Spinster Sister

My husband has left me.

For the weekend that is .... to accompany 200 youth and the other 49 adult chaperones from our area to Attleboro, MA to a youth conference. He was called in at the last moment to go and said yes, although wasn't quite sure what he was getting himself into. We knew lots of other people going this time and who have gone before, and who have always had great experiences. As a chaperone, you're really going to be there to support the youth, who sometimes have some pretty intense conversion experiences.

Neither HB or I are very charismatic Christians, although we have all the respect in the world for those people who have that experience. We are more people of quiet faith, and in fact, if I look seriously at my attitude around charismatic belief, I would have to admit that I am afraid of it. To be fully open to the gifts of a charism means to be able to fully let go of the control. I have so far to go in that regard! Thus, my walls are up - firmly protecting my humanness and keeping it intact. HB is a great example to me in that regard and I'm looking forward to him coming back home so that I can hear about his experience this weekend. They've been in the midst of thunder, lightening and rain storms during the whole weekend trip!

So I've been all by myself and off work since Thursday morning. I made a list of things I planned to accomplish during the five days I had to myself. The list looked like this:

• complete the two major papers that are due for class on Monday and which had not yet been started;
• buy big storage bins and begin to fill with the various items accumulated in the wrecked room downstairs;
• paint the small bathroom on the main floor;
• mow the lawn;
• dismantle the bed in the spare room, throw out the mattress and convert the room into the office I have been wanting for years now.

You get the picture.

Here's what the list of what actually got done looks like:

• play many levels of Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys;
• spend three hours hanging out in a coffee shop and gabbing with a girlfriend that I never get to spend time with anymore;
• go to the spa, get a french manicure and a makeup consultation;
• spend $250 on three teensy weensy things of makeup and two brushes with which to apply said makeup;
• read blogs.

Who knew that people other than infertiles blogged? Why didn't someone tell me sooner? There is life beyond infertility? I'm gobsmacked!!! Good life! Funny life! Sad life. Single life. Married life. Sarcastic life.

But there is life.

Check out two of my new reads:

Dustin - I found his blog by way of Grins (a must read in her own right) and have been following his daily excursions of moving, dating, living with cats and struggling with re-establishing after divorce.

Boomama - a Christian mom living life in the real world - be prepared to shed some tears at her most recent posts. It's a real testimony to love and friendship.

So here I sit now, 3:15 on Sunday afternoon with the prospect of two unwritten papers stretching ahead of me. And yet I'm blogging. And looking for new blogs to read! So how about adding to my distraction today? If you're reading, leave a comment with links to some of your favourite, non-fertility related blogs. Come on. Do it for me. I'm home alone! (wow...that line used to work in the aol chat rooms...hehe)

Second best is sometimes the best

I am one of those people who has always settled for the second best. My dad is a great fixer upper, and we were raised to believe that it didn't matter what the label said - if it was a good price and good quality, then it was good enough. I can still remember being new to my school in grade nine, and wanting more than anything a pair of North Star sneakers to wear to school. Dad to the rescue! He came home one Sunday from the flea market, with a pair of ever so slightly used sneakers in his hands. They were not new. And they were definitely not North Stars. But they were mine. Dad said he'd fix them up and they'd be as good as new.

As I grew up, the trend continued. I got to take my brother's second hand stereo to college with me; his used guitar became mine; my mother's hair dryer was passed over to me when she got a new one; and her friend who was the same size as me would save her work clothes for me once I began to work.

I was the recipient of my parents' old towels, old duvets and duvet covers they were no longer using, and many a piece of used furniture to help furnish those sparse apartments. I will never forget the years of the green and orange couches adorning my beautiful basement flat with the hardwood floors and window seats. Those couches. Ouch.

When I bought my first house, my dad told me he had built me a table for my deck. He had built some beautiful picnic tables in the past so I was quite excited to see what would arrive. Turns out my sister and her husband got the picnic table. I received another handmade Dad-table. A piece of plywood covered with mac-tac and put on some old table legs.

I used that table for six years.

Then he came in to help me repair that deck. He brought warped wood that he had picked up as a bargain, and instead of deck baluster, he went with lattice. My deck is 18 feet off the ground, and I have 18 feet of lattice reaching from the ground to the top of the deck rail. Ugliest thing you've ever seen.

I smile as I type this because although it sounds like I'm complaining, each one of these stories comes with a memory of gifts given totally from the heart of two loving parents who didn't have much as we were growing up, and never really got used to having much once they hit the point that they could splurge a bit.

They instilled a pretty solid set of values in me ... and one of the great gifts they gave me was the solid knowledge of the place of material things in my life. They just are not that important to me most days.

So this weekend, when I went out and for the first time in my entire adult life, bought a new patio set, I almost felt guilty. I have been threatening to buy one for the last four years. I wanted to replace the hideously blue painted plastic table and the three green bucket chairs that HB accepted from neighbours who were moving and didn't want to throw it out. I almost felt guilty as I threw the first chair over the lattice railings and heard it shatter on the lawn below. I almost felt guilty as I hiked the table out to the curb for the garbage pick up.

