away when Dh walked in. He stayed in my room and got my phone hooked up to charge for me - I had finally turned it off, as it was almost completely drained. I found out afterwards that he was entertained by B while I was gone. He was sitting and waiting for me when he could see B going by in a wheelchair, dragging against our curtain in the process again. He'd started calling out to the nurses for a sandwich. Most of the daytime shift change had happened, though, so what he got was a bunch of people asking who he was, and why was he there? A nurse that was still there from the night shift came by asking B why he was still there, as he had been released. And why was he in a wheelchair instead of walking? He started claiming that he couldn't walk, and that they couldn't kick him out, and he was taking that wheelchair until his dad came to pick him up (I was surprised by that detail, considering this guy's age) and generally being abusive to the staff.

Emergency room staff deserve medals!

I, however, had other things on my mind.

As I was being wheeled away, I couldn't help but laugh. Chatting with the nurse pushing me, I pointed out the Xray ("been there already") and the CT scan ("been there, too!"). I was getting to know the bowels of that hospital rather well! I was left to wait in a stretcher waiting room for a couple of minutes with one other patient. (After the ultrasound was done, I was left to wait in a different area for a minute or so before being taken by to my room. There I found my neighbour in the emergency ward; the one with th 5mm kidney stone. The poor guy looked so worried and scared! I hope things went well for him.)

The ultrasound tech got me into the room and started the explanation of what was going to be done. It turned out I was getting two different types of ultrasounds. There was the type I was already used to, having had a couple of babies. The other was going to be internal, which was a procedure I hadn't known about. As she started explaining to me how it worked, she told me, "don't worry about the size when you see it. Most of that is handle."

Uh huh. That didn't make me feel any better! The darn thing looked like a futuristic dildo. I was getting more action in one night than I've seen in a long time! Too bad none of it was any fun. :-P

She started me on the jelly belly ultrasound first. Unfortunately, the screen was angled in such a way that I couldn't see it. She did her thing around the area in question, but didn't seem too happy with the images she was getting. She got quite a series of images, though, taking plenty of extras. She could quite clearly see the dark mass in question. I asked her some questions and, while making sure I knew this was her unqualified observation, as it would be up to the specialists to interpret what was there, she said she thought it looked like it was full of liquid. Which was about what I expected, since I felt it was most likely to be a cyst.

Then it was time to do the internal.

After my experience with the pelvic exam, I asked to go to the bathroom first. I didn't need to, but I figured better safe than sorry!

While I was away, she set up the stretcher for me. This involved a triangle shaped pillow with a section removed at the top. I was to lie with my hips at the top, so that my butt was at the cut out section. This was to prevent the bed from being in the way of the ultrasound wand.

Not the most comfortable of positions.

After a bit of privacy to strip down even more than I already was, get on the triangle pillow and cover up with a paper blanket, the tech got me to reach around and insert the idiot thing myself. It made things easier for the patients that way, apparently. I'll take her word for it, since reaching around with my hips up in the air like that wasn't the easiest thing. It did allow her to do what she needed to do without ever having to look under the paper blanket, and I guess that's something a lot of patients would be more comfortable with.

Then she started reefing it.

To think I thought the dr's very thorough pelvic exam on me had been a bit much! She was yanking that thing in directions I didn't realize I could bend in down there! She wasn't just trying to get the affected area. She was trying to get a series of images of the entire area from right to left.

She had troubles finding my right ovary. I'm not entirely sure she ever did.

And yeah, I was very glad to have gone to the bathroom first! She was pressing that thing against some very sensitive areas. It brought back memories of having a baby stomping on my bladder while pregnant.

She was not happy with the images, though, so she left to get someone with more experience than herself - leaving the wand dangling out of me. Ew. The specialist came in and tried to get the images, but wasn't satisfied with what she was seeing, either. They did take images, but she decided to try again with the jelly belly method. Ah, well. So much for my getting all cleaned up from that the first time. It meant they had to get the triangle pillow out from under me, though, and that got a touch awkward. There's just not a lot of maneuvering room on a stretcher. It was worth it, though, as the specialist got a series of images that they were much happier with. Then after she left, the tech took a few more, just to make sure they had a lot of decent quality shots. With the shifting around, I could just sort of see the screen at an angle, but not well enough to make anything out, though I could see the dark mass they were talking about. I think.

After giving me some privacy to clean up and get semi-dressed again, it was back to my room in emergency to wait for the results. Dh was waiting for me and we filled each other in with news. I regaled him with what a lovely night we all had thanks to B, and how glad I was to see that bed empty as I was being wheeled back, he told me about B's attempt to not leave, after all.

I still hadn't eaten anything since late in the previous afternoon, and hadn't had anything to drink since before the CT scan, so I was absolutely famished and thirsty. Dh went to ask if I could finally eat something, but once again I was told no. The reason this time was the possibility of going into surgery after they got a look at the ultrasounds.

Once again, we waited.

It was a surprisingly short wait, all things considered. The doctor came by to explain what they could see - which still wasn't much. They could now say it was attached to my left ovary. They could also tell me that it measured 13 x 11 cm. That's about 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches. Definitely something with some heft to it!

They still couldn't determine if it was cancer or not from just the ultrasound. For that, they would need to take more blood and test for specific markers.

So much for the 7 vials I had taken when I first arrived having "extras" they could use!

He asked if we had any questions, but we didn't have many. There's only so many things it could be, and we were aware of what sort of treatment might be likely. I did have one main question, though.

Would I finally be able to eat and drink?

Nope. There was still a possibility I'd be going into surgery. They needed to spend more time going over my details to decide.

*sigh*

A few minutes after the doctor left, a nurse came by and took another 4 vials of blood from my other elbow for the tests. After she was gone, we had nothing to do but wait.

And wait.

With time on our hands, we discussed the thing that was found. Not knowing if it was a cyst or a tumour, we didn't know what to call it.

I decided to call it George.

Dh thinks I'm silly. ;-)

With the possibility of surgery now in the air, we talked about one problem I was having that I was now seriously considering getting fixed. The IV in my right elbow was an issue. Though I had some movement in my arm, it was severely limited. I couldn't put my glasses on properly, for example, leaving me with one handle resting crooked on my head, making it not only uncomfortable, but affecting my vision. (For the folks who don't wear glasses: If the lenses are not positioned properly on your face, it distorts the vision. Depending on one's prescription, this can lead to headaches, dizziness and nausea. It also can affect depth perception. Not pleasant.) I also couldn't put my hair back up into its clip, so it was constantly getting in my way. Dh had brought my project bag so I could crochet while I waited, but there was no way I could manipulate a hook. Even holding the book he also brought me was more difficult than it needed to me.

Dh went to ask a nurse to come by about the possibility of moving the IV. When a nurse came by shortly after, I explained what I wanted done and why as he looked at the veins in my arm. He suggested that I would still have the same problem if it was in my hand, as my ability to bend my wrist would be affected by the needle. He thought it might be worth moving the IV to the underside of my arm, instead. This area has almost no movement to affect the IV, and it could be taped down quite securely. He offered to give it a try and, if it didn't work, he could still move it to my hand.

I decided to give it a try.

It didn't work.

After inserting the IV needle, he injected a bit of saline solution, as is usually done, but instead of going into the vein, he could see it was going into the arm. He took it back out and bandaged the area for me while we discussed trying on the hand. In the end, I decided against it. Getting yet another poke (I was up to three) and still not being able to use that hand didn't make much sense, so he left it at that.

Shortly after, a different nurse came by saying, "so, someone wants their IV moved?" She didn't know someone had already been to see me about it. We told her what was done and why I'd changed my mind. She took a look at the back of my hand, declared I had excellent veins, and assured us that she could place the IV so that I would have full use of my wrist. With that, I told her to go ahead and do it. It worked just fine, and she was able to tape the tubing down out of the way, too. What a relief! As soon as she was done (and the bleeding was stopped in both the old IV location and the attempt made just before she came in), I immediately put on my glasses properly and put up my hair.

What a relief!!

It's the little things that make me happy. :-D

We were left to our own devices again for a while, passing on information to various family members and letting them know about the possible surgery. After a while, a new doctor came in. She was the day shift doctor for the gynecological team and had just finished going over my file. As she started talking about the object, we told her we named it George. She got a good laugh out of it and referred to it as George from then on. She then told me that some of the new blood tests ordered could take a few days, and that she was recommending I not go for surgery until we got the results back. She asked how I was feeling, and I told her I was feeling great, but I wasn't quite sure if it was because I was actually feeling normal again, or if the drug hadn't worn off yet. She told me that if I did end up going home, they'd make sure I had more of the Voltaren prescribed to me to use as I saw fit - I no longer had any restrictions on the type of painkillers I could use to treat my pain, now that we had a better idea as to the cause.

Which lead me to ask - at 13x11cm, clearly George has been with me for a while. Why would it start causing me problems all of a sudden like that? She wasn't able to give me the exact reason, of course, but the most likely reason was that George got twisted around while I was walking Youngest to her guitar lesson. In doing so, it would have wrenched my ovary and cut off blood supply, which would be extremely painful.

Uhm. Yeah. It was!

As soon as she told me that, though, I suddenly started remembering things. When Eldest and I started going for our mall walks last winter, there would be the odd time when I would feel what I thought was a muscle being pulled in my abdomen. The location of that pain, minor as it was, was exactly where George was found. Then I began remembering other times when I'd been walking, whether it was to the library, while running errands, or just for an outing, I would feel discomfort in the area. It had never been of much concern to me, as the pain was brief, relatively mild, and didn't happen all that often. Except that in the last while, it was happening a bit more often - and sometimes even when I hadn't been doing any walking at all, but just being actively moving around.

Now that George was getting bigger, he was taking my ovary out dancing.

In mentioning that I might not be going for surgery that day after all, I was quick to ask her if it meant I could finally eat! Yeah, I had food on the mind a lot by that point, I was so hungry. After explaining how long it had been since I'd had anything to eat or drink, she left to talk to the rest of the team and get a decision for me. It was only a few minutes before she was back to verify that I would be going home! I only had to wait for the nurses to come and remove the IV (the one I had just had moved to my hand! *L*) and take care of a few other little details, and I was free to go.

Yes!!

Dh immediately went to the nurses station to ask if I could get something to eat. At first he was told no because of the possibility of surgery, as they hadn't been updated yet, so he told her I was now slated to go home. With that being the case, she said, I could indeed eat again!

Not at the hospital, though. Within minutes, I had a nurse back with me, removing my IV and giving me a prescription for the Voltaren. In no time at all, I was getting changed and packing up.

It was time to introduce George to the girls. *L*

.

What Happened Next...

2011-03-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

So there's Dh and I, camped out in the emergency room. The double dose of morphine has done the trick; the pain is gone and, other than feeling exhaustion from several hours of painful contortions, I'm feeling good. Normal, in fact.

This is not a good thing.

You see, I'm the sort of person who loathes going to the dr for much of anything. If it isn't broken or bleeding profusely, I tend to just take care of it myself. Actually, that includes profuse bleeding, but only to a certain point. It's taken me years to get past that, and it's something I still struggle with.

Which means I was starting to think there was no reason for me to be at the emergency anymore. We could just go home. I felt fine.

Dh just rolled his eyes when I told him that.

We stayed, of course. At the very least, we had to wait for the Xray results.

It was an interesting wait.

I did try to doze off while we waiting. I knew I needed the rest, but I didn't want to actually go to sleep, since I figured we either had a lot to come, or we'd be going home soon. That and there were a lot of interruptions preventing any real sleep.

The nurse who'd given me my second dose of morphine had done it just before her shift ended, so that I wouldn't get lost in the shuffle of shift change. Some time later, the new shift nurse came to introduce herself and check on me. My vitals were taken again. Now that the pain was going, my BP and heart rate were back to normal. The nausea and dizziness had disappeared as well. I'd gone through my first back of IV fluids rather quickly, so I was hydrated again and the new bags they gave me were set at a much lower drip. There wasn't much to do at that point. I ended up taking out my phone frequently to check my facebook, answering comments people had left on my status updates as best I could with one thumb - with the IV in my other elbow, I couldn't bend it far enough to grip the phone and use two hands - and doing a bit of browsing online. There were some weird connectivity problems that lead to my status updates being uploaded as many as 5 times in a row, or not update at all due to a lack of connection. Dh's Blackberry was fine, though, so he kept in touch with the girls and, at one point, I even borrowed it to access my own facebook and send more updates. It was the more practical way to let our far-flung family members know what was going on. Our batteries were draining rather quickly, though! *L*

We quickly learned to really appreciated the staff in the emergency room. Those people deserve to be sainted!

The way the ward is laid out, there were 5 "rooms." Three of them were against one wall while the remaining two were on opposite walls facing each other. We kepts our curtain pulled for privacy, but the curtains were about 2 ft short of the floor, so we could still see people's legs moving around. Of course, we could hear everything, too.

There was one elderly woman there that needed some rather gentle care. The nurse found out it was her birthday and offered to get her some celebratory jello. She promised to pass it on to the other staff so that when she was admitted for her longer stay, they would help her celebrate. Meanwhile, the same nurse had to try and explain to another older woman right next to me why, even though she was hungry, the nurse couldn't give her any food because of the tests they had to do. Rather heartbreaking, as the woman seemed to have difficulty understanding and was a bit confused. After a while, a guy was brought in with 3 or 4 broken ribs. He'd actually broken them some weeks ago, but kept rebreaking them while doing things like shoveling snow. *facepalm*

It was the guy in the room directly opposite me that made the evening... most interesting. Not in a good way.

At first, we noticed him because he kept calling loudly for things. A sandwich. A glass of water. Another sandwich. The nurse went past to work with the guy with broken ribs, and this guy was calling out for her, asking her to open his sandwich. Apparently, that was more important than some one's broken ribs. When he got his glass of water, we could actually hear him finishing it off in no time, then call out to some passing staff member for another. I don't know what the staff member was, but he wasn't a nurse and not someone to give patients anything. Then he was calling out for another sandwich because he was soooooo hungry! In fact, he was asking for sandwiches so often, someone finally came and told him he couldn't have any more because they were running out.

And there I was, with my stomach rumbling and growling away, wishing I could eat at all! In fact, I couldn't even drink.

