You know, I haven’t travelled that much?

It sounds weird. I mean, in one sense, what with my parents being military, we did travel quite a bit. I’ve been in every province in Canada, because we moved every few years and lived in a new place, so eventually we at least passed through each province.
And we’d travel around to various relatives’ homes, to visit. Rob and I have been to Newfoundland together, to visit his parents.
But do all those count as real vacations?

I mean travelling for pleasure. I’ve never done that (not that visiting relatives isn’t wonderful). People I work with went to Mexico or the Dominican or wherever for March Break — I went to my mom’s. Friends have travelled all over the world, either backpacking and staying in hostels or going bigtime, renting condo hotels or actually moving to other countries to work… I once spent two days in Minot, North Dakota with my parents. We shopped at JC Penney. It was exotic.

I’m not complaining. I do a very good job, but it’s not as well-paying as another could be. Even though I worked 30+ hours a week all through school, I do still have student loans to pay. I got sick and had to stop working for a year; eight months without a paycheque kind of precludes any trips to the Virgin Islands. This is all stuff I realize and so I can’t be all “Oh why me? It’s so not fair!”. So, right now I’m making a pledge that somewhere down the line (probably on our tenth anniversary, soonest), Rob and I will be taking a fancy trip somewhere that does not involve eating in our car.

RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR HOUSE!

OKAY MAYBE ONE STREET OVER! STILL THOUGH IT’S DRAMA IN THE NIGHT! AND IT’S HAPPENING NEAR ME! AND I’M NOT AFRAID OF THE POLICE!

There is a guy! Outside his house! And he’s yelling and cussing! And my dad is there! I will let you know what is up when I find out! Yes, I am seriously going to go outside and see what is going on, because I am a rubbernecker that way! OKAY BE RIGHT BACK I KNOW YOU’RE EXCITED TOO! Read the rest of this entry →

I’m obsessed with finding a book.

I’ve always had a bit of trouble with my ADD at the end of a day. Meaning, if I don’t set myself a very specific bedtime routine, I can’t get to sleep. It can take many forms (at the moment, it’s “get up to bed, make sure Rob covers me up in the Special Way, and play Harvest Moon for 20 minutes,”) but about 10 years ago, my routine was to read for half an hour or so before going to sleep. And not just read any book. It was always the exact same book. I know, I know, wouldn’t that get boring? But there was something oddly comforting about being able to open up the novel at any page and know exactly what was going on and what was going to happen. No suspense, just the … ritual I guess, of reading the words, would calm my brain down enough to be ready for sleep. I read this same book every night before bed for about six months, then during a move (this was when I was in university) I lost it. Many nighttime rituals have taken place since then, but I remember this book in particular. Maybe it was that after a day of reading uni. texts about the psyches of serial killers or biblical meanings or whatever I just needed something to put my brain cells to sleep. I don’t know. It was just very comforting is all. So I miss it.

It was a historical/romantic novel about a lady in the 1800s who marries this sailor guy she’s only just met, in order to get away from her abusive brother-in-law (how very Mills and Boone, no?), only to be dumped off at his house on the Outer Banks without so much as a how-do-you-do (or a wedding night, for that matter). Poor thing ends up taking care of his madman grandmother who has a predilection to setting fires and shaving her own head, while he gallivants off sailing the world. There are natural disasters (I liked the detail of there being corks in the walls of the house, so as to let water through during the semi-annual floods) and Loose Women trying to steal her man, but of course everything turns out alright in the end; the two main characters end up (surprise!) in love, and the old woman stops trying to ignite the chicken coop.

And, of course, for the life of me I can’t remember what the book was called, who wrote it, or anything about it aside from the fact that there was a picture of the ocean on the cover. I swear I’ll find it though. It was probably a Harlequin. Yes, yes, I know, not exactly Le Comte de Monte Cristo but it’s got SENTIMENTAL value, dangit!

O Facebook thou art my blessing and my curse.

I love the Facebook. I hate the Facebook!

Love: that I’ve re-found a bunch of people who I haven’t seen since high school or university.

Hate: thinking about exactly how many years it’s been since we’ve seen each other.

I mean, I can’t believe that I graduated from university for the second time eight years ago next month. Eight years. I really feel weird about that. It seems like not that long ago that we were all just starting there. My first year there, the only “internet” available was e-mail, in the library, and it took 20 minutes to load your inbox. Second year, there were four computers that had this magical thing called the “Internet”. In fact, I didn’t actually visit the university computer lab until well into my third year– I had a typewriter in my room, what did I need a computer for? I remember one class we had, where the professor was in Halifax and we were out in the sticks, so we had to do some kind of web conferencing for our class. THAT was hilarious. Basically, since the prof couldn’t see us, we all sat there making faces at him while his huge head loomed onscreen, asking us questions. Kind of like the Wizard of Oz, only instead of munchkins, he had a bunch of surly 20-year-olds who just wanted to get out to the bar. Yep, we were really mature. But OH, it was fun.