I almost felt guilty as I sat under the umbrella, nestled into a cushiony chair with my feet propped up on the second of the FIVE chairs with matching cushions that came with this set.

Almost.

Now I wonder if I can break down and convince myself to buy a pair of crocs? Maybe I should check out the flea market...they might have knock offs for sale.....

Making Plans

Loving this new weight loss program. Eating a lot it seems - trying to graze my way through the day and it works. Down 3 lbs in the first week. In major debt, but down 3 lbs.

More importantly, I feel in control. I know it's only 3 lbs but I controlled them leaving the ample arse (hereinafter referred to simply as a.a.)

In other news, Knothead has decided to manipulate her way through our summer again, but HB is not allowing it to interfere. We have plans to go camping the first week in August. He told her that on three separate occasions over the last six weeks. None the less, she has decided that the demon seeds won't survive if they don't get to a Red Sox game that specific week, and then tried to cover by saying she had misunderstood HB. Hmmm....wonder which of the three times he said it she misunderstood? Or was it that she misread the freaking printed out calendar of commitments and plans he gave her? You know, where it says "T R A I L E R B O O K E D" right across that first week in August. I can see how you'd miss that. (Ed: would you want this woman teaching your children?)

I'm so proud of him though. He just said, "well, I'm going camping that week. If the kids are with me, cool. If not, I'm going camping".

Then she came back and told him that we could go camping during the third week of August when she is away. Gee. Thanks. Isn't she good to us?

Seriously. I have to talk to her boyfriend and get him to up the "do it her" quota. She's not getting enough. And I shouldn't even let myself be concerned, but man, how tiring must it be to live in her head like that? Always having to be out in front of everyone so you can figure out how to manipulate the situation?

The really sad thing, in my opinion, is how Frodo is becoming just like her. HB came into the kitchen the other day and said "I love him, but I hate him because he is just like her and I can't walk away from this one". How true.

Whatever. We're going camping. And that's fun. I just have to survive the next few weeks at work and get these papers done for my courses so I can take the week and just relax.

Ample Arse Begone!

In 1999 I got the "click" I needed to get off my ample arse and do something about my weight. I joined a weight loss clinical program called H*erbal M*agic (asteriking so I don't get spammed) and lost 60 lbs. I maintained that loss until I became pregnant and since the first miscarriage, have just allowed my weight to climb and climb. I am officially now 7 lbs higher in weight than I was the day I walked into the HM clinic.

I have joined and rejoined HM since then, WW at least four times, and tried countless things on my own at home. I've been making a monthly charitable donation to C*urves for the last 18 months, and probably have paid at least one employee salary in full there. In short, I have sucked at doing anything about getting this weight off. And it's no small amount either. I am 64 lbs above my ultimate goal, and 44 lbs above where I was when I became pregnant.

I have been choosing to remain fat. And I have felt miserable about it. Yet I have still chosen to remain fat.

On Friday I marched myself into another weight loss program. The atmosphere in the place was alive! People were laughing and carrying on. I could hear cheers of congratulations from the private offices and whoops of laughter. None of the staff were these little size 4 stick university students out to make a summer job living - they were real women like me. Some had obvious weight struggles themselves - others were of normal weight and shape.

I was escorted into the manager's office for my private consultation. We started the interview and I promptly burst into tears! Excuse me?

I didn't realize how emotional I was about my weight and my body image. HB has been wonderful about it, but he's in such amazing shape that I just can't imagine why he finds me physically attractive. So I sat there, in front of this stranger woman, and I cried.

And then I joined. I feel the click.

I don't care if it's a gimick .... I saw pictures of people that I knew on the wall and they had lost weight. I have been doing the two day "cleansing" activity and got on my scale this morning after the first day. I'm already down two pounds. I don't care if it's all fluid. I'm down two pounds.

With work, school, the kids, lack of summer vacation....and everything else that feels out of my own control in my life, I need something of which I can be in control. My weight and my food intake is that thing. Man, that sounded like an eating disordered statement but really, I have so far to go before an eating disorder could kick in ... besides the fact that I just love food too much to ever think of going without it. Nope, it's the good kind of control.

HB and I have a trip to Boston booked for the end of September. If I keep to the prescribed regime, I will be at my halfway mark by then ... meaning I will be able to wear my Danier leather jacket which I adore! That, and my arse will actually fit comfortably in the seat for the trip.

I'm back. And I'm in control. Watch out world!

How could we not.....

seriously consider falling in love with this guy?

Pan

I sent an email off earlier this week, hoping they might consider a Canadian as an adoptive mom, but had no response. Now his page says "pending" so perhaps he has found a good home already. I post on a message board for owners of giant breed dawgs, and they were already lining up to assist with transport from PA.

There are some awesome people on the internet.