oh god oh god oh god....

JUST made it in under a year...sheesh.

new things: Molly is in kindergarten! WHUT. yeah she is. and I've managed to get two days of daycare for the kids so I'm working more. I'm actually making a somewhat liveable wage now! but then I pay for the daycare and...well...you know. but that's ok! I'm a million times happier than I was.

I might have mentioned it before that I've been struggling with crazy anxiety for years and years. I've tried many things that might help: counseling, therapuetic diets, holistic healing, naturopathic medicine...none of it helped and some of it made it worse. so I started taking the meds. CITALOPRAM. if you know me, you'll know that I don't even like taking advil when I have a headache. so this was kind of a big deal. and now...

LIFE IS AMAZING

I don't love that life is amazing because of a drug...but it is and that's that.
Listen up. If you're suffering from anxiety or depression, do everything you can to find something that works for you. because, for realz, I'm comepletely new. and I feel free. and know this: Even if we aren't friends or aquaintances, I probably love you, and I'm totally on your team.

ok, now that that's out of the way, let's get on to future planning (I am CONSTANTLY thinking about the future, which is likely why I suffered from anxiety in the first place...) I have plans...so many plans. to alter my house. here's the dillemma: we (a family of four) live in a 700sqft house...there is an unfinished, dungeon-y basement, 2 tiny bedrooms, one bathroom, no diningroom, and very little closet space.  I love this house. I never want to move. what can I do? do we finish the basement and add a bathroom down there? or should we try to make a play area/bathroom/master bedroom up in the attic where there is no staircase? I feel like the basement would be cheaper, which is always an important factor. ...ugh. it's all never gonna happen.

future renos that actually will take place: painting the outside of the house (already in progress) and renovating the girls' room (time to tear down the crib for good and set up the bunkbeds!)

photos to follow!

friday!

not too sure why I would be excited about friday...since my only full day of work is on saturday. but hey, it's the weekend.

I was reminded today that dolly parton exists. what an incredible collection of songs. and that hair! woah. there should be more dolly parton, all the time. 'jolene' is stuck in my head and i CAN'T GET IT OUT. and i don't mind.

I've noticed that I refer to my husband on here as "hubby" or "husband" and realize that I don't really like it. So he shall henceforth be known as "robert". it's his name. although i don't always call him that (it's usually robbie or rob) but i think that robert is suitable for these purposes.

my oldest child has started school. she's been attending for two weeks now and I really effing miss her. like, i was ready completely for her to be out of the house. she was really wearing me out and we weren't getting along because i think we were both just tired of each other...but now...i wish she was here, so we could listen to some dolly parton together. and play board games (cause she can DO THAT now!) she makes the most amazing things with playdoh and she can draw animals and faces like nobody's business. it's really something. since she's started school her development has taken off completely. she can count to three in french, she can recognize half of the letters in the alphabet, she can write her own name in a STRAIGHT LINE. it's blowing my mind. she's too smart. much too smart. where's my baby?

has it been too long?

ok, I know that no one is really "following" this blog but I will continue to post once a year at least...

so much has happened! i've got hobbies! so many many hobbies. i have, infact, started to knit. and i think i'm pretty good at it. i can do SWEATERS. so that seems amazing to me. i also sew and have managed to so far create a simple dress for myself and am halfway through a skirt. i've also made quite a few pinafores for friends' and family's children. my fantastic husband bought me an amazing dressmaker's mannequin for valentine's day this year and i love to look at it even though i don't quite know how to go about using it yet. But I WILL LEARN.

my other big thing? RUNNING. i started to run in the fall and had a small goal to run a 5k race. it was such a struggle and so much training and looking back on it i just want to laugh. 'cause yesterday i ran a half marathon! i know, i can't believe it either...running is such a strange obsession of mine. i hate it a little bit. but mostly it's amazing. not only does it make me feel almost god-like, it's also good for the figure. before the half, i bought some shiny, brand new, tight as all heck, compression pants. and i only felt a little bit insecure wearing them in public. not bad.

my husband has recently purchased and then traded for another moped. so i'm helping him fix it, sort of. so far i know how to clean a carb, sand some brakes, and put a tire back on. it's dirty dirty work. it's fun/terrifying to ride.

is this a hobby?

ok. i think i may have accidentally started a hobby...after my love affair with baked goods, i could not wear any of my pants - i'm not joking. so i needed to lose some weight real bad. my hubby found this site call myfitnesspal and i'm completely hooked! i count calories - that's my new hobby! at first i felt pretty lame about it and didn't want to say anything to anyone - but after a while, we'd have people over for dinner or they'd catch me measuring all my condiments with teaspoon and i would have to admit my small shame. it's embarrassing and it feels like the 1990's...but it totally works!!! i've been on there for about 5 weeks and i've already lost 18 pounds! i also track my excercise - i really feel obsessed about it. i want to look at the calories of things i like to eat all the time! it's so fun!!