Anyway. Now many of us are parents. One guy is a ‘famous‘ actor. One of us has died. Some of us are on our second spouses (or second divorce, in one case). It just seems weird. I keep thinking “But we’re all so young! So much has happened to all us young people!” when, really, we’re… not young? But how can that be? HOW?

Just ten minutes ago we were fooling around with a ouija board, convincing Sheri-Lynn that her room was haunted… what the heck? How did we get OLD?

Have I mentioned my love/hate relationship with our bed lately? No? Well I will now.
I love my bed, because I love sleeping. However, I hate it, because it’s been getting more and more uncomfortable as time goes by. It was just a cheapy mattress and box spring when we got it three years ago; now the springs are all popping out and poking me in the night. I swear, sometimes we wake up with bruises, not because we’re sleep-fighting, but because of the stupid mattress!
We’ve pledged to get a new mattress and box spring sometime in May or June (does anyone have any suggestions? It’s between one of those memory-foam mattresses or a pillow-top; neither of us has ever slept on either so your input would be appreciated). Instead of a double bed, we’re thinking of a queen size which means we’ll need a new set-up (we haven’t had a headboard for years, either… yay shopping!). I’ve been poking around Powell Furniture and getting ideas for bedroom decoration because right now? Our bedroom isn’t really much of an oasis; it’s more of a place to go and sleep and that’s it. I want an oasis, damnit!

One of my friends is coaching girls’ softball at school. I helped her out the other day, doing drills with them and pitching (probably really badly) for batting practice. And my armpit muscle (is there an armpit muscle?) is *sore*. I’m so out of shape. I stopped going to the gym around January, when Grandma was sick, and I just haven’t been back since.
Rob and I are considering joining a different gym together, next month, not so much for weight loss (although that would be a great side-effect) as to get healthy. It would be great to join together, because then we could bug each other into going, right? Or at least, that’s what would happen in theory. Probably we’d encourage each other not to go, while eating pastries dipped in butter.
So, like I said, I want to start exercising again, just to get healthy. I’m tired all the time, and because I’m tired, I get grumpy, and I know it’s all due to my slothfulness. When you don’t feel good in your own body, it’s time to do something about it.

The business with the baptism stuff in the last post made me start thinking about religion. Things that I know super amounts of people used to do for religion aren’t done so much anymore. Like for example Catholic medals; does anyone carry them around anymore? I know I don’t. My great-grandparents no doubt carried a St. Christopher’s medallion across when they came to Canada, but he’s not a saint anymore so… yeah. Anyway, I was just thinking about that.

Soon after my grandmother passed away in January, my cousin announced that the baby she was pregnant with was going to be a girl. She’s not going to be naming her after Grandma or anything, since I already am and who wants to name their baby Frances anyway? (those of you who have been reading here awhile know the whole story behind my super-long Catholic name so I won’t get into it)
The baby’s due any.minute.now. My cousin’s huge. Everyone’s going around saying it must be twins and she’s just keeping it a secret… either way, it looks like I’d better start shopping for some baptism gifts.

It was a beautiful weekend here. Temperatures got up above freezing (actually yesterday, they were in the double digits! Yay ten degrees!). This made us confident enough to open all our windows and put clothes out on the line– and nothing froze. It also made Rob and I go a little spring-crazy; I was outside planting things, Rob was indoors cleaning everything he could see (we can’t do any type of spring cleaning in March when everyone else does– it’s not spring here yet! I mean, I suppose we COULD, but… it would just be so… wrong. No spring cleaning when there’s a blizzard outside, I say), and there was heavy lifting done by both of us. Mostly him. Okay, all him, aside from me lifting laundry and stuff. Which can still be heavy, if it’s wet. Of course after my Winter of Sloth, all this physical activity has left me in need of a huge dose of Tramadol, but what are you gonna do?

I slept for something like 15 hours on Friday night. Serious. Fifteen. Can you believe it? I know that’s probably unhealthy, and I’m sure I wasn’t sleeping the ENTIRE fifteen hours. I mean, the last three or four I was basically just laying in bed enjoying the fact that I was in bed. And then I would doze a little, then wake up and read, then more dozing, then rolling over, etc. I think I need to sleep more during the week.

Today I am not wearing any socks. Not by choice. I had put on a pair of tights, and when I got into the carpool car something caught on them and there was a big hole so I took them off and now my white old winter legs are exposed to the world (underneath an ankle-length skirt, but still). Another sure sign of spring– the emergence of the bright white legs.

The intense bombardment is over. Please return to your regular business.

Also, sorry about that.