Dh and I chatted, of course, and wondered what would come up on the Xray. The kidney stone possibility was still there, but I didn't think it likely. Which meant it was "something else." There aren't a lot of possibilities. Because the pain was so localized, a few things came to mind. The most obvious, of course, was a cancerous tumour. A cyst was another likely possibility. Less likely was that it was some sort of intestinal blockage. A loop of intestine might have gotten kinked or twisted. The tearing sensation I was feeling could mean... well, that something had torn or ruptured.

I don't remember how long it took, but it wasn't very long before the doctor came back with the Xray results. At least I think it was the same doctor. When he saw me earlier, I was a bit distracted by my contortions. It was some time later that I joked with Dh that I couldn't remember what the dr looked like. Just some vague notion of blonde hair.

The doctor comes in with the results and sits himself down with a very serious expression on his face. The Xrays showed no sign of a kidney stone, nor anything else. It could still be a kidney stone, but the urine test didn't show any sign of one, either. This meant they had to look into other possible causes. Then he sort of braced himself, looked at me directly and said,

"We could be looking at cancer."

To which I replied, "Oh. Interesting." Then I turned to Dh and started cracking some joke. The doctor blinked at me for a bit, then turned to his clipboard saying, "not the reaction I was expecting!" I just laughed and told him I was a very pragmatic sort. The doctor told us the next step was a CT scan of the area, and that they'd be getting it ready for me as soon as possible.

*sigh* So much for being able to eat something!

Which meant we had more time on our hands, waiting. By now it was about 11:30 in the evening, and I'd been there for 6 hours. Sleep sounded like a very good idea! Ah, but it was not to be!

Dh called the kids directly for this, then tried (unsuccessfully) phoning his parents. My own parents, I trusted my other family members inform when and how they saw fit. They need to be handled a little more delicately. Especially my father. The less stress and worry he has, the better, and at this point, we really had nothing to tell anyone besides "not kidney stones."

That meant we got to listen to our neighbour across the way some more! Joy! Not.

This was not a quiet guy, even when he wasn't talking to anyone our calling out for the nurses. There was a continuous stream of burping and farting, moaning and groaning. He kept asking the staff for stuff, as if they were his own personal servants, demanding attention from the nurse even when she was dealing with other patients.

Then he (I'll refer to him as B) started letting out a strange moan. Then another, louder, moan. Before long, he was letting out these long, ululating wails, calling for the nurse, complaining about his IV and that it was burning his arm. A couple of nurses rushed over to him and discovered his IV was no longer in the vein, but in the muscle. Dh and I couldn't help but glance at the IV in my own arm, thoroughly taped down in several places, and realize this was no "accident." We could hear the nurses talking B through what they were doing. The IV nurse got the needle in properly again, and we could actually hear the amount of tape she was using to lash this thing into place. As they were telling him to be careful with it and whatnot, B started getting all indignant at the suggestion that he might have done this himself, even by accident. They tried to be diplomatic in their answers, but really, how diplomatic can you be with something like this?

They were done in no time at all, though, and soon he was left alone. Within a minute, he was moaning and wailing again because the IV was burning. The nurses rushed back and, sure enough, the IV was no longer in his vein. The main nurse was more blunt to him about pulling out his IV, which lead to him loudly wailing and crying and "how dare you suggest I'd do something like this!" He got even more incensed when the nurse mentioned that his blood work showed that he was inebriated (like that was a surprise!), which had him protesting loudly that he'd only had a glass of wine with lunch, and how could she possibly suggest that he was drunk. Then he started calling her stupid, which she shut down rather quickly.

They ended up taking out the IV completely and leaving him without.

I'm not sure this was a good thing, because now he was free to move around. We could see which pair of legs under the curtain was him by the jeans and shoes (the only patient not in a hospital gown) and the shuffling. Other times, we saw him go by in a wheelchair, pulling himself forward with his feet, frequently brushing into our curtain on the way to his own room across from us. That had to take some doing, really, considering the layout of the place. We were also treated to the constant calling for painkillers. Very specific painkillers. We heard a lot of nurses diplomatically saying they had to ask the dr before they could give him anything. We also got to hear about all the other drugs he was apparently taking as much as 3 times a day - but hadn't taken at all in the last 10 months.

We learned more about this guy's medical history in a couple of hours than I know about most of my family put together! It was a constant litany of complaints, body noises and whining.

As you can imagine, I didn't get much sleep.

At some point, the older woman in the room next to me was gone and guy of about middle age was soon installed. I really felt for this poor guy when I heard the doctor telling him he had a 5 mm kidney stone. No whining and complaining from him, but we could hear from his voice that he was terrified, as I could also see from the few glances I got of his face in between the curtains.

We found it sadly amusing that the loudest complaints were coming from the one person who seemed not to have any injuries at all.

Throughout all this, we had things pretty quiet. Dh did go out and see if I could at least have something to drink, only to be told that, because of the CT scan, they couldn't let me eat or drink anything at all.

*sigh*

I had managed to actually doze off when they finally came to get me for the scan. With all the stuff going on around us, it felt like we'd been waiting for ages, but in reality it was less than an hour. A porter came to wheel me off down the hall where a tech was waiting for me. I was asked if I had a full bladder or not, as it turns out I needed one. Having already given a urine sample and not being allowed to drink anything, I had nothing. I was sure glad to finally be allowed to drink something, even if it meant I had to drink a lot in a short time! The porter had to leave, so the tech gave me a big glass of water (think of a disposable glass from a fast food place that can hold a litre), then wheeled me to the entrance of the waiting room that was there, so I could watch some tv. The Daily Show was on, (Do people really think this guy is funny?) so she gave me the remote so I could watch whatever I wanted. I ended up watching Ace of Cakes and ended up drinking almost 2L of water. My bladder may not have been full yet, but my stomach sure was, and it would have to do!

The first thing I noticed when she wheeled me into the room was the COLD! It was absolutely frigid in there! The machine itself heats up a lot inside, so they have to keep the room colder than normal. I was able to get myself onto the scanner bed. I had to lie flat on my back with my arms above my head. The test is a lot like the MRI, except the machine is amazingly quiet. I was surprised by the lack of noise, actually. The scans were a lot faster, too. Much appreciated, considering I had to hold my breath for them. The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes.

As fast as it was, my insides were definitely not happy with lying on my back like that! While lying on the scanning bed, it felt like something was being yanked inside me. By the time the scanning was done and I had to go back to my stretcher, things were starting to twinge and spasm a bit. Because of the cold, the tech was a sweetheart and wrapped me up in a blanket fresh from the warming shelf and made sure my stretcher was back in a slightly upright position to help relieve the pain that was starting up in my abdomen, then wheeled me back to my room in the emergency. Normally a porter does that, but the scan was over so quickly, she wasn't back from her break yet. The tech wasn't used to handling a stretcher, and this one was giving people steering problems all night. She managed to get me back without incident until the very last moment, when she accidentally backed me hard into the wall! *L*

With the nice, warm blanket around me, I felt my insides relaxing a bit, but after all that water, I soon had to get up and go to the bathroom. My dancing partner had been left behind somewhere, so Dh got a nurse to bring one over for me. After walking to the bathroom and back, however, things were kicking in again. Walking definitely was a trigger, and lying flat on my back seemed to be as well. I hoped it would go away, but it was quickly getting worse.

Dh got the nurse over and we talked about it with her. The pain was still bearable, but quickly getting worse. I wasn't yet sure if I wanted to take more morphine so soon, and wasn't sure it was bad enough to warrant it. In the end, I was given some Toradol. It didn't work as quickly, but it's longer lasting.

Now, it was back to waiting, and being "entertained" by the antics of B. By this time it was about midnight or slightly past. I was actually able to doze off a bit while we waited. The Toradol did the trip. What I appreciated most was that, while I felt no more pain, I could still feel *something* going on. This meant I wasn't going through the idiocy I did with the morphine, where I was feeling nothing at all and thinking of going home!

It was maybe an hour before the doctor came back with the results. It was definitely NOT a kidney stone. That was the only thing they could say for sure. What they could see was a large, dark mass around my fallopian tube, but they couldn't tell what it was.

Because of where it was, I was going to be transferred to the care of the emergency gynecological team (I had no idea emergency wards would need such a team!). The next step was an ultrasound, which they would do in the morning. It was about 1- 1:30 am by now, and I would definitely be staying the night.

I still wouldn't be able to eat, nor would I be able to have anything to drink again.

*sigh*

After the doctor left, we passed on what news we could and Dh packed up to head home. He'd been able to keep the girls updated by texting them as we got news, at least. This was definitely a time for us to appreciate how independent and responsible our girls are! At no point did we ever worry about them being able to take care of themselves. We just weren't completely sure how they were handling what little news we could pass on to them.

Then he was off for home, and I was left to - hopefully! - get some much needed sleep!

Not that my chances for it were very good. ;-)

.

An Adventure in pain!

2011-03-05T15:54:00.010-07:00

Ah, the things life throws at you.

Thursday afternoons, Youngest has guitar lessons. Handily, her lessons are at a nearby university's conservatory of music, and only about a 15 minute walk from home. Though her lessons are at 2:30 in the afternoon, she and I have been walking over to arrive a half hour early because of the rather severe cold we've been having lately. I have no idea if it's necessary, but the idea of going from -20C to being used at room temperature is something I don't think is very good for a guitar. So we leave early and try to remember to have something along to keep us occupied. For me, that means my crochet project bag.

As her teacher wasn't able to make her lesson the previous week, this past Thursday was to be an hour long instead of half an hour. I had a light lunch - just a couple of pieces of toast and half an avocado - then we left early enough to arrive at 2:00. By the time we got there, my insides were feeling decidedly uncomfortable. I figured a trip to the bathroom was in order, but it didn't seem to help much. We sat ourselves down in the waiting area and I broke out my crochet. Soon I was squirming around, trying to find some way to sit comfortably. Though the general pain was intestinal and included most of my left side, the source was very specific. I remember mentioning to Youngest that, had it been on my right instead of left, I would have thought it was my appendix - except I don't have one.

Her lesson started off as usual, and I kept trying to crochet. After a while, I found myself getting up and trying to walk off the discomfort a few times. Then I'd sit for a bit and try and crochet, but couldn't keep it up. By about 3, I was texting Dh about the possibility of a ride home. He was home from work because of his back and I knew heading out would be very painful for him, but by that point, I realized any attempt for me to walk home would be extremely painful.

I'm glad I asked for a ride.

By the time 3:30 rolled around and Youngest's lesson was done, I was having difficulties standing up straight. Usually, we take our time packing up, getting our coats on and heading out. Instead, I already had all our stuff packed, my own coat on, and barely have her time to put on her own coat before we headed for the elevators. I was decidedly hobbling by then.

Dh had some issues finding where we were in the van - he'd only ever gone there by bus from the other direction, and the road is one of those one way streets where the entrance is easy to miss. Youngest ended up holding on to my project bag for me, keeping a lookout for Dh, while I hobbled over to a window ledge so I could lean against it and breath my way through the pain. Getting into the van was a bit of a challenge, too.

Once home, I went straight into a hot bath, thinking the heat might give some relief.

It didn't.

Strangely, through all this pain, I was still able to feel hungry. Aside from the toast and avocado I'd had before we left for the lesson, I'd only had a cup of tea and a cookie all day. While still in the tub, Youngest brought me what was handy - a porkchop on a fork. *L* It didn't really take the edge off my hunger, but with the increasing pain, I didn't try to eat anything else.

After my attempt at a bath, I tried lying down, only to discover I couldn't. Lying on my back was out of the question, but whichever side I tried to lie on, it felt like something was pulling and tearing at my insides. I found myself writhing around from position to position - some of them getting decidedly pretzel-like! - and breathing away the pain. It reminded me of some of the stuff I did while in labour, except more painful. I did take some pain killers after my attempt at a bath; a double dose of extra strength Advil, to no avail.

We were at a loss as to what was wrong. Was it cramps? Gas? The world's worse case of constipation? We couldn't figure it out. Dh thought it might be kidney stones, except that primary source of the pain was in the front instead of the back. Finally, I threw in the towel and told Dh to drive me to the emergency. I mentioned to Dh along the way that, if it did turn out to be nothing more than massive constipation, I wouldn't be the least bit embarrassed to have gone in, for the amount of pain I was feeling! It was worse than 71 hours of labour. Worse than giving birth to a 9 pound baby. I've endured extreme pain a few times over the years, and this blew them all away.

When we got to the hospital, the entrance to the emergency was different from what we expected. Rather than a drop off area, there were automatic doors for vehicles to drive through - and there were three ambulances in there, with no way for him to go in one way and out the other. So I got out of the van and hobbled in while he went to find somewhere to leave the van.

Walking in was truly interesting. By this time, my entire left side was pulled into itself. I couldn't straighten my left leg, so I hobbled and lurched my way to the triage nurse. I made a point of having my health care card handy, since I wasn't sure how well I could talk. The nurse had her back to me at first. I must have been quite the sight when she turned around, leaning against the counter with one arm, the hand rail below it with the other, and making weird breathing noises through my teeth in between sudden spasms that had me crunching around my left side even more. My hand was shaking massively as I handed her my card and stammered out as best I could, what was happening to me. She was actually able to take my BP and hook a sensor up to a finger while I was at the counter while she plugged in my card number and started a file. I was in the middle of that when Dh walked in, so he was able to help me to a chair when she was done with me.

The waiting room was pretty full, though I have only a vague notion of lots of people around. I wasn't really seeing straight. I tried sitting, squirming around, twitching and spasming. Every now and then I had to stand up, turn around, and jam my left knee onto the chair seat while hanging onto the hand rests. While I was doing that, Dh was called to one side to finish up my paperwork for me. Handy, that. If it had been just me, who knows when it would finally have been done! *L* After a while, I started to feel nauseous and dizzy from the pain, while still feeling hungry! What a contradiction of sensations. It was like having menstrual cramps, constipation, diarrhea and muscle tears all at once, with nausea, dizziness and hunger to top it off.

I have no real idea how long we were in the waiting area, but it wasn't long. We had a different nurse let us know that I was next and they were preparing a stretcher for me. When another nurse came to get me, she asked if I wanted to walk or take a wheelchair. With my inability to sit properly, I chose to walk.

