Things I have learned or Stewing or Meh - your choice

This past week was a weird one for me. Tuesday's news sent me into a bit of a funk, I won't lie. I know my health problems are treatable. I know they are not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things BUT they are health problems and they are new to me. I have been healthy my whole life. It's going to take a bit of adjusting, that's all. Give me time. Listen. Understand where I am coming from, if only for a minute. I don't think I am asking for much.

I am also going to work really hard on taking that very advice so I can be a better friend.

We are all entitled to our perspective. Sometimes we need to the see the other side but first, what we need is support, love and understanding. Venting is healthy. It's required for a girl like me who is very opinionated and gets in an uproar frequently. I know I go overboard. I do. I am working on this. When I'm perfect I'll let you know but I am guessing it will be about the same time as pig's fly and hell freezes over.

I don't know how to move on from something without working it out; without a discussion where both parties try to see the other's perspective. I just don't. And honestly, I hope I never do because that, to me, would mean that relationship was not real. It is based on falsehoods and walls and pretending. I would rather have nothing than that.

How do I stay true to who I am and still make improvements? This is one I go back and forth on. I am who I am. But what if who am I am and how I act is not okay? What if others see me in a different light? Do I hurt them like I sometimes get hurt by what others say? And if they told me, would I get defensive and try to justify what I said? Or would I apologize and try harder?

To be human is to be perfectly flawed. Am I perfectly flawed or just flawed?

These are some of the thoughts that are spinning through my head. It's busy up there. It good but on the other hand is sucking the joy and happiness from me.

But alas, that's enough of the pity party. On to more exciting and interesting things.



On October 4, 2009 I will Run for the Cure with Jen (she also made the button - thanks Jen!). We are also running a marathon relay this weekend along with Jay and another couple. The relay leg distances are all under 12 km which seems like a cake walk compared to the half marathon I did back in April. I am excited. It's going to be fun.

If you feel inclined to support this great cause, please click on the button and it will direct to you to the online donation site. Moral support is also welcomed.

I am rejoicing in the fact that while my body may have it's troubles, it can still do this. I don't plan on taking it for granted, EVER.

And my 3 boys, I just have to give them a shout out. Without them, I would be crumbling. Thank you Jay, Jack and Kamden. I love you beyond words.

Raging hormones, or something like that

I am going to reveal some pretty harsh news here, you better sit down. It's groundbreaking, I'm positive.

Ready?

Turns out road rage is mostly likely caused by other outside stresses if I am a classic example, and I think I am.

On the way home from a doctor’s appointment yesterday I nearly ran a little white convertible off the road (not really but I can’t say that the thought did not cross my mind). Mr. Mid Life Crisis thought he was all that and a bag of chips with his lady friend in the passenger seat cruising with the top down. Thing is, I am almost 100% sure I should not see the exhaust coming out in the middle of the summer and I am damn sure I shouldn’t be choking on the stench. Dude? Your cute little car, and yes, I said cute, NOT cool, isn’t nearly as cute as you think it is belching out toxic waste that smells worse than a cat’s butt.

And then Mr. Doesn’t Do Cross Walks j-walks in front of me. Buddy, can you see that there isn’t a car to be seen for miles behind me, you couldn’t wait 10 seconds for me to go by and then break the law by darting out into the middle of the street?

Really? REALLY?

And if you were in the car (van, whatever) you would have heard me saying really with increasing emphasis. Don't worry, my windows were up, I might be mildly insane but I am not stupid. This dude was big. I am all talk when no one can hear me.

So yeah, when you get news that because your ovaries “quit working”, other vital organs such as your adrenal gland and thyroid could also quit working, you might get kinda stabby.

Just sayin'.

Today is his birthday

Today, this smashing young man turns 39 years young. This marks the 17th time we will celebrate his birthday together (yes, we have been together THAT long). It seems like forever and yesterday all at the same time.

Jay, you are our anchor and our strength. You are always there for us. ALWAYS. Thank you for all you do. We love you more than words could ever express here.

Happy Birthday, my one true love.

Testing Flikr account

Kindergarten Kamden and Grade 3 Jack

The boys are at their first day of school. What's a mommy to do on her first morning alone but do a post?

This little munchin,



has turned into this handsome boy.



And this little chub,



has morphed into this handsome young man, seemingly over night.



Grade 3, seriously?



I am going to miss them. A little. But I am also focusing on the fact that I can get my work done while they are at school and we can have more time together as well as the fact that in only ten months we get another two months together. The way time is flying that will feel like tomorrow anyway.

And in case you were wondering, I almost didn't cry this morning. I was fine, until I read the note from Kamden's teacher along with the kleenex and tea bag, yeah, that got me teary eyed for sure. I made a quick recovery and in a mere 20 min I will pick them both up for lunch.

It's the end of an era and the start of a new and exciting one. Right? RIGHT?

My Roots

This weekend we took a trip out to where my parents grew up, my mom in town and my dad on a farm. A farm that my cousin still lives on and farms along with my uncle (his dad).

