Nothing new but this

Number Two Son took this one of Number Three Son. Guess the photography gene skips a generation.

When the boys were little ...

When the boys were little they wore socks that matched their onesie turtlenecks and when it rained they wore cute little rubberboots with frogs and ducks on them and had umbrellas they carried to and from school.

Now they barely wear socks except when they run around with no shoes on so I have to buy them in bulk at Costco. And raincoats are so uncool.

When they were little they watched Thomas the Tank Engine narrated by Alec Baldwin or Ringo Starr and I knew the names of every engine, not to mention every dinosaur from the Jurassic era.

Now they watch Family Guy when they think I am not paying attention and are learning the names of adult movie stars.

When the boys were little they wanted to go to the zoo or the museum and every time we had to load up with sippy cups and snacks and diapers and wipes and changes of clothes for any meteorological event.

Now they want to go paint-balling (or is it paintball gunning?) and I can barely get them to leave the house in shoes or a sweatshirt and the car is overflowing with LEGO Star Wars people and fruit-filled TimBits that no one will eat. Not even the dog.

When the boys were little all we had to say when they whined for something was, "You'll have to be good and ask Santa for that."

Now they have Excell spreadsheets and bookmarked websites for their Christmas lists and the Santa threat is losing it's potency.

When the boys were little I could get them to sit still together for a family photo with matching outfits. Of course those photos were taken with film and therefore are not readily available to post as I have yet to figure out how to scan all of the hundreds of photos carefully (but not scrapbookily) pasted in albums.

Now they hide when the camera comes out, make faces and refuse to put on clean shirts no matter how much I bribe them. So I resort to stealth photography with a super long lens and post the photos here

When the boys were little we thought we'd never sleep through the night. They tag teamed us waking up, getting sick and having night terrors.

Now they want to go to sleep later than we can stay up which means we never get to watch anything other than Animal Planet and Home Improvement reruns in the evenings. Unless, of course I am downstairs on the computer. Then they are watching Family Guy.

When the boys were little I thought I would never carry anything other than a diaper bag or backpack and would never be able to get dressed up and make it out of the house without spit up on my shoulder or sticky hand prints on my pants.

Now I carry a purse (well, sometimes) and have been known to leave the house with nobody noticing.

When the boys were little I thought they'd never grow up.

Now that they are bigger I know that children really do grow up in the blink of an eye.

Chchchchanges

An old friend dropped by today out of the blue. We sat on the couch in front of a cozy fire and drank tea and got caught up. She has chosen, although she might say it wasn't a choice, to live a very different life from mine. She is single, both her parents are dead and have been for quite a while and the only family she has is a half brother who is much older and had left home before she was born. She grew up and stayed in the same small town for most of her life, went away to school in the city but always came back. She has worked as a teacher, social worker and finally she worked at the town hall organizing events. She has never married or had a long term relationship, at least not one that I have ever heard about and about 6 years ago she made a huge change.


She sold the house she grew up in and was all that she had left from her parents, left the town that had always been her home and the people she called family and went back to school. First she had to go back and get the courses she needed for a Bachelor of Science as she had originally studied Arts. Then she applied to Nursing School and took the two year programme to become a RN. She was at school with girls straight out of high school doing their diplomas and at 40 she was considered the granny of the class, offering advice on men and studying while working in a notorious psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. She would come back for the holidays and regale (and horrify) us with stories of Christmas Eve on the psych ward. She has now found her place as a nurse on the front lines of an Emergency ward. Some of her stories aren't much tamer but at least every once in a while they are about a young child being saved. She is perfectly suited to the job with her sarcastic wit and ability to tell it like it is while being the comforting and caring nurse that you hope to meet in emerg.



She is happier than I have seen her in decades. She still isn't seeing anyone (that I know of) and knows that the long shifts that rotate from day to night reek havoc with her sleep and would try even the most understanding of boyfriends. But she loves what she does and she has found a sense of purpose.



Has anyone else made a radical change in their lives? Do you think it is possible to do with a family and all that sort of baggage? A friend's mother went back to law school in her late forties after all her children had grown up and was even contemplating moving to Australia when she was diagnosed with cancer. Not that I am thinking of doing anything crazy, but my dream has always been to pack up the kids and go live in France or New Zealand for a year. Guess that's why I am so jealous of Amy of Bitchin' Wives Club. Even the stress and pain of packing up a family of five to cross the pond to England seems like an adventure seen through her words and camera lens.

I know that people are often forced as a result of divorce or death to make radical changes and you wonder how they were ever able to do so under the circumstances but I remember a teacher once saying to our class of 15 year old girls that we could expect to change jobs five or six times in our lives. We all scoffed, our parents (mostly fathers) had worked at the same jobs for the same companies for their entire lives. It was inconceivable to think that you could be forced or choose to change jobs let alone professions back in the 80's. The world is a different place today as we enter into the second decade of the second millennium. And I, for one think it is better. More chaotic? Yes, but also much more interesting.