"Walk" being a very loose description of what I did.

At first, I was hanging on to both Dh's arm and the nurse's as I lurched along like something out of a horror movie. Things got a bit too narrow for the three of us and, since I had no clue where we were going, I let go of Dh so he could follow behind. A couple of times the nurse tried to comfort me by saying we weren't in any hurry and I could slow down. I was completely incapable of telling her that I wasn't actually rushing. It was just the spasms causing my left leg to yank up, and the rest of my body trying to compensate for it.

We got to the waiting stretcher soon enough. The nurse started to tell me to lie down, but quickly amended it to "however you feel comfortable." I was given a gown to change into and some privacy. I don't know how I could have changed without Dh to help me! I found myself on the left side of the stretcher, standing on my right leg with my left knee contorted onto the stretcher, left hand jammed into my left side while my right hand was braced on the stretcher. This came in handy when the nurse (or was it a different one?) came in and was able to use my right arm to take my BP and heart rate again. I did ask what the readings were, but I don't remember the BP numbers right now, other than they were higher than any reading I've ever had before. My heart rate was at 110.

We were left for a while again and I kept having to move and shift into different position. At one point I was on the right side of the stretcher, sitting with my left leg on the stretcher and twisted into some sort of pretzel shape, right leg braced on the ground. It was about then that a nurse came in to stick an needle in my right elbow, take 7 vials of blood for testing (she explained she was taking more than needed, in case more tests were needed later, so they wouldn't have to do it again). Then she put me on IV. I was pretty dehydrated by then, not to mention light headed from both the amount of blood taken and from hyperventilating through the waves of pain. How I managed to keep my arm still enough for her to insert the needle while twitching and squirming, I don't remember. I do know I went through that particular bag of fluids rather quickly, and Dh let me know that he could actually see in my face that it made a positive difference.

Somewhere through all this, my own responses to the pain changed. While still in the waiting room, the pain made my eyes water enough that I was pretty much crying and in need of nose blowing. It's rather difficult to blow one's nose while writhing and spasming. This changed some time after I got to my room in the emergency (each "room" in the wards consists of a stretcher, necessary equipment, a chair and one of those tables that can go over the bed, and a curtain for privacy). I found myself being rather angry, with more than a few choice words escaping my lips during the spasms. Dh commented on my looking ready to kill something and I joked about making angry faces at the pain. The nurse taking blood at the time asked me if that helped and I told her that yeah, it actually did! *L*

I can't quite remember the proper sequence of the next few things. I do know that, after the IV was placed, I got a visit from the doctor working the emergency room that night. I was back on the left side of the stretcher again, doing some weird contortions and making my angry faces. The doctor took my blood pressure and heart rate again and asked me a bunch of questions. He said that, based on my level of pain and how localized it was, their thought was that it might be kidney stones, and that they wanted to do Xrays. If it wasn't kidney stones, then they'd have to explore other options. I think it was just after he left that a nurse came in with some morphine.

Now this was a strange thing! I've never had morphine before. She warned me as she was prepping (and making sure I was actually lying on the bed - this was not a time for me to be even partially standing!) to inject it into the IV that I might feel a burning sensation and possible nausea. She did know I was already feeling nauseous. At this point, I guess it was a good thing I hadn't eaten much.

When the morphine was injected into the IV, the affect was instantaneous and incredibly weird! There was this strange wwwhhhoooossshhh feeling in a wave that radiated from my arm across my body. Then the nausea hit. Dh and the nurse quickly got one of those kidney shaped disposable bowls handy for me. Thankfully, I didn't need to use it. I don't imagine it would have been the same if I'd had a meal earlier!

The pain just melted away. With it went the nausea. All of it.

What an incredible relief! Slowly, I was able to straighten out my left leg, then at the waist. I could breath normally again!

That's some gooooodddd stuff!

This made waiting for the Xray much more pleasant! I even got to dose off a bit, under the watchful eyes of Dh. I remember lying there, drifting off, then opening my eyes to find him leaning against the side rail, staring at me intently. I'd start laughing at him and we'd crack jokes about the joys of morphine or some such, then I'd drift off again.

Then it was time to go for the Xray. Someone did ask if I wanted to walk or get wheeled over. With the morphine, I figured walking wasn't a good idea. Somehow, I assumed that by "wheeled over" they meant in a wheelchair, so I was getting all ready to get off the stretcher. Turned out they meant the stretcher itself. One of those "duh" moments, but hey... I was stoned!

Off I was taken to Xray. For that, I did get off the stretcher and stood up. It went by quickly - I just had to lean forward against the machine for one, turn around for the other, then it was back in the stretcher to wheel me back to my room in the emergency. Just getting in and out of the stretcher woke up some discomfort, though. My insides were definitely starting to talk to me.

Once back in my room, a nurse came by to tell me they needed a urine sample to test for kidney stones. My IV bag was hooked up to my dancing partner (my term for the IV pole) and I was able to walk to the bathroom around the corner. There, they had a basket full of sample bottles and another of wet wipes. I was to use a wipe on myself, then get a mid-stream sample.

Have you ever had to give a mid-stream urine sample? It's difficult enough for a female to provide a urine sample without pissing all over the place. For this, I had to let 'er rip for a couple of seconds, stop peeing, position the bottle, then continue taking a leak. Blech.

I had to use a few extra wet wipes. And wash thoroughly. And wipe the drips off the floor.

I hate giving urine samples.

Walking back to my stretcher, however, my insides started acting up even more. As I lay down, I mentioned it to Dh (who, by the way, was continually keeping the kids updated by texting them on his Blackberry). Within a minute, I was starting to squirm again. Within two, I was having to breath through the pain while writhing. Dh had already gone to tell someone the pain was coming back, so when a nurse came in, she already had another dose of morphine ready.

By this time, it was clear that the walking was a trigger of some kind. Things were moving around in me. Whatever they were, it was causing me a lot of pain. Enough pain that my first dose of morphine wasn't enough. She quickly gave me a second dose.

This time, I figured the wave of nausea would be worse, so the puke dish was already handy. It wasn't necessary. I still got that massive wwwwhhhoooossshhhh across my body, but it felt slightly different than the first dose, and had no accompanying nausea at all.

The second dose did the trick. Finally, the pain was gone.

After that, all we could do was wait.

Unexpected awesomeness

2011-01-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

I love it when plans turn out so much better than expected!

Our city has a number of winter festival events going on. Most of the time, we ignore them. It's cold, there's lots of crowds, and the entertainment events are usually not the type we like. For those farther away from us, there's the added irritation of either driving and finding parking, or taking transit that may or may not actually go anywhere near the event.

One of the handy things about these events, however, is that a prime location for them is just a few blocks from us, across the street from our local library. During a recent outing to the library with Eldest, we saw things were being set up in the square, so we checked it out before heading home. We found a sign that piqued our interest enough to look it up on the city's website and decided that we might actually want to check it out, if only to hear the choir. There was supposed to be some kind of circus thing going on, which we were curious about, but that's about it. We're not big circus fans, except maybe Cirque du Soleil. There was mention of pyrotechnics worked into the show, and past glimpses of that sort of thing had left us unimpressed.

It was a bitterly cold night when we headed out. We didn't bother being there for the start and just made sure we were in time to hear the choir. They were fabulous! We had only a vague idea of what to expect based on the descriptions. The choir was put together for this event only, and was made up of some of the best singers of other local choirs. Having enjoyed listening to some of these choirs, we knew it would be good, and we weren't disappointed. We've got some really great singers in our city! One of the songs, which was something like 10 minutes long, did drive a few listeners away, though. Part of that could be blamed on the sound system, though! Especially when the sopranos kicked it up a notch. I think they could have done with the microphones quite a bit farther away from them, but with the space they were using, that wasn't exactly an option.

There was other entertainment besides the choir, including actors in character wandering around the square. After the choir, though, we had about an hour before their second performance, in connection with the circus thing. So we went to the library's coffee shop for some hot drinks, bypassing another shop right on the square that looked absolutely full. Glad we went when we did, because it didn't take long for the coffee shop to be overflowing with people coming in to warm up with some hot drinks! When we finished and got up to leave, a guy with his two small children saw us and sent them over the grab the table right away. Good thinking, on his part! Not that there were enough seats for all three of them to sit, but better than nothing! *L* What a crowd!

Then it was off into the cold again. We eventually figured out where the choir was going to perform again and managed to be right in front. They did their one song, then the all turned around to grab lanterns on poles behind them and wandered off into the crowd. Then the circus thing started.

There was a main stage set up behind where the choir sang, and during their song we did see costumed performers gathering on the side, then moving around someplace else. I still expected the show to be on the main stage. I was completely wrong! Instead, there were a series of stages, with the performers leading the crowd from one to another, pausing for a brief show before moving on to the next. There was a giant tricycle, flames, explosions, fireworks, clowns, stilt walkers and aerial displays, all set to just the right music for the performances. The entire crowd was led from staging area to staging area (Eldest and I eventually got separated and didn't even try to find each other again until the end of the show - though Youngest would have loved it, the crowd along would have prevented her from actually enjoying the show). I'm usually don't enjoy shows that attempt audience participation; they tend to be very uncomfortable and forced, I find. Not this time! The audience participation was enthusiastic. Clearly, the people around has hadn't known what to expect any more than we did, and they were all eagerly moving to each event, looking forward to what would be waiting for them.

The procession of performers eventually came back to the main stage for the finale, which involved more flamed and fireworks and ended with an amazing aerial display of pyrotechnics surrounding the aerial performer. It was absolutely fantastic!

All in all, Eldest and I were outside for about an hour and a half for this. It was so cold, my camera batteries kept dying and I had to shove the camera under my coat and into my armpit to warm it up enough to take a few more shots. I took more video than stills, actually. I spent most of the time with my camera held up high, hoping it was pointed in the right direction, because I couldn't really see all that much. What is it with tall people that insist on pushing themselves to the front? It seemed that every time the procession stopped for a show, some big guy would end up right in front of me, sticking his head into my camera view. I'd move to the side... the head would move to the side. I'd move to the other side... the head would move back in front of me. It's not like they could see me trying to take photos behind them and were doing it on purpose, but geez! What an annoyance. *L*

Still, the show was so fantastic, it didn't matter. We were totally blown away with awesome. Then we ducked into a nearby theatre to warm up while I called Dh for a ride home! Sure, we could have walked home in just a few minutes, but after so much time outside, I figured warming up was more important.

And to think that, because of the cold and my usual distaste for crowds, I was thinking it would be no big deal if we just stayed home, instead. I'm glad we made the effort to check it out. It was absolutely worth standing out in the cold to see!

Books, books, books... and movies, and cds...

2011-01-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

Gosh, it's been ages since I posted here! I've been posting on my other blog, plus Eldest and I have something in the works that will be coming live soon, but this poor, sad little blog is being neglected. *sniff* It's getting to the point that I don't know quite where to start anymore.

So I'll start with a library list. Our weekly library trips aren't quite as regular - Eldest tends to go several times a week, these days, and a few times they've had regular library day, but I've had to stay home for one reason or the other. So we've got plenty to list, I just haven't gotten to it.

For new stuff we got today, Youngest took out:

Dragons: a natural history
Kings, beasts and heroes
The Resistance (CD)
Showbiz (CD)

She's gone through most of the folklore and mythology section, but found a couple she hadn't taken out before. She's not too impressed with the dragon one so far. Mostly, it's the tone of the writing, as it's rather condescending towards dragon mythologies. A pet peeve of hers when it comes to books exploring mythology.

Eldest, meanwhile, has taken out:

Polka's not dead (CD)
Alice (DVD)
Memento mori (DVD)
Vampire knits: projects to keep you knitting from twilight to dawn
Expletive deleted: a good look at bad language
The case for relgion
The twilight of atheism: the rise and fall of disbelief in the modern world

While sitting at Second Cup after getting our books, we were going through the Vampire knits book. Oh, the horror! The projects are great, but... well, let's just say we're NOT Twihards and leave it at that... ;-)

On my talke out list today, I've got:

The faith of the centure (DVD about communism)
Chicago (1927 silent film)
A guide to making guantlet mitts (teacher's resource)
Cultural accents

Other stuff we still have lying about from recent library trips include:

Batman, the animated series (DVD set, first season, if I remember correctly - Youngest had put it on hold)

Darling, maybe someday (CD)
I love the Escarpment (DVD)
The battle (CD)
Blank unstaring heirs of doom (CD)
The legion sessions (CD)
In the noise (CD)
Deadmalls & nightfalls (CD)
Visiter (CD)
Spelled in bones (CD)
Vanguard of the young and reckless (CD)
Oh little fire (CD)
Blind man on a flying horse (CD)
Dark shades of blue (CD)
Flying upside down (CD)
Release the sunshine (CD)
Lost channels (CD)
Omnibus (CD)

Yeah, that's a lot of CDs! Eldest has taken to searching through the library website for interesting sounding music and putting lots of stuff on hold. She actually maxed out her hold limit with mostly CDs! Then she listens to them all fairly quickly. With a stack like this, she considers herself fortunate to find 2-3 discs of music she actually likes, and as often as not, just one good song on each of those.

Terribly happy (DVD)
A tale of two sisters (DVD)
The city of violence (DVD)

Edlest has also taken to watching foreign horror movies. There's some very strange stuff out there!

Millennium actress (DVD)

This Japanese animation is one that's been taken out a couple of times already. The first time you watch it, it's very confusing. Then, after you see the very end, the whole thing just falls into place with a shock. Then you watch it again, knowing what happens in the end, and the whole thing is less confusing, yet more heartrending. It's worth hunting down.

I don't believe in atheists
The Devil's delusion: atheism and its scientific pretensions

These two books are research material for Eldest and I. The first one got returned today, unfinished. We really didn't like the author and a lot of what he was saying was basically BS. The Devil's delusion, on the other hand, is one we're passing back and forth and reading with interest. The author's writing style is much more enjoyable, for starters, and he makes a much better case for his arguement. Worth reading.

The G.O.D. experiments: how science is discovering God in everything, including us

Another research piece, I actually haven't had time to start reading it yet.