I have many memories of "the farm". We have always referred to it as "the farm". Not my grandparents (as it once was), not Perigord (the community in which it resides), not Ceslak's (my maiden name) but just the farm. We spent many a Christmas noshing on Grandma's homemade perogies and cabbage rolls waiting for Santa to drop the gifts of the roof. As an adult I wonder how they decided who had to climb up on the roof in the dead of a Saskatchewan winter to do the "delivery". Draw straws? Last one to arrive?

Just driving into the yard brings back a flood of memories. So this time, I toted along my camera and my renewed passion for improving my photography skills.



A sunflower in my mom's garden - had to sneak this one in for a bit of sunshine. Seriously, does a sunflower NOT brighten anyone's day?

This barn, it is the trademark of the farm. To me, it is unique. Unlike any other barn I have ever seen. It's the first thing you see when you turn into the long narrow driveway. The peak just visible through the bluff of trees surrounding the road and as you approach, you see more and more of it. It is one of my favourite things.



Apparently, it was built before my Grandpa purchased the farm way back when (guessing somewhere in the 1940's) and has had very little work done to it since. They don't build them like that anymore. Actually as I look at the photo above I recall a big jagged hole right below the peak which someone has patched.

I had fun with the weathered boards, they were a nice prop to practice with.



So many happy memories of a wonderful childhood for me, that's what these pictures invoke. This barn is part of the tapestry of my history. A history that goes back through my dad (I am guessing he milked many a cow in this very barn) to my Grandpa who cleared much of the land surrounding the yard with a small bulldozer which coincidentally my dad has in his barn.



I remember my Grandma milking cows in the left hand side when I was a kid. She had a little wooden milking stool that ended up on the house after the milking went by the wayside. It sat in the corner of the kitchen and she would often sit on it when there were more people than chairs at dinner.



Dinners of fresh green beans and potatoes followed by raspberries with sugar and cream. Somehow, the simplier it was, the better it tasted. I loved being at the farm during harvest and watching all the men come in, dirty and sweaty from the field to eat the delicious, hearty fare served up by my Grandma. She was never happier than when she could feed hungry men. I think it made her feel useful. It was her role as a farmer's wife and she relished it.

Now I am hungry. I may have to go up and eat some of the leftover raspberries that my aunt graciously allowed my mom and I to pick from her garden. I made jam a plenty yesterday and there is a raspberry/stawberry/rhubarb pie cooling as I type this.

Before we went out to the farm, we stopped in town to visit the graves of my maternal grandparents and my mom's oldest sister. I didn't know my grandparents because they both died before I was five. However, my mom's oldest sister, my Auntie Vickie I knew very well. She was like my Grandma and I have many wonderful memories of her. Being around her, you couldn't help but laugh. She had the uncanny ability to call inanimate objects idiots and get away with it. She was vertically challenged and made no bones about it. When she had to get something from the top shelf of the cupboards she would say she had to go up to heaven. My brother and I still utter Auntie Vicki-isms and then laugh hysterically.

She was a hoot. And loved us like we were her own.



Rest in peace dear Auntie Vickie, now that you are up in Heaven, no chair required.

It was wonderful to go back and show my boys the farm they have heard so much about. I think they were just in it for the tractor ride though, Jack exclaimed at one point, "Mommy, why do you have to take so many pictures!?"

Just because, that's why.

There are more photos on my Flickr account.

My most amazing discovery, yet

This week I made a huge discovery. I have been frustrated lately with how blurry my photos appear when I post them here. It's almost made me make the switch over to Wordpress but then that led to whether to self host or not and then my brain spontaneously combusted.

But other day, after I posted our Flikr and noticed how poor the quality was compared to viewing them directly on my laptop, I had an epiphany. My life is nothing if not full of excitement.

I remembered my Flikr account. The one I hardly ever use. I know other bloggers who use that site to upload photos to their blogs. I did some playing and discovered that I can get an html link for the photo off of there and low and behold, crystal clear pictures. Behold, exhibit A, uploaded directly through Blogger:

It's alright but it's no where near as clear and crisp as when I view it with my photography software directly on my laptop.

Now for Exhibit B, embedded html code from Flikr:

And you might think, well the Flikr version is larger, of course it's more clear. Exhibit C, Flikr in a smaller size:

I may or may not have been so excited by this discovery that I phoned Jay at work, breathlessly screeching incomprehensibly.

I then went and used Flikr to better my lake photos because it had to be done for my own happiness.

The other most notable advantage to using the Flikr html code to put in pictures is twofold. One, it takes 3 seconds to copy and paste the code and two, I can put the pictures in whatever order I want. I don't have to upload them in the correct order - has anyone ever figured out exactly how to upload them in the right order using Blogger? I sure haven't. And the time it took to upload them for the love of Pete.....cue Jeopardy final question music. Ugh.

I'm giddy with excitement and it just may have renewed my desire to work on my photography skills.

If you are wondering why in the world I was using Little People as my photo subject, I have a post up about Mr. Slick, salesman extraordinaire over at Canada Moms Blog. Slick was pretty slippery but we managed to slip right out of his grasp.

We are sneaky like that.