Now it's your turn

Being Brazen has a great little thing she does called It's for you. She answers a few questions about herself and then turns it over to her readers to answer the same ones in their comments. Great way to get to know one another, isn't it? It's sort of a meme/youyou.



So here are my answers and then it's your turn so I can read the witty responses.

• Today I feel relieved, a big weight has been lifted financially (I hope)


• Last night I watched my son's first game of the season. He got a shut out (that's hockey and he is a goalie)


• Song of the week - hate to admit it but the Oprah video got me hooked on Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feelin'"


• Currently I want the sun to shine for Thanksgiving (it's this weekend in Canada) and a new pair of black boots


• Favourite ice cream flavour - anything mocha like Ben & Jerry's Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz


• Do I believe there are aliens out there? There had better be 'cause otherwise we're all stuck with each another

So now go for it. I wanna know what you think. I'll try to be original next time and come up with my own questions.

You can go back ... sort of

On Friday I packed my bags and left my family ... for the weekend. It was my 25th high school reunion. The photo above was taken at the Annual Father Daughter Dance in about 1982. I am the girl in the middle, my Dad is the moustache to my right.

I stayed with my oldest - make that longest-standing - friend who you met here. The plan was to get a group of us together Friday night for a little pre-reunion party. I had sent out an email to everyone on my contact list and asked them to forward it on to everyone they had and so on and so on .... All very inclusive and so not cliquey all girl's schoolish. Or so I thought. Responses came back regretfully, almost everyone had other plans. Some family related but some plans with others who were in from out of town for the reunion. Plans that did not include everyone but I was fine with that.

I went ahead and headed down to the big city where I can't believe I had not been in months. I even tried to organize a little blogger get together but flu season has already hit some of our numbers hard and if you have a chance head over to Beth at Books Etc. and see if she's feeling better. (Just checked, she is and she's been hanging out with a real hunk.) So the weekend didn't get off to a roaring start but I met a couple of friends for dinner and we quickly got caught up and consumed two bottles of Pinot Grigio. Then I had a great idea, I'd be damned if I was going home at 9:30 on my big weekend away so why not crash the party the cool kids were having?

It wasn't too bad, we arrived as they were sitting down to dessert and all (most?) seemed genuinely happy to see us. The hostess even commented on my cunning plan to bring the guest of honour and my dinner date together after all these years. Right, that was the plan. Wait a minute, the plan was to crash a party we weren't invited to. Why was I so clever? It seems that in my high school Diet Coke-addled brain I had forgotten that the two afore-mentioned women had had a huge falling out 25 years ago and hadn't spoken since. Hence the lack of invitation for one of them to the party. Me, I just wasn't invited.

So, it seems I had done my good deed for the weekend without even knowing it. There were hugs and congratulations all around, more wine was drunk and I made my way back to my hostess' house quite satisfied with myself.

The morning I wasn't so much. But it was up and at 'em in time to get to the school for the traditional Old Girls vs. students basketball and field hockey games. I took photos, none of which were very good. Chatted with a few teachers, horrified the students with stories of life before cellphones and Wikipedia and then hightailed it out to go shopping, had enough time for a nap before heading back for the cocktail party. There every reunion year from 60 to 5 was represented by chattering, squealing and laughing women who all shared a common experience of wearing a tunic, tie and some, even bloomers (that would include yours truly, they switched to boxers soon after I graduated but we did wear the damn things under our kilts and tunics for modesty's sake, if you can believe it) We posed for class photos and then headed off to our dinner at a classmate's house.

There were over 40 of us out of about 70 including some who had left before graduation. We came from as far away as the UK, San Francisco, Oregon, Connecticut, Quebec, B.C. and Ohio. We are now doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, Pilates and Yoga instructors, mothers, divorcees and widows. And we all look even better 25 years later. We have all come into our own in everyway. We turned 40 a few years back and we all seem to be embracing it. Our hair is blonder, longer, shorter, darker and greyer but our eyes are bright and surrounded by laugh lines.

And we added to them that night. We shared photos of our families and homes. We swapped email addresses and phone numbers and business cards. We ate and drank and toasted two of our classmates who are no longer with us and promised to remember them as they would have wanted us to to. We were the class of 1984, George Orwell predicted Big Brother and doom. We remember Boy George, Flash Dance and leggings. Fortunately only the leggings have survived.

Wordless Wednesday - When boys play dress up

Gas, bloating, the recession and other reasons not to read this post

Okay, so I have been feeling like shit lately. Too tired in the morning, too tired in the afternoon and ready to crawl back into bed around 7pm. I doesn't help that it is getting darker so much earlier now. Why does that seem to happen so suddenly right after Labour Day? In the spring it takes forever for the sun to stay up until after 9pm but something happens once school starts that makes me want to crawl into bed right after dinner.

But back to my aches and pains. Lately no matter how healthy I try to eat which isn't that healthy compared to