Perfect Blue (DVD)
The book fo the dead (DVD)
The ossuary and other tales (DVD)
The vanishing (DVD)
Tell me something (DVD)

I'm not sure how many of these actually got watched before they had to be returned. :-P

There's more, but I think that's enough of a list for now!

All is quiet on the Western front...

2011-01-05T13:56:00.002-07:00

... but not so quiet in the East. ;-)

We're just wrapping up our Christmas season, as tomorrow is Three Kings Day. Posts might still be a bit light, however. Eldest and I are putting something together right now, but it won't be officially up until the "foundations" are laid.

Thanks for your patience.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

We're in the middle of preparing our Wigilia feast, which seems to be turning out quite wonderfully. The house smells marvelous, and I can't wait to try that goose!

I'd like to take a moment in the middle of all the preparations to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May Christmas be a day of joy and contentment, and may 2011 be a year of health, happiness and prosperity for you and yours.

Almost ready!

2010-12-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we're almost ready for our Wigilia! The tourtierre are done. We may pick up a few last minute gifts. Otherwise, I've done my wrapping, though the girls have some to do. The goose is thawing out right now, and the rest of the groceries needed will be picked up on the 23rd and the 24th will be spent preparing.

In deciding on a menu this year, we've decided to cut things back a little, even though we've got a 5th person joining us this year. We have a tendency to produce a huge menu that would feed an office party rather than just ourselves. *L* We've dropped the cheese and soup courses completely.

This is what we've decided on for this year.

Appetizers:
Bacon and Cheddar devilled eggs
Fruit plate
Baguette

Salad:
Greek salad
Caesar salad
(we're doing two, as Youngest and I don't like some of the ingredients of a Greek salad, but Dh and Eldest love it)

Entree:
Roast goose, basted with orange juice and red wine (no stuffing)
Tourtierre
Cheesy mashed potatoes
Broccoli, Julia Child's style

Dessert:
Whatever tempts us at the bakery

Drinks:
Cranberry punch (cranberry juice, ginger ale and frozen berries)
Wine; probably a red, but whatever strikes our fancy

Yeah, we're "cheating" with some things. The fruit plate will be something pre-made at the grocery store, and I'm quite content with their bakery offerings. The rest won't require a lot of time or attention. Even the goose won't need a lot, once it's in the oven. The less time spent tending pots and pans, the better! Eldest will be doing the salads and the broccoli. We don't usually cook broccoli, but when I did, I usually either steamed or stir fried it. After watching a Julia Child episode, Eldest was inspired to try out the method (first cooked covered in a small amount of water, then pan fried in garlic and butter). It is SO incredibly good.

I think I'll need to take out those Julia Child dvd's again. We could use some kitchen badassery.

Before I head to bed...

2010-12-19T03:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm happy to say today's cooking of the tourtierre filling went quite well! Aside from tormenting my eyes with a dozen onions, everything went quite smoothly. After peeling the onions (and keeping the skins for dying eggs at Easter) I had to take a break. Eldest was kind enough to premeasure all the spices and herbs for me while I did, then youngest took care of putting the 24 cloves of garlic through the press for me. I prefer the pressed garlic over the minced garlic for these.

The cooking was actually done by about 6 pm, though it took quite a while longer before it was cool enough to set the pot outside. It was still quite warm, actually - warm enough that I think it would have melted the snow I put it in and we'll be having to yank it loose from ice tomorrow - but it should be okay.

You know, we'd never be able to do this sort of thing any other time of year! For the number of pies we make (I got 24 pounds of meats this year, which should be about 20-22 pies), unless we had a chest freezer, we'd have some serious concerns about safely storing the filling until it cooled down completely. Being able to put the entire pot (or pots, as we've done in the past) outside in temperatures below freezing works out rather well. Then, on baking day, the pies get moved through a series of cooling areas before finally ending up outside. In the end, after they're wrapped up in foil, we put them outside to freeze, leaving them stored in a sealed bin. Without a freezer bigger than whats on our fridge, outside is the only place we can freeze and store them!

We need to decide on our menu very soon. Aside from a goose and tourtierre, we haven't really thought about it. It should be fun!

Before I head off to bed, though (seeing as how it's past 2:30 am as I write this), here are a few photos of this year's Christmas decorations on our tree.

This one was made using glow in the dark yarn and some gold metallic crochet thread twisted together as I wrapped it. The centre is a mostly hidden flower cut out from some scrap booking paper. The stamens are highlighted with gold glitter glue, applied with a fine tipped paintbrush.

This one is made with some leftover alpaca yarn and silver metallic crochet thread. The centre is some blue card stock with a glittery finish, a self adhesive gem and some silver glitter glue to add some extra sparkle.

We made a total of about 30 of these, each one different from the other. Three of them were wrapped "backwards" for an effect I think I actually prefer. I wish I'd thought of it earlier. As it was, I seriously considered cutting out more forms (rather than gluing two squares of cardboard together, as per the instructions at the site I linked to, I cut the start out of foam core) to do more. In the end, I decided we already had more than enough.

We've got so many decorations now, even considering how many we give away every year, we can't fit them all on the tree! I really like our busy, eclectically decorated tree. :-D

Tourtierre weekend

2010-12-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

This is our weekend for making tourtierre. I picked up the meats yesterday. Most of it was frozen (the butcher shop slowly filled my order over the space of a week as supplies came in), with the ground turkey finished up shortly before I arrived to pick it up. I got our Christmas goose at the same time, which will stay in the freezer for a while longer. At about $90 for a 10-12 pound bird, it had better turn out! LOL

Right now... I'm procrastinating. The dishes are done, but the kitchen isn't anywhere near ready. I need clear stuff away to make room for prep and the food processor. Everything still needs to be wiped down. The stock pot still needs a scalding and rinse, since it's been in storage since the kids used it to make apple juice. Of course, there's also a long list of things that also needs to be done, but no one's doing it and I have no energy to nag at people to do what should be obvious. I've got a mild cold - not enough to be much a problem, but enough to make me reserve what little energy I have to things that won't drive me nuts.

What I really want to do is crawl into a corner and nap for a week.

*sigh*

Time to hit the kitchen. Wish me well.

A few brief moments...

2010-12-13T12:57:00.001-07:00

It's becoming increasingly difficult to find uninterrupted time to write! I've got a few brief moments now, but from the sounds of things, they won't last long, so we'll see how much I can catch up.

Though I haven't been putting up any library lists lately, it's not for lack of going to the library! Eldest has been going several times a week, sometimes a couple of times a day, even after completing the studies she was working on. As I write this, she and Youngest are there right now and I've got an open invitation to join them for coffee later on, if I want. The branch we use has a Second Cup in the same building, next to their little free art gallery. It's been a great place to get some quality time in together while having all sorts of discussions and doing some people watching, too.

Sadly, in noting the time, I won't be able to join them today. As soon as I finish this, I need to get a stew going. Ah, well. Maybe this evening. :-D

Dh, meanwhile, is home sick today. He seems to have finally caught the stomach bug I suffered with not that long ago. I hope that's not it, because whatever bug I caught, it seems to have completely messed up my digestion on a long term. I'm guessing it effected my intestinal flora in a bad way, because even though I'm feeling fine now, no matter what I eat or how little, I've been suffering from bloat ever since. Dh has enough problems without that on top of it! Either way, he's just gone back to bed.

Raider King is still living with us. He's still looking for work and has a job interview coming up, which is encouraging.

As a family, we're slowly trying to get ready for Christmas. This year's Christmas decorations are based on these instructions. They went over so well that both girls ended up making some, and even Raider King made a few as gifts for his family.

Our tree is up, as well as a few decorations, but very little else; a frustration of mine. We're also behind on getting our yearly group photo that I use to make our digital Christmas cards. It was supposed to be done yesterday, but between people being sick, in pain or just plain snarly, it just didn't happen. It was going to instead happen today, with the girls and I meeting Dh near his office during lunch and getting some outdoor shots, but with him home sick, that's out. So I have no idea when we'll get the photo taken now.

I've pre-ordered the meats for our tourtierre (24 pounds this year) and will be picking it up on friday. We'll be baking like crazy over the weekend. If things work out, we'll freeze a few and mail them to Dh's parents through Express Post. Packed properly, they should still be frozen when they arrive, but even if they're partly thawed, it just means they can eat them faster. :-D

While ordering our meats I looked into getting a suckling pig, having been inspired by watching old Julie Child shows. She recommended a 10-12 pound pig, which would be more than enough for the 5 of us. No such luck! The smallest available was 30-45 pounds. I don't think our oven is even big enough for a pig that size, and it would be way too much for so few people.

So what I'll most likely do, then, is a goose. I've never done goose before, and it's not the same as other birds. One of the things I've learned while reading various cookbooks was that the skin needs to be pierced to allow the fat to drain. The one time my mother cooked domestic goose, we found it so fatty, it was almost inedible. I now suspect she didn't know about the skin piercing thing. Having so successfully cooked a Canada Goose previously, it never occurred to any of us that a domestic goose would need to be treated differently.

Well, I've just lost my quiet time. Oh, well. At least I got this much done. :-P Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up more soon.

Unexpected changes and opportunities

2010-11-18T22:09:00.001-07:00

The last few days have seen a few changes and stuff outside our normal routine. The first major change was some bad news for Raider King. He and Dh have both been home sick a lot with some sort of nasty bug - one that a lot of people seem to be fighting, but which the girls and I have managed to avoid. Unlike Dh, Raider King's health troubles did what we're always slightly afraid will happen to Dh. He lost his job. He'd only been there a couple of months. So now he's back to job hunting. He had been looking for his own place, using the savings he's managed so far, and had some good leads, but I told him not to worry about it until he's actually got an income again.

I got all autocratic on my family recently, booking medical appointments for all of us. Dh has been procrastinating getting the medical release his physiotherapist wanted to see before doing any more work on his back and Eldest has been looking at the possibility of being gluten intolerant. None of us have gone for physicals in ages, so I booked appointments for all of us. We had to split it up between two days, with Eldest having her appointment this morning. Our appointments were supposed to be me, Dh, then Youngest, over the cours of 1 1/2 hours. Youngest, who wasn't comfortable with the whole thing, came in with me for my physical (we skipped a certain invasive examination in the process). Our doctor ended up just getting her file and doing her physical right after, then he saw Dh, and we were done before the time Youngest's appointment was booked. Kinda nice, when it goes all so smoothly. We've all been written up for blood tests, plus Dh is to get a chest Xray because of the cough he's been having so much troubles with lately (and the reason he's been missing more work lately). No appointments necessary, and all can be done in the same place, so the next time Dh can take a morning off, we'll spend a night fasting and all go in at once.

After this morning's appointment, I dropped Eldest off at the library so she could do her studies. Today, she was focusing on feet. She's a bit perturbed by the differences between the reference images and real feet and hands, though. The length of the fingers and toes, space between them, even the directions they lean, all seem off to her in the books. The toes on the men's feet, for example, were all sort of leaning inwards towards the big toe in the reference photos, but when looking at our own feet, they don't do that. I thought perhaps it was because we never wear fashionable pointed toe shoes - ever. It's a possibility, anyhow.

Youngest, meanwhile, is going to be doing some hair modelling soon. Through one of the local home schooling families, we've been in contact with a woman who it taking a beautician course. Students always need real heads to practice on, and she's got exams coming up. Youngest has long thick hair that's never been dyed, so next week she'll be having her hair and make up done. The woman doing it has to do 5 different upswept styles, plus make up. I think we'll have to split it between two days, but we'll see how long it actually takes. As I was chatting with her, we got to talking about commercial colours. She told me how, since taking this course, she now will never use boxed home dying kits - some pretty nasty stuff in them, apparently. I told her Eldest is currently bright pink, and it turns out she and I both have also gone quite the variety of bright colours. I mentioned my own hair is currently half coloured - I'd used henna to colour my hair, but the store I found the powder in no longer seems to carry it. I haven't found another place that sells it yet - at least not just the powder. I've found some mendhi kits, but I just want the powder. Anyhow, my hair has grown out quite a bit since then and is quite long, but the henna colour is still very much there, so I'm half a red-head right now. *L* I mentioned it in jest, but I seemed to get her wheels turning, because she started saying that perhaps she could colour my hair for me - something else she needs to be tested on. We'll see how that works out once we finally meet in person. Should be interesting. I've got very thin hair and it's going silver, which requires different time and attention than she might have available. Some of her tests have to be done at the school within a time limit, but the work she'll be doing on Youngest is actually for her employer, and she can do it in her own home. She just has to get all 5 styles done and photographed by Dec. 6. I might even be doing the photography for her, as she was planning to use her little point-and-shoot. It should be interesting.

Another recent event has been a spice mix exchange we hosted in our co-op. Counting myself and Eldest, 7 people took part, so we all ended up with 7 different spice mixes. We decided on having 1 cup of each mix per person. The recipes, of course, didn't come in even 1 cup quantities, so we all had to recalculate our quantities. The recipes were all in Imperial measurements, so we had to figure out things like how many teaspoons in a tablespoon (3), how many tablespoons in a teaspoon (16), work out how much we had to increase our recipes to get 7 cups, then work out how much each ingredient had to be increase individually. What I found funny is how we'd go from fractions to decimals and back again. Then, when it came time to actually but the spices, everything is sold in metric quantities. It could get rather confusing! One of the participants did an extra mix for her husband, who'd made a mistake calculating one of his ingredients, and she ended up way too short. Thankfully, I had enough at home I could give her.

We all got together at one of the multi-purpose rooms at our co-op, where there was plenty of space to spread out, then put together our mixes while drinking tea, having cookies and chatting. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad we did it. I'll be jarring some of them up to make gift sets, but we've also been using them in our own cooking. I'll have to share some of the recipes here later on. :-D

The next few days should be a little more routine. We do need to get going on some of our Christmas plans. I'm not sure how we'll rearrange the living room this year to fit the tree, since we've got a couple of armchairs now. We've also got to get started on this year's Christmas decorations soon. I've got stuff to crochet for a craft sale first, though.

Speaking of crochet, Youngest has been rather productive. She made a great scarf for Raider King in a fluffy pink yarn he picked out. She's making another giant blanket for herself, all in variegated yarns, plus she's starting another shawl. This will be the first shawl she's making for herself. All the others have been gifts. It's been a bit difficult for either of us to get the work done, though, since our usual work space is now Raider King's bed. *L*

Tomorrow is our regular errand running day, so I expect to be quite busy. I don't like running around, but it needs to be done. :-P I like things when they're quiet and boring! *L*

Movie Review: Expelled

2010-11-16T23:09:00.011-07:00

Normally I post things like reviews on my other blog, but I think this one is more appropriate for here.

Title: Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed
from: Ben Stein

While reading another blog, I saw this movie recommended. I was happy to find it at our library and have it put on hold, and today I finally sat down and watched it with Eldest.

First, my expectation. I didn't really know what the movie's subject was specifically, though I noticed it had two very negative reviews on our library website - one actually chastising the library for having it at all, and how they shouldn't have it available, while the other mocked it. I got the impression, however, that neither commenter had actually seen the movie.

When I saw the dvd cover, I thought it might be a sort of mockumentary. It has Ben Stein in a suit with his collar popped up, short pants, knee high black socks and running shoes, spray painting the X into the word "expelled" with "No intelligence allowed" made to look like it had been spray painted onto a brick wall as graffiti. I knew by then that it tackled the Intelligent Design controversy and had an idea that it was going to point out the hypocrisy of not allowing ID to be taught.

Just a bit of a background on my own views. Having been educated in the public school system, I was taught evolution. In fact, I came out of school believing that Darwinian evolution was it. Basically, evolution = Darwin, Darwin = evolution. It really wasn't discussed a lot, but Darwinian evolution was treated as a truism. As a Christian, I have never had a problem meshing faith with evolution and found it rather frustrating when people automatically assumed creationism equalled young earth beliefs; that all Christians believed the universe, the earth and everything on it was created in seven 24 hour days (actually 6 days, since the 7th day was a day of rest). The word "day" has never meant only 24 hours, but is often used as a metaphor for other lengths of time, both in modern language use and in the Bible. The general definition of evolution is gradual change over time, which I didn't see as conflicting with belief in God. This is actually more common an interpretation among Christians than the belief of six 24 hour days (I don't even like to call that view a "literal" interpretation, since I don't find it literal at all. The Bible doesn't actually deal with time all that much).

Recently, however, Eldest developed an interest in evolution and began investigating the field herself. It's probably a good thing she never turned to me for answers, as I wouldn't have had much to tell her other than what Darwin's theory was - or at least what I'd been taught it was. This meant that she explored the theory in much greater depth than I ever had the opportunity to do in school. As always, we discuss the things the girls study, and this lead to my own increased interest in the field. I was shocked to find out that what I had been taught as Darwin's theory of evolution was actually an amalgamation of his original theory (which, it turns out, had been disproven during his own lifetime, though he certainly never accepted that) and mutationism, which after the discovery of genes went on to form neo-Darwinism, aka the synthetic theory. Since then we've discussed other theories, which I'd love to link to. However my brief searches for different or alternative theories of evolution, I've been finding a lot of Darwin and mutationism vs creationism as contradictory concepts. Eventually, there are references to ID and, not surprisingly, the majority of the sites I'm finding disparage both creationism and ID. Eldest has been finding her sources through old fashioned books, and finds the symbiotic theory particularly promising. It should be noted that neo-Darwin dogma is largely limited to the US and Canada - other countries have little problem examining other theories as being far better explanations for evolution.

At the moment, Eldest is reading Moral Darwinism. I'm reading Shattering the Darwin Myth, which has been a fascinating read and one I highly recommend. I never thought I'd find reading about uranium/lead and potassium/argon dating techniques to be quite so interesting!

As we've been studying the subject, I've become increasingly frustrated, and sometimes angered, by the shoddiness and dishonesty within the scientific community. Like many, I had this image of "science" as being filled with people who strove to understand the complexities of the world around us; people who's ultimate standard was to follow where the evidence lead them, with a willingness to change their minds if something appeared that contradicted previous beliefs. I imagined people willing to discuss, even argue, various points, all with the ultimate goal of increasing knowledge and finding the truth.

I first got an inkling of how wrong that notion was when I read The First Americans, which described the problems of ego, status and emotional outbursts within the archaeological community. Then I began researching the science behind ~~anthropogenic global warming~~ ~~climate change~~ global climate disruption (well,whatever it's being called now) and delved more into the science behind medical claims we hear so often in the news. What I discovered was a world of "science" that was filled with politics, deception, contradiction and even outright fraud, with people more interested in feeding their reputations and getting grants than finding the truth, while anyone who questioned "consensus" would find themselves losing grant money, their jobs and getting blacklisted for daring to pose unpopular questions.

I've become incredibly cynical about scientific claims in general but, like the theories of anthropogenic global warming, I was particularly disturbed by what I was seeing outside the scientific community. Darwin has surged in popularity lately, and questioning neo-Darwinian dogma (most of the people supporting Darwinism don't even realize they're actually supporting neo-Darwinism) resulted in the most amazing, emotional responses. It's been astonishing to see.

With this background, I suspected that I would like this movie. I was totally unprepared for what I actually saw.

Right from the start, we were impressed by the quality of the movie. The opening credits were truly well done. Yes, the opening credits. The movie hadn't even started, and we already liked it.

My expectations for a mockumentary were quickly proven wrong. This was a serious movie. Stein began by talking to various academics - scientists of note and accomplishment - and even reporters who found their careers at an end just for mentioning ID. They didn't necessarily believe in ID but, as in the case of a reporter, refused to be anything but neutral on the subject. What ID is - and isn't (it is NOT creationism, by the way, in any way, and supporters of ID include people of various religions as well as atheists and agnostics) is defined.

Stein also talks to opponents of ID. The difference between the two is quite striking. Where people working in the ID field repeatedly stated that all they wanted to be able to do is be allowed to have an open discussion and be able to follow the evidence where it lead them, opponents vociferously attacked opposing views and those who held them.

As the movie progressed, things shifted somewhat as Stein explored the idea of what could be the result if we just went along with the consensus of neo-Darwinism; if we agreed with the Darwinists (who were all staunch atheists, with some, like Richard Dawkins, actively attacking religion and belief in God, determined to define supporters of ID as being creationists), how could this be bad? Stein answers this question by looking to history, and of what science's social Darwinism lead to. He gave only a couple of examples, but off the top of my head, I could give several more. I won't cover it in detail here. See the movie. Seriously. You need to see this movie.

The movie does end in a lighter note, and Stein gets to interview Dawkins in person. As I've seen in several other interviews with Dawkins, he gets owned. Badly. It was laughable, really. When confronted with the question of "what causes life to happen" (and again, see the movie to understand the context of how that question is asked), the followers of ID were very clear. We don't know. They didn't quibble or try to come up with something. They didn't know and weren't going to pretend they did. Darwinists, however, gave answers liked molecules piggy-backing on crystals and even panspermia. No, not the "microbes from space" version. The aliens version. That's right. God or some creator couldn't have had anything to do with the creation of life and evolution, but aliens! That's much more plausible.

In fact, when forced into a corner about the question, Dawkins himself actually said that, theoretically, it is possible that life on earth may have been seeded by some super intelligent race - but that if it was, that race had to have come into being through Darwinian evolution.

Yes, you read that right. Dawkins would rather suggest the possibility of aliens of great intelligence designing life on earth, than entertain the possibility of the existence of a god of any kind.

I suppose this should not come as a surprise, since this is the same person who suggested that it's more theoretically plausible for the atoms in the arm of a statue to spontaneously vibrate all in one direction, then immediately vibrate in the opposite direction, thereby causing the statue to wave, than the possibility that, if a statue suddenly waved, it could be a God directed miracle.

I must say, the more I hear and see of Dawkins, the more I think he's a fool. An intelligent fool, perhaps, but so dogmatic in his beliefs, he's an embarrassment to himself.

The movie started with Ben Stein going onto a stage to give a lecture. It ends with his closing remarks of that lecture. Remarks that had the audience give him a standing ovation.

The entire movie was really well done and, at times, quite moving. Whether or not one agrees with ID, the core notion of his movie - that science must allow academic freedom, including the freedom to hold such controversial ideas as ID, to thrive. He demonstrates how that freedom no longer exists in the sciences. The dogmatism that has replaced it is harmful not only to science, but to all of us not in the sciences as well.

I look forward to watching this movie again, and make sure that I watch the extras, too.

Now that I've seen the movie, I find the negative, censorious comments left at our library website about it far more disturbing. Whatever your opinions of ID, if you respect scientific integrity, this is an important movie to see.

About those plans...

2010-11-16T11:38:00.001-07:00

What was that I was writing yesterday? Something about plans gone awry?

I didn't even get out of the library before they changed again. *L* For starters, my plans to write a post on my other blog fizzled when the low battery indicator popped up on the laptop. Once I got home, there just wasn't an opportunity to do the kind of writing I intended.

Eldest's plans to do studies at the library almost panned out (yesterday, she was focusing on hands and was rather pleased with the results). Before she left, we got a call from Raider King asking if she could meet him at the library. I won't explain why until after I get the okay from him, but it certainly changes the entire day for her.

This morning was supposed to be a quiet day to catch up on the writing I didn't get done yesterday, but instead I'm going to have to focus on cleaning. Our townhouse is getting its annual furnace and hot water tank inspection. Both are in the laundry room, which is also where the cat's litter and food/water bowls are, plus it's used for storage. I'll have to shift things around a bit and will take the opportunity to wash the floor. I've got a couple of days to get it done, but we've got dr's appointments for the next couple of mornings (and those usually end up taking far longer than expected, if only for sitting in waiting rooms), so I want to get the big stuff done today.

So much for the writing I planned to do.

The best laid plans...

2010-11-15T11:33:00.003-07:00

You know, it had been my intention to post here more regularly, now that the "school year" is officially started. I'm reminded again of why I make to few plans these days. :-P I swear, there is some sort of cosmic force that, as soon as I make plans and work up a schedule, everything that can happen to screw it up, does.

I'm trying to not let that happen this time, though. Which is why I'm sitting in the library with Dh's work laptop (I hope he doesn't need to log into the office while I'm away), listening to some guy loudly talking on his cell phone, whining and begging his dad for a ride and making excuses for not being able to take the bus.

This is what was supposed to happen today. Eldest was supposed to go to the library herself do work on some studies. She's noted particular areas in her drawing that need work, so she plans to bring her sketch pad along with some reference books from home, as well as using reference books here at the library, and work out the areas she is having problems with. Youngest would probably have joined her later and they would have gone for coffee before coming home.

I, on the other hand, would have been working on some writing, including posting on this blog, at home on my own.

So what changed?

Both Dh and Raider King are home from work today. They'd both been quite sick a while ago, and neither have fully recovered. Raider King had tried to go to work; he even went out to the bus stop. Then he turned around and came home, and is now passed out on the couch.

Dh also was up as usual to go to work, but when I left he was busily trying not to cough up his lungs, heart, liver and entire digestive tract.

I'll take the guy whining on his cell phone, thanks. I'm not sure how much more I can put up of the guy farting behind me, though. There's also the joy of typing on a laptop. I brought the mouse but didn't think I'd need a mousepad. It never occurred to me that the infrared mouse wouldn't work on the tables here. Thankfully, Dh has a book of some kind in the laptop case than I can use as a laptop. I had considered bringing the full size keyboard, too. Now I wish I had. I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but as I was typing this paragraph, a huge section of my text suddenly disappeared, putting my cursor near the top of my post and replacing what was missing with the letter h. I'd pressed something on the laptop touchpad with the heel of my hand. No clue why it would result in what happened! If all else fails and the distractions cause my muse to flee, I've brought my crochet project bag, too.

As for the girls, they headed out together this morning. They've gone to the river, will eventually make their way to the library and, eventually, we'll all go for ~~coffee~~ a non-denominational beverage of choice. I do appreciate technology at this point. At the time they left, I had still expected to be catching up on my writing from home. Eldest grabbed my library card to pick up a hold I've got. When I got here and tried to lop onto the library wireless network, I discovered I needed my library card number. I was able to send a text to Eldest, and she was able to text back my library card number. Handy!

You know, as much as I love Dh, it's amazing how much his being home sick completely throws off everything. Having both him and Raider King home sick is even more disruptive.

Oh, thank God! The loud cell phone user's dad just showed up. I know this because his dad called from wherever it is he pulled over and the guy spoke loud enough to announce it to everyone on the entire floor. I love my technology probably more than the average person, but there are times when the users of said technology make me wish it wasn't quite so common!

So that's where I'm at now. I'll save catching up on what we're doing that's home school related for another time. I've got a post I want to write on my other blog (see link under my header) before the edge of the laptop completely cut off circulation to my hands and I can't type anymore.

I apologize now for any bizarre typos I might have made in this post!

update: Oh, God, I almost had a heart attack! I guess the library wireless disconnects after a certain length of inactivity. When I hit "publish" for this post, I ended up back at the wireless log in page. When I checked my blog, there was no sign of my post; not even in the drafts. Thankfully, the laptop held my post in its history and I was able to use my browser back button to find and publish this. *phew!*

The official start... sort of!

2010-11-07T01:08:00.000-06:00

Well, we have now officially started our school year. Sort of. *L* We just had our facilitator visit. It usually happens about a month earlier, but since we did our registration during our spring meeting, it doesn't matter quite so much.

It was, as usual, a great visit. We're fortunate to have such an excellent facilitator. He's a great guy, and we all look forward to our visits.

For the first time since we've home schooled, we're actually looking for some sort of formal assistance from our school board. I've mentioned Youngest's interest in learning trades skills earlier. It turns out that our board can help us take advantage of an apprenticeship program our province offers. What it basically amounts to is, if we can find someone who would be willing to take Youngest on as an apprentice, our board would help us work out a formal arrangement that would satisfy our province's legal requirements. They could do something similar for us with a work experience scenario, too. So, in the next while, we can look around and see what we can find locally. Even if it's just a day or two a week, I think a local source would work out better.

During the visit we told our facilitator about our trip to the ranch and how that all worked out, what we liked, what we didn't, and how things were different than what we'd expected. He ended up sharing his own story of how expectations and reality didn't quite mesh. His wife had been interested in becoming a midwife and one of the options they were looking at was for her to train at The Farm. The was quite a few years ago and he wasn't sure he was remembering the name right, but as soon as he described it, I knew where he was talking about. They'd driven out there for what was supposed to be a one week stay. They knew a bit about the place before they got there and were prepared for a few inconveniences, like no electricity or running water, and having to use outhouses. Still, they weren't quite prepared for the reality of it. He recalled going to use an outhouse at one point and discovering a HUGE spider on the toilet seat.

He decided he didn't need to use the facilities quite that badly after all. *L*

Ah, that brings back childhood memories! Except in our outhouse, it was the wasps nests that were a concern. We liked the spiders, as they kept the other insects down. Mind you, I don't think our spiders got quite as big as they do in warmer climes. ;-)

In the end, the deal killer turned out to be something totally unexpected - body odour! It seems cleanliness in general wasn't exactly a high priority, to the point that they had concerns about how safe it would be for women to give birth in such unsanitary conditions.

Their one week visit ended up being just one day! They left the next morning and drove back to Canada. (Looking it up, it was an almost 40 hour drive one way, not counting stops to eat and sleep!) His wife did go on to become a midwife, but trained under very different conditions!

He tells us some of the greatest stories.

Aside from apprenticeship discussions, we also talked about Eldest's plans with her art, job hunting and eventually living in her own place. At the end, we did our paperwork and got all the official stuff taken care of. He stayed for about 2 1/2 hours, and it probably took less than half an hour to do with paperwork, even with all the talking we did in the process.

As far as our official stuff goes, we still need to submit our education plan for the year. I wanted to wait until after we visited with the ranch, since that would have changed things quite a bit. Now, I just keep forgetting about it. We've got until the end of November, though, so there's still time.

I do like home schooling in our province. We have to jump through more hoops than in other provinces we've lived in, but they've been fun hoops to jump through.

I've been nominated!

2010-11-06T23:35:00.002-06:00

Wow - for three categories, too!

If you like my blog, please vote for me. :-)

Thanks!

A new month

2010-11-01T15:57:00.000-06:00

Well, we're getting into a busy time of year for my family! Christmas is coming, and it's time to prepare. I've already chosen the decorations I'll be making this year and planning out the things we need to do in advance, like order our meats for the toutierre, and possibly order a roast suckling pig for our traditional Christmas feast. Watching old Julia Child episodes has inspired me.

Right now, the girls have gone to the library and for coffee. We still try to have our regular Wednesday library days, but in the last while, have been going a lot more often. Especially Eldest. She's been going on her own, with Raider King, with Youngest, or with me, several times a week. So many books, cds, dvds and lectures have been taken out and returned, I've lost track of them for the library lists I have been trying to do. Eldest has found that listening to books on tape or lectures while painting has worked out quite well. Currently, she's listening to The Great Influenza, The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, which has tied in rather well with others she has been listening to. I'm actually reading one of the books she's taken out, Secular Sabotage, which has been very interesting. Enough that I've already renewed it a couple of times, because I haven't have much time to sit and read, but I'm really interested in it.

We almost had some major changes with Youngest. She's been interested in learning things like mechanics and carpentry, and a friend passed on a link to an amazing opportunity. A ranch almost an hour out of the city was looking for apprentices in a number of fields - how many depended on how long the apprentice stayed. It was free, but accepted apprentices were expected to live on the ranch and contribute to the daily running of the place. I would have stayed there with her, and we were looking to try for the minimum of 2 months. We went out to check the place out and spent the morning and part of the afternoon there. We helped out with some thing while being shown around. Some other potential apprentices were to arrive later that day and stay for a few nights. In the end, Youngest and I were the one they (the owner and his current apprentices, a family with a toddler) thought was a better fit. In the end, though, Youngest decided against it. She was really torn in trying to decide. On the one hand, she loved the idea of living on the ranch, working with horses, and learning all kinds of things. She would have focused on mechanics, which would have started with rebuilding an engine, but she would also have learned machining, carpentry, etc. as time went on. It sounded really quite perfect. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite comfortable, and the high level of disorganization in some areas were too much. She knows herself well enough to know that it would have driven her bonkers. As for me, I had intended to actually be an apprentice as well (for carpentry in particular), but I would have been relegated to the cabin as cook and administrator. While there was an obvious need for someone to take this on (freeing everyone else up to do the rest of the work needed, from tending and training the horses to working on the house that's being built by the apprentices), and I certainly would be able to do that, the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. Part of it is that, I didn't intend to just be a tag-along with Youngest. I wanted to be another apprentice. However, based on some comments made in passing, and not necessarily directed at me, I can't help but suspect the main reason I would have been relegated to the kitchen was because... well... to put it bluntly, because I'm fat. I think he assumed that because I was fat, I was not physically capable of working. Which may be true when it came to the horses, but that's because of my foot and knee injuries, not because of my lack of strength or stamina. The other issue I had is the reason I don't know a lot of this stuff in the first place. As a child growing up on the farm, I should have learned most of this. Instead, I had a chauvinistic mother who insisted I stay in the house and do "women's work." Even as an adult, she would admonish me for doing "men's work," like when she swung by one day and I was in the back yard with the lawnmower half dismantled, fixing it. I would rather have been out with my brothers doing manual labour than in the house cooking and cleaning. If Youngest had decided to go to the ranch, I would have had to have a little chat with the owner about that.

In the end, it was a moot point. There was just too much discomfort with the circumstances. Perhaps if the place were closer and we didn't have to live in, it would have been different.

So now, I'm looking for other ways to get her involved with some sort of program to learn this stuff. I've even contacted my sister, who has a farm in Manitoba. They don't have a lot going on this time of year, though, and won't until spring, at the earliest. It would still be a live in situation, but at least it would be with family, and not for 2 months. On top of that, we'll be talking with our school board to see what they can steer us towards.

Beyond that, Eldest is still slowly casting about for what she can do for an income. A friend again helped us out, pointing her to a leisure arts centre as a possibility. Eldest would be teaching watercolour techniques. They already have watercolour classes, but nothing like what Eldest does. Not even close. In looking at their programs, I'm thinking I should look into becoming an instructor for crochet. They've got knitting classes, but no crochet.

That's pretty much where we are now. Oh, and it sounds like I've finished just in time - the girls are coming in the door right now!

Until next time...

The past couple of weeks...

2010-10-17T13:10:00.000-06:00

For someone who's supposed to be using this blog as a record of our home schooling journey, I really need to post more often. *L*

So what's been going on in the couple of weeks since I last posted?

The biggest thing first, I guess. Raider King has moved in with us, so we're now a family of five. We can only offer him a couch, but by gosh, it's a comfortable couch! ;-) He's got a full time job and is saving his pennies to get his own (shared) place, hopefully by the end of November. At least that's his goal. He's more than welcome to stay with us longer, if needs be.

Eldest had her first job interview. She showed up a bit early, only to be told they'd phoned to reschedule for an hour and a half later. Except she never got the call. She had her cell phone with her, and there were no missed calls, nor was there any message on the home phone when we got back, so I don't know what happened there. She's not too impressed with herself over the interview, but we find out next week if she's got the job or not. Getting a first job from a first resume drop off and first interview would be quite the thing. Raider King dropped off more than 70 resumes before he got any calls, and for the job he did get, he took full advantage of their desperation for staff. *L* So we'll see how that works out. There's time.

Youngest, after saving up her allowance and birthday money for almost a year, finally bought herself an acoustic guitar. In fact, after trying different ones, she was able to get a guitar and soft case (with back-pack straps), with money left over. She was planning to figure out how to play on her own, but things didn't work out as expected, so we'll be looking into lessons for her. I was really happy with the store we bought it from, and the salesman that helped us . I'd made a point of telling her she didn't have to get the first one that caught her eye, and that we could look in different stores, take time to think about it, etc. What had me convinced that this store was the right place to buy from was then the guy started listing the lifetime care they give to any guitar they sell. There's an automatic one year warranty with every sale, but they will also do free tuning, neck adjustments, string changes, and so on, for the lifetime of the guitar. Then, when we started asking about picks (we made a point of telling him from the start that we knew nothing about guitars), he ended up giving Youngest one each of all the different types of picks they carried. Picks don't cost a lot, but we're still looking at about $10 in free picks. Then he tuned the guitar, polished it, and showed her how to place it in the case, putting the neck support where it belonged for her in the process.

She was so happy! :-)

Ah, well. I tried. Time to stop writing. Dh is waiting his turn on the computer. *L*

I'll catch up again later.

I could get used to this

2010-10-04T14:23:00.000-06:00

My, how things change.

It wasn't that long ago when having kids meant lots of hustle, bustle, noise and business. Sometimes, it still does. Now, however, the girls are older and so much more independent. As I write this, they've walked to the library and I expect they'll go for a coffee or something afterwards. Maybe wander around in the mall nearby, or just go for a walk. Eldest has her cell phone, so I can reach them if i need to. Otherwise, I only have a general idea of where they are right now, and that's just fine with me.

Dh is home from work/working from home today. His back is acting up again, but he's mobile enough that he can long onto his office computer from the work laptop at home and actually get things done - at least until he can't sit anymore. The muscle relaxants he takes to control the spasms also make him loops and sleepy, so he's now napping. Later on, he'll be back "at work" from home.

Which means that, right now, there is almost total silence in the house. Even the cats are napping.

I could get used to this!

Okay, so it won't last long. I need to start supper soon, Dh will be getting up and the girls will be coming home, and we'll be back to the hustle and bustle. I'm okay with that, too. Still, I'm becoming increasingly aware that it won't be too much longer before it's just Dh and me. Eldest is on the hunt for a job (she had an interview next week, and I have every confidence that she'll be accepted for the position). Raider King has a job, too, so if things work out for them, it won't be too much longer before they start looking for an apartment to share. Youngest has a few more years, yet, but when the time comes, I know she'll be well prepared for independent living.

Which means we'll be looking at an empty nest before very long. *sigh*

I'm going to miss them, but they're going to be just fine.

I'm so proud of my girls.

At long last... a library list

2010-09-29T01:22:00.000-06:00

Our library days have been touch and go for the last while, with too many things taking precedent. We've been managing to get back into them again. Eldest in particular has been going more often, as it's where Raider King's bus stop is, and he's as much a bibliophile as she is. :-D

So here's a look at some of the stuff we've got right now (though Eldest did return a bunch of stuff today while picking up her holds).

Film & Video Budgets: Eldest got this one, as she and Raider King are planning to make a video.

Semantic Antics - How and Why Words Change Meaning: One of Eldest's choices, and quite interestings food for discussion. Did you know, for example, that the word "meat" used to mean all foods, not just animal flesh?

Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis: one of many dvd's Eldest has been taking out and watching with Raider King.

Argumentaion - The Study of Effective Reasoning: This is one of those course lectures on cd. Another she just returned was Creating Humans - Ethical Questions Where Reproduction and Science Collide. This is what Eldest listens to while playing WoW in the mornings.

Damp Squid - The English Language Laid Bare
Seeing Salvation: images of Christ in Art
The Arts of China

The above three are also Eldest's choices, though I don't know that she's have much chance to look at them yet. Some more recent additions to her pile are:

Leonardo's Lost Robots
Maybe I'm Dreaming (cd)
Ocean Eyes (cd)
Castle in the Sky (dvd)
Princess Mononoke (dvd)
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (dvd)
Paprika (dvd)
Them (dvd)
Fallen Angels (cd)
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (dvd)
The History of the English Language (cd set of lectures, part 1)

Youngest has finally started to take more stuff out again, mostly with dvds. Here are her current selections.

books:
The Annotated Brothers Grimm : She's taken this one out a few times now.
The Saga of the Volsungs - The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer
Sundays With Vlad - from Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead (we've actually taken that one out several times)

dvds:
The Professionals
Nothing to Lose
Midsomer Murders - set twelve
Get Carter
Agatha Christie, Miss Marple, Series 4 Volumes 1 (Pocket Full of Rye) and 2 (Murder is Easy)

As for myself, I got tired of going through the craft section and only seeing books I've taken out several times already. Instead, I went searching and put a bunch of stuff on hold. This is what's come in so far.

Sexy Little Knits - Chic Designs to Knit and Crochet: I'm afraid we got this more for amusement then anything else. Like the fuzzy underpants with caterpillar thingies on the butt.

Party Crochet - 24 Hot Designs to get you in the Party Mood: This one I've actually taken out before, but quite a long time ago. I wanted to revisit it. There isn't much I'd actually make in there, but I do like almost all of the designs.

Lost Crafts - Rediscovering Traditional Skills. I'm actually kind of disappointed with this one. I'm always on the look out for new crafts to learn, and picking up older, traditional crafts greatly interests me. The title is a bit of a misnomer. I'd never thought of "farming" as a craft before, nor did I expect things like stone walls. It's interesting, but you're not going to actually learn how to do many of the crafts and skills from it. Not enough information, I found.

Glorious Crocheted Sweaters. This one was a pleasant surprise! While I'm not to keen on some of the patterns and colours, it's got more to do with my personal preference for solids and textures over multi-colours in funky shapes and patterns.

The Simple Art of Japanese Temari - 45 Traditional and Contemporary Designs. There aren't a lot of temari books in the library system, so I was glad to find this slender book. I'm thinking I need to start doing temari again. It's quite fun.

The French Chef 2. I actually found this one by accident. I've recently read Julie Child's My Life in France and really enjoyed it. Of course, I've heard plenty about her show, but had never actually seen it before. What a hoot! It would never make it on the air today, and that's a shame. We could use more geese trussed with knitting needles, suckling pigs closed up with 2 inch finishing nails, giant hunks of swordfish below a mallet, cleaver and hacksaw wielding Julie Child, and demonstrations on how to flay a duck and using the skin to make a pate. Gosh, what fun to watch! I think I'm going to renew it, as I've yet to watch the 3rd disc. Then I want to find out how many other sets are in the series and put them on hold.

Scared Sacred - Unwrap the Darkness, Reveal the Light. This one piqued my interest when the description talked about how people turn sites of mass tragedy into sacred spaces. It was filmed over 5 years, in the middle of which 9/11 happened. Considering recent controversies about the "Ground Zero Mosque" and people mocking those who oppose it for considering the space sacred, I thought it worth checking out. I watched about half of it before I had to stop it to do something else, and I've got no desire to go back to it. The topic is interesting, but the narration of the guy who did it was driving me nuts. The video wasn't about the any of these sacred places and the horrors that happened there. It was all about him and his personal, self-indulgent journey. I didn't want to hear how these places make *him* feel or what *he* thinks about them. What little he covered about these places and the people affected by them still managed to be more about him then about them. Totally self-aborbed and annoying.

Well, I think I've got most of what we have right now listed. I'm pretty sure I've missed a few things, though.

Oh, well. Tomorrow is library day. It's probably all going to change, anyhow.

A quick catch up

2010-09-20T15:00:00.001-06:00

It's been a while since I've updated here, but it's not for lack of activity. Unfortunately, I've only got about a 20 minute window to write. I figure I'd better do it now, because I don't know when I'll get 20 uninterrupted minutes again next. LOL

The biggest change for us lately is that Eldest's best friend, the Raider King, has moved back to our city. He's 18 now and can live where he wants, and this is where he's chosen to be. He's living with another friend while he looks for a job. Eldest is job hunting with him. At the same time, they've been taking every chance they can to spend time together. As I write this, they are exploring our river valley, where Eldest is taking still photos that will be used for a stop motion movie she's working on. She has to get them done before the seasons change too far. They've also put together the post-apocalyptic costumes they've been working on for the past (three?) years and gone out in public. It's been a hoot. The reactions have been interesting. Mostly, it's people avoiding looking at them at all. The reactions from children have been overwhelmingly positive. One guy driving by in a car yelled out "nice mask, fa***t" at Raider King (who's costume includes a real gas mask), then actually turned his car around so he could drive by and yell the same thing again.

Perhaps most amusing of all is the number of people approaching them for mundane things, like asking directions, or striking up conversations. Totally unexpected.

With the new school year kicking in, we need to put together an education plan for the girls. For Eldest, this is going to involve preparing her for independent living; putting together a resume, applying for jobs, and eventually getting her own apartment (she and Raider King plan to share an apartment to cut costs), and all the things that she'll need to know to live on her own and support herself. *sigh* This will be on top of her usual studies, which she is in complete control of. The variety of subject matter and the depth of her research is far greater than anything I would have come up with, so I just let her do her thing in those regards.

Youngest is getting restless. She wants to go into mechanics of some kind, but I don't know how to facilitate that yet. We're also going to be looking at riding lessons for her, but that'll just be one month of lessons, not the whole year. We're also looking into the possibility of her taking one of the online courses available through our school board, on one of her favorite topics, Fables and Fairy tales. I still need to look into that.

However, my 20 minutes is up. Time to let Youngest have the computer while I start on supper.

(Not) Back to School

2010-09-04T01:06:00.000-06:00

Well, it's official. At least it is for most of the local schools. The kiddies are back in school - just in time for the long weekend. Actually, at least one local school started their year over a week before anyone else.

For us, it was our annual Not Back to School Picnic. While other kids were getting up early, backing their bags and heading for the classroom, we headed out to a park, pita wedges and hummus in tow (both store bought), where we met up with a whole bunch of other families. Everyone brought snacks to share; store bought cookies and home made, fresh fruit and raw veggie trays to brownies and peanut butter squares, and plenty more. The kids ran around, climbing trees, using the play structures and checking out the huge jackrabbit that paid us a visit. The ground hog seems to be done, though, the opening to its den now blocked by a burdock plant.

My own kids were among those visiting the riverbank and came back with thoroughly muddy boots. Youngest got mud up to her knees. Today she spent her time scraping off the dried mud, washing, the spit shining her boots. Both my kids enjoy polishing their boots, but Eldest is keeping hers muddy for now, in keeping with a costume she's working on.

Our focus for this year is going to be different than any other. Eldest's best friend has moved back to the city, and they've been having a blast. They're both working on costumes and plan to do a film. They're also both job hunting, and eventually plan to share an apartment, since that's about the only way anyone just starting out can afford one out here. *sigh*

Youngest wants to go into mechanics this year, but I'm at a loss as to how to go about that. Hopefully we can find something for her. Meanwhile, if her goal to be a mechanic doesn't pan out, there's still her back up plan of becoming a singer. She's still got a few years to work things out, though.

It should be interesting to see how things work out this year.

In the Eye of the Beholder

2010-08-29T01:04:00.002-06:00

Y'know, I have a real love/hate thing when it comes to art.

Okay. Hate may be too strong of a word. How 'bout irritation? Frustration? Exasperation?

I enjoy art. I appreciate art. One of the things I love about our city is the large amounts of public art scattered all over the place, sometimes in unexpected places. I may not actually like an individual piece, but I like that it's there. I think art is a vital part of culture, and that it's a good thing for everyone, even the "non-artistic" to dabble in the sheer creativity of making art. Art can be fun, thoughtful, lively, morose, silly, deep, and a whole bunch of other things. Two people can look at the same piece of art and perceive it in totally different ways. Ten people can look at the same piece of art and perceive it in as many different ways. In many ways, art is very subjective.

What, however, makes art good? Sometimes the better question is, "is this art at all?" In a country that spends billions of federal dollars on art, on top of the money spent by provincial and municipal governments, I think that's a valid question. If someone creates a piece of art and can find someone to buy it, more power to them, but if the art in question is being pair for with our tax dollars, I think the definition needs to be a bit more limited. Finding out that some guy calling vials of his own semen "art" was given a grant to do it - essentially being paid taxpayers' money to wank off into containers - bothers more than a few people.

There's the rub that I have with the art community. It sometimes seems as if the less likely the general public would like it, the more likely it's being marketed as being "artistic" (as if art was something we plebeians are just too low to be able to get), the artists more "daring," and therefore they must be supported by grants. Lord knows, they wouldn't be able to make a living off their work any other way.

A couple of days ago, Youngest and I took in the local art gallery. Usually, we enjoy the many small (often free) galleries and displays around our city featuring local artists, but this is THE art gallery for our city. The first time we went to it, it was just before the building was mostly demolished and rebuilt (the city insisted part of the building be kept and "recycled," even though doing so was actually more expensive and wasteful... but hey, no one asks the demolitions and construction crews their opinion on the subject). They had an open free for all, where local artists were invited to send in their work for display, which was then made available to the public for viewing for free. Eldest had some of her early work in there, as did a friend of hers. It was pretty fantastic, actually. Some pieces did seem to be made by people who thought they had more skill or talent then they actually had, but the vast majority of art was really excellent. We live in a city full of talent.

The gallery is open again and has one free admissions day a month, so we went to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, when we got there, we discovered the free admission was only during the last 3 hours of their day. So we paid, and I found that the admission rate was quite a bit higher than before they rebuilt. Oh, well. The new building might look like a giant potato chip, but it's a very lovely potato chip. ;-) I think they got their money's worth.

Anyhow. Off we went. There were quite a number of galleries on several floors. One consisted of mostly oil paintings of landscapes, many in tacky, ornate frames. At least we're told some of them were landscapes. Some of them were... pretty abstract, to say the least. Without a sign telling me, I would never have thought that that's what they were.

Here's where things got rather amusing. As we wandered around, we'd come upon some paintings and be rather perplexed as to why it was there. They looked like paint-by-number pieces, or finger paintings done by children. Then we'd read the plaque and discover they were actually Group of Seven. I admit that oil is not my favorite medium when it comes to art, but I can still appreciate skill and talent when I see it. At least I thought I could. These didn't seem to display either, but they're considered high art and the epitome of Canadian art in particular. Exploring why that is would make for an interesting discussion. Another less than stellar example of art turned out to be an Emily Carr piece. Having lived on the West Coast for so long, I knew who she was, but I can't say I like her work all that much. Each to their own. This sort of thing is a matter of personal taste, but the pieces are still clearly art.

Then is was off to a different gallery. The next one we visited was an M. C. Escher display. Now that's art I really enjoy! Not only are the subjects fascinating to look at and the skill required to produce them amazing, they required a fantastic mind just to conceive of these pieces, then plan and execute those ideas to produce images that look like they should exist, but can't. I look at those and, not only am I impressed by the art itself, but I find a strong desire to get to know the mind behind it.

While we were in this gallery, however, we caught up with a guided tour. It was a very small group, and the facilitator was trying to engage them at least somewhat interactively. I don't remember the exact words she used as she spoke, but several times she's say something that had Youngest and I looking at each other in amazement. Not because she'd revealed some spectacular piece of information about any particular piece, but because of the "dumbed down" language and phrasing she used. In trying to get people to talk, she asked what should have been a simple question ("why do you think Escher used colour in this piece?") that got no response. Had we been in the group, we wouldn't have responded, either. I would have been too busy wondering if it was a trick question or something. Was there some sort of symbolism I was missing? Some deeper meaning that we hadn't grasped? Nope. The answer was, "so you could see it [the details] better."

Hmmm.

More wandering around. The new building itself is a work of art, with the potato chip shapes continued inside. Quite striking, really.

Along the way, there were a number of sculptural pieces and some... others. As we approached one piece, Youngest commented that the shapes hanging from the ceiling and knotted on the floor looked like intestines. Intestines made out of someones drapes. Which turned out to be pretty much exactly what they were, except it was upholstery fabric, not drapes. It was a huge piece, too. Another consisted of a long wooden pole with wooden handles hammered into it, like some sort of hedgehog. Two other displayed consisted of glass rods that looked like those bamboo garden stakes at the hardware store, in bundles and leaning against the wall.

A couple of displays were behind black out curtains. One was supposedly a recreation, of sorts, of the artist's bedroom, except it was an almost empty room with some sheets and pillows on the floor, and their weird two-headed creature covered in black flowers coming through a pair of blackout curtains that made up one of the walls. Off to the side was an opening that was supposed to be a closet with some long underwear hanging in it. The write up claimed the long underwear (hand made by the artist) could be viewed as any number of things, including sacred robes.

Uhm... no. There was nothing robe like about them. They looked like somebody's full-body undies.

There was one display behind a blackout curtain we skipped. A video presentation, a quick glance through the curtain at the screen had me dropping it and continuing on my way. I'm rather open with my kids about sexual themes, but some things I'm not about to drag my daughter through. The mom with a 5 or 6 yr old caught a bit of a view through the curtain as I looked, too, and she was quick to steer her daughter away, too. Funny thing is, I'm not even sure exactly what I saw, other than it involved the sex act. At least I hope that's what I saw.

One piece had us standing and staring for a while. We must have looked pretty confused or something, as one of the security staff came over and gave me a brochure describing the displays. The images being projected onto the wall that make me think of my old Spirograph game turned out to be imagery of the brains of the 2 artists who made it, taken while they were sitting still, thinking, but not speaking. I was actually more impressed when I thought it was some sort of interactive lights display. The idea of medical technology being used to record the brains to two guys just sitting there seems so... pretentious to me.

Actually, that's a word that comes up an awful lot when I think of the "art community." Pretentious. If a piece is so confusing and obscure it has to be explained to the viewer, is it really art? When you're standing there, wondering if something is actually one of the gallery pieces, or if someone forgot their lunch on the counter, is it art? Is throwing in images or phrases that are insulting to Christianity enough to make something art? Are a bunch of photographs of different versions covering an entire wall art?

Some art is instantly recognisable as such, whether it's a bunch of metal pieces welded together, an eclectic variety of objects piled onto a shelf or an exquisite rendition of something that can't possibly exist in the real world. One doesn't have to actually like it to recognize it as art.

Other pieces, I just don't know if I'd be willing to call art. I recall one display I saw with the kids years ago. It was made up of shopping carts full of garbage. It was apparently some sort of commentary against consumerism and waste. Except it was still just a bunch of garbage in shopping carts. Other infamous displays I've heard of but, thankfully, have never seen include blenders with goldfish in them. Viewers were welcome to turn the blenders on and kill the fish inside. Another artist got in trouble because his "art" involved putting rats between two pieces of canvas, then dropping something from above to squish them flat. The artist claimed it was okay because the rats were instantly killed, but the animal rights folks were up in arms over it. The artist probably got more of a name for himself from the controversy than he ever got from his actual art.

So the question remains: what is art? Is it just stuff that we can hang on a wall or set on a pedestal? Or is it crucifixes in urine or squished rats? Is it just the pretty and safe things, or dehydrated fetuses turned into earrings? (gosh, that one was so long ago, I'd forgotten about it completely until now!) At what point does something cross the line from being art to being junk?

This is where the art community starts to irritate me. How does an artist or art critic get to a point where they don't consider something "art" unless it's obscure, offensive, bizarre or incomprehensible? I swear, some of these "artists" must just throw things together, make pretty speeches about how it "evokes" this and "represents" that, while in private they're just taking the grant money and laughing over what fools they're making of the hoity-toity set oohing and ahhing over their "work."

I do want to support local art and artists. I do appreciate the hard work and effort that can go into any individual piece.

But sometimes, I just wanna throw up my hands in exasperation over some of the things being passed as "art."

Princess MeMeMe!

2010-08-17T01:27:00.001-06:00

I say an interesting article in the news about "princess culture." I thought it worth passing on, with a few of my own thoughts on the subject. Here's the link to the article.

Princess culture turning girls into overspending narcissists.

The article starts with a mom who is concerned about her 4 yr old daughter's obsession with princesses. She laments;

"I have a four-year-old who is completely into princesses, but she doesn't know their stories. She knows what Belle's hair looks like and what her dress looks like, but she doesn't know the story," Shuler says.

So what does she do about it?

A communications professor at Creighton University in Nebraska, Shuler decided to take a sabbatical to study what academics are starting to call "princess culture:" young girls inundated by films, books, toys, clothes, and enabled by friends and family who encourage them to see themselves as bona fide blue-bloods.

Excuse my confusion here. Her 4 yr old daughter knows all about Belle's fashion and hair styles, but doesn't know the story. This is identified as a problem and... Mom goes off to study princess culture? I don't know, but to me, the obvious solution would be to tell her 4 yr old the story. It could be the Disney version. It could be the watered down modern versions. It could be one of the many older versions, though those might be a bit frightening for a 4 yr old.