so, maybe it can count as a hobby...for now.
i'm also a little obsessed with the wiifit....ugh, if it is a hobby, it's not a very cool one.

mother of two

yeah, it's been THAT long since I posted...we have a new baby girl now and the old one doesn't seem so baby anymore...
I have to admit, I was pretty worried about becoming a mom of two small children but I find it isn't as difficult as I was expecting. Our oldest is still a handful - she needs quite a bit of attention - but mother nature or God or fate or whatever was MUCH kinder with our second child. She is very quiet. She doesn't fuss much and she sleeps well. She's swell. We like her.

Now that I have two kids, I kinda feel like I might be done. The thought of having more children in a romantic sense is very inviting, but from a more practical point of view, I just don't think it would work. So even though I have two very small children to concentrate on, I'm starting to feel like maybe I could spend some of my mental time thinking about me. Specifically: a hobby.

My husband has recently had certain things that he's been obsessing over. ie. scooters, pipes, straight razors, etc. So I guess I'm kind of jealous and I want some stuff too...I like to bake - so I've been doing that but it's really affecting my waistline. So it's gotta stop. I wanted to start sewing and designing clothes but the fabrics I want are too expensive and I don't have any time to really get into it with these two kids at home...I would start knitting but I'm no good at it and my hands already hurt from my job. ugh. I'm gonna think of something cool to do. you wait. it'll happen.

going public

so, when I started this blog what seems like ages ago, it was going to be more of a personal therapeutic exercise than me sharing my life with others. I thought a few people I knew would see it and read some but nothing more than that. Over time, I've come to realize that I really don't create new posts that often and none of it is overly personal or embarassing. So I think it's safe to say that I will now go public. And, who knows, maybe I'll post a little more often...we shall see.

I am now 8, almost 9 months pregnant and in retrospect, Folk Fest this year was actually quite pleasant if you forget about the first couple of days...(see last post). My favorite day had to be when I convinced my husband to come out and see what it was all about as he had never been before - we met some friends there who also have a small child and really enjoyed ourselves. We're even talking about just going for the Saturday and Sunday together next year. So I guess we'll create new memories for me and some great memories for our kids too!

For now, my sweet sweet baby girl is fast asleep on the couch and I am sitting here making a mental list of everything that needs preparing for the birth of our second child. I'm still adjusting to very suddenly having a 2 year old and everything that comes with it (apparently there are age-specific behaviors that are slightly beyond our control as parents...but we're doing what we can!) - it should be interesting adding a helpless eating and pooping lump to our lives. I hear that people do it all the time though and hey, we're people...so...we should be fine, right?

a failure at best...

ok. I used to go to the winnipeg folk festival every year. I'd usually go with my boyfriend of that time and a few friends or friends of his or friends we'd make there. we'd show up Thursday late afternoon or evening and just camp wherever there was space or if we had friends already there, with them. we'd bring a few things to snack on. maybe a tin of beans to cook on the fire and some hotdogs. maybe a few ready to eat veggies if we were feeling "healthy". It was usually fairly relaxed and we'd go to the festival from the campground on foot, lazily showing up at various stages not really knowing who was playing. falling asleep or just talking through shows, laughing, smoking whatever we had, just not really caring.

it was wonderful.

really some good memories there.

so when I bought my tickets this year, after 5 years of non-attendance, I was pretty excited to re-live those times. what a foolish thought.
as I am now a mother of one and an exhausted prego, I'm not sure why I thought it would be the same. I'm camping with two other mothers, a total of 6 children between the ages of 18 months and 7 years. We stayed in the Bird's Hill campsite the night before the festival gates opened so that we could wake up at 5:30 the next morning in order to get in line for the best possible spot in the RV section of the campground...which is a whole different area for me. I couldn't believe the amount of waiting in line that was involved. and all so we could find a good site, only to unload, repack, and move to another spot where the people we knew were. now doesn't that seem silly to you?I should also explain here that my daughter does not sleep well in places that aren't her own crib. she didn't sleep at all the night previous and therefore, neither did I. So at the point of unloading the camper the second time, my baby girl had awoken from her nap and I missed my opportunity for any kind of daytime shuteye. I was irritable and useless. And was very quickly becoming a bad bad mommy. Mid-afternoon I was near tears and decided it was time to leave ... ! The festival hadn't even started and my dearest and I were packing up and heading home! I still can't believe it. But we've decided that we'll visit the festival during the day and come home to sleep - seemingly impractical idea but in our situation, really the best solution. So now, after a full twelve hours of sleep, we're all geared up to return to the show and enjoy ourselves!