Well, maybe she's getting paid for it. Fair enough.

The article goes on to talk about how increasing numbers of little girls are growing up believing they really are princesses - or that they should be treated like fairytale princesses (real princesses have duties and obligations, and while they might have a lot of material wealth, there usually isn't a whole lot of freedom). It seems there are adult women who still think of themselves as princesses, manipulating the people around them, going into debt, and generally being royal pains to maintain the lifestyle they believe they are entitled to. So many, in fact, that there's going to be a TV show about them, Princess, on Slice Network.

The article examines some of the reasons for this. Of course, Disney figures largely in this, having heavily marketed their Princess line since 2000. The wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles is also viewed as a contributing factor. Finally, Disney is again brought into the picture with their boutique aimed at girls aged 3 and up.

I actually encountered someone who's daughter apparently was convinced she was a real princess. She'd shown up at one of our home school group park days. We'd started talking about helping our children have a healthy self esteem when she described how it was possible to go overboard. They had always told her daughter she had a lovely singing voice, but in reality, she had a terrible voice. Because they always told her her voice was beautiful, their daughter had no idea she was actually a terrible singer. Hmmm... Then she said that they'd always called their daughter a princess. They didn't realize this had become a problem until she started preschool. She started telling everyone that she was a princess - a real princess - and no one could convince her otherwise. I wasn't sure what to make of the conversation. On the one hand, the mother was acknowledging that this was probably not a good thing, but on the other, she seemed to me to be rather proud and amused by the whole thing. I don't know what came of it, as she didn't continue to go to the park days. This was a few years ago. I wonder how it worked out.

One thing I don't think this mother did was overindulge her daughter as described in the article. The money spent on parties, clothing and accessories, even furniture, by the parents of these princesses is pretty staggering. The money these adult princesses are spending is also staggering. One woman is described as having US$25,000 worth of shoes and handbags (which I found interesting, considering this recent post on Sociological Images), while also being $25,000 in debt. Another woman is described as planning on dumping her $20,000 in debt on her fiance. One of my nephews had a fiance that tried to do that to him - and it was just a car payment. He broke off the engagement. Wise young man that he is, he clued in that if she was willing to do that before they were married, chances were she'd be willing to do far worse after they were married. One of the primary reasons given for divorce is financial problems.

Anyhow. Back to the article.

Four factors are identified as contributing to narcissistic princess behaviour. Overindulgent parents, a culture of celebrity, the Internet and easy credit. To me, these factors would certainly be enough to create Princess MeMeMe - but I also see them as being easily countered. The parenting... well, maybe not. If a parent doesn't really know any better, they wouldn't know that what they're doing is a problem. Our culture has a significant lack of parenting role models, as we no longer have the extended families and close knit communities that used to be the source of parenting knowledge. Now, people are more likely to get their parenting advice from their doctors, books, magazines and TV shows. :-P

I've found it rather easy to ignore our culture of celebrity. I have little patience for it. I think it's easier for me because I never really grew up with it in the first place - one of the side benefits of growing up on a farm two sticks ahead of the stone ages. The Internet? That's neutral. It's how one chooses to use it that can be the issue. Easy credit? Yeah, that can be a problem. Lord knows, it screwed us up back when we were younger, and we were far from being big spenders!

The mother at the beginning of the article is brought up again...

Shuler has never been successful in entirely banning princesses from her daughter's life. She believes the biggest danger to little girls is that princess images are separated from the stories of smart, resilient young women.

Confusion again. Why try to ban princesses entirely? Why would she even want to go to that extreme? If she recognises that this separation of the image from the stories is such a problem, how is banning the image going to solve the problem? Why doesn't she, as the parent, tell her daughter the stories? My kids watched princess movies, too. They even had Barbie dolls and princess dress up stuff. I let them put on make up (though I did insist on it being real make up, not that disgusting crap being marketed for children as dress-up stuff). I also read them the stories. We had the Disney versions. We had other versions. What has developed over the years is an interest in fairy tales, and discovering the earlier versions, or finding that there are several different versions. That led to them exploring other stories, then delving into mythology, and searching out stories from other cultures. One of Eldest's favorites is a book of fairy tales where all the heroes were elderly. Youngest has developed a love for Irish folklore. All of this grew out of watching Disney's princess movies.

Shuler is then quoted;

"I don't think these images are inherently harmful. When they're drained of context, that's the harmful thing. When we strip princesses out of the story, we miss many of the potential good lessons.

"It's all about how to navigate it with our values without being killjoys."

Uhm... yeah. Banning them would certainly be viewed as killjoy behaviour, and she's back on missing the story. I'm still not getting her. She recognises the lack of context as a problem. The solution is pretty obvious. Quit "studying" the problem and tell your kid the flippin' stories already!

As the article continues, it's at least acknowledged that the marketing is taking advantage of an already existing potential market. The corporations didn't create the princess niche, they just filled it.

I found this part rather odd.

Twenge herself has had limited success in stomping on her own daughter's princess ambitions.

"When she was two, she said, `I'm a princess.' I said, `No, you're not.' So she went on eating her breakfast," says Twenge.

More than a year later, at the age of three-and-a-half, her daughter admired her mother in a dress and offered what she thought was the ultimate compliment.

"You look like a princess."

First, there's the idea that a 2 yr old has "princess ambitions" and that they need to be stomped on. Then we're apparently supposed to view having a 3 1/2 yr old compliment us by saying we look like a princess as being a bad thing. Why couldn't that just be viewed as a delightful comment from a very young child? Personally, I would have found that rather sweet.

The article goes on to talk about the upcoming show and some of the women that will be on it. There are media comparisons, such as a character in Sex and the City - a show I've only ever seen one episode of and could never understand how it became popular. The article ends with three things to blame for the Princess MeMeMe culture.

1) the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles.
2) Disney's massively marketed princess line.
3) Disney opening its Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiques, marketed at females aged 3 and up, from make overs and hair styles to wedding dresses.

I can somewhat agree with the first one. The royal wedding was a worldwide event, in a way no other royal wedding had ever been before. Lady Diana was almost a commoner (she was still a Lady, after all, but not royalty). She caught the eye of a prince and became a real princess and was expected to someday become queen. It was the fairy tale come true, complete with horse drawn carriage and all the glamour a princess wannabe could imagine. I can see that the young girls who watched this fantasy turned reality (even though the fairy tale ending was far from Happily Ever After) would grow up to have little girls they'd want to treat like the princesses they imagined themselves to be. I don't think it's quite enough, though.

As for the other two, I think blaming Disney is far too simplistic. Yes, their Princess line is being marketed to death, but as was briefly mentioned earlier in the article, they didn't create the market, they just took advantage of it. Blaming their boutiques, however, is even more of a stretch. Just how many people live near one of these boutiques? I'd never even heard of them until I read this article. Looking it up, I see that there are only two of them, and they are part of the the theme parks. They even have a "Cool Dudes" package - gel hair and confetti! To me, that makes it even more of a stretch, since the theme parks are all about the fantasy. These are highly localized services, not available all over the place the way the merchandise is. It would make more sense to me to blame the creepy child beauty pageants or helicopter parenting.

I don't know. My family is so far out of the mainstream, I have a hard time imagining the combination of things that would create a Princess MeMeMe. How is parents playing along with the Princess fantasy any worse than playing along with the Easter Bunny fantasy or Santa Clause fantasy? At what point does it cross the line?

Where is the line?

This and that...

2010-08-03T02:37:00.002-06:00

Okay. Summer is winding down, and things are slowing down for us with it. Granted, it's been a rather tumultuous one for us this year, with extremes of good and bad in a very short time.

Time to start writing about some of it.

This summer has been one of significance for Eldest. She can now call herself a Professional Artist. Yes, she has actually sold some of her work, and we are most thrilled for her.

It was a series of fine threads that led to this significant change in her artistic status. One of the local home school groups we are members of held a "learning celebration," where she displayed some of her art. She got a positive response overall, and one of the other home schooling teens suggested that she should show her stuff in an upcoming art festival. We'd never heard of it before (well, I probably had, but it wasn't something that stuck in my memory), so when we got home, we looked it up. Eldest was, indeed, quite interested, but we were pretty much at the deadline for booking a location. She contacted the appropriate people and before we knew it, she had a spot - a most excellent use of some birthday money she'd been hanging onto. It wasn't the best of spots; all of those had been snapped up long ago, but it wasn't the worst, either. In fact, as we talked to the organizers and got the location map, we realized that it was a really excellent spot, all things considered.

Eldest had plans worked out for some new paintings she wanted to do for the festival, but then the bad part of the summer happened, and everything got put on hold while the girls and I found ourselves road tripping for a funeral. We left for home early enough in the day to drive straight through, rather than overnighting it like we usually do. It was a long and exhausting time, though more emotionally exhausting for me than anything else, I suppose.

This gave Eldest a couple of days to do what she expected to have at least a week to complete, so those last couple of days were pretty full. Things got just a bit more stressful when we found out the grid wall we'd ordered wasn't in yet - and that when we ordered it, we should have been told there was no guarantee that this particular order would make it in in time. It turned out we should have ordered earlier, but with how late we'd registered in the first place, there wasn't much chance of that. It worked out in the end, though, as some people who'd placed orders earlier never came and picked them up. After a certain number of days, those orders were released for sale. The sales staff were even able to put together four the same colour, even though they weren't the colour Eldest had ordered. Having them was the important part - without the gridwall, Eldest wouldn't have had any way to display her paintings.

Then there was the festival itself, which was a 3 day event. The first day was pretty horrible, as storm after storm passed over the city. We'd been told Eldest wouldn't have room for any sort of tent or shelter, but when we talked to an organizer and was shown where we could set up, we found it to be quite different from where we expected, and we were told there would be no problem to set up a shelter. That lead to a hunt for an adequate shelter within the size restrictions. We ended up buying the floor model of a folding gazebo. It didn't have walls, but it had a roof and was surprisingly inexpensive. Easy to set up, too. Even so, Eldest was glad to have the roll of plastic we'd picked up (we were given a list of recommended items, and clear plastic to protect artwork from the weather while still allowing potential customers to see, was suggested). The downpour was so severe, water actually started dripping through the shelter roof! She was able to drape the plastic across the top of her gridwall display, and when I came back with some lunch for her, I was able to secure it better with some zip ties while she tended to some people who'd stopped to look at her work.

With the terrible weather and lack of customers, Eldest had a chance to talk to her neighbours (and find out she was in the wrong spot!). Most had been taking part in this festival for at least a few years, and they were quick to tell her that this was very unusual. One of her neighbours sold a single painting.

When I came back to help her pack up for the evening, we hung around a bit longer, as someone had shown an interest in one of the paintings, but said she needed to pick up some cash, first. She'd chatted with Eldest for quite some time, leaving her business card as well. It turns out this woman was an artist herself - and a medical scientist. She loved Eldest's anatomical paintings, and encouraged her to keep it up. One of the reasons she went into art herself was due to the lack of technically accurate art that appealed to medical scientists like herself and her co-workers. She also told Eldest she was undercharging for her work, and when she came back, she just handed Eldest some cash and told her she didn't need change. It wasn't until later that we found out she'd paid Eldest almost 50% more than Eldest was asking for!

Based on the advice she'd received (her customer wasn't the only fellow artist to tell her she was undercharging), Eldest reworked her prices that evening, and in the morning she was set up in the location she was supposed to have been the day before. It was a much more pleasant day, which was great, because this time, she didn't have the shelter. The space was narrow, this time being on a stretch of sidewalk, and the shelter was big enough to cover the whole thing. Unlike other sidewalk locations, though, there were no shops behind her; just one of those temporary fences and an open space with some rubble in it.

She sold another painting that day.

On the third day, more storms were predicted. After talking to one of the volunteer organizers, we were told to go ahead and put up the shelter. Protecting the art was the primary concern, and with no shops behind her, she didn't have to worry about shop owners getting upset. With high winds predicted, we pegged the back legs into the dirt just off the sidewalk, but the front was on concrete, so I ended up tying it to a tree on one side, and a lamp post on the other. In the end, the predicted storms never came, but the shelter was still appreciated for its shade - and it was big enough that it pedestrians and potential customers could pass through as if it wasn't there.

She sold two more paintings that day.

Eldest's goal had been to sell three paintings, one for each day of the festival. The sales were enough to cover the cost of the spot and the shelter, had she needed to do so, with some profit. She was also able to finish off two more paintings during the festival (artists are required to be working on something during the event). So all in all, it was quite a productive time!

It was also great exposure for her, with invaluable direct feedback. Because this festival took place along a very busy area, there was a lot of pedestrian traffic that had nothing to do with the festival - they were just people on their way to somewhere else. It was gratifying to see people hurrying along, not really paying attention to the displays they were passing, only to suddenly stop, do a double take, then come back to look more closely at Eldest's display.

Eldest is now looking forward to taking part in the festival again next year, armed with the experiences of this year. For starters, she'll have a lot more time to prepare! Rushing to find frames for her paintings at the last minute was quite the challenge - her paintings aren't exactly "standard" measurements, and custom framing wasn't an option. She'll also be registering much earlier, and booking one of the larger spots, like where we'd ended up on that first day. Getting business cards printed up is something else we'll need to do. We couldn't even print some out at home, since our printer is broken and I've no idea when we'll be able to replace it.

All in all, it was an excellent and exciting event. Even though she was surrounded by paintings, talking about paintings, and working on paintings continuously for 3 days, she came out of it wanting to do nothing more than paint and paint some more!

I'm really quite thrilled for her.

Ew!

2010-07-25T22:33:00.003-06:00

I got a different answer for my Moving On blog - someone I've never heard of before.

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I am not a fan of Brown's work. This is rather embarrassing. :-P

I'm back

2010-07-23T10:42:00.000-06:00

Just writing a quick note to say that I'm back, though I may not be posting regularly for a while. While writing helps me work out difficult issues, there are just some things I will never write about in a public blog. Little by little, things will pick up again.

Thank you for you patience.

Away

2010-07-06T22:43:00.002-06:00

Due to a tragedy in the family, I will be away and will not be blogging for an unknown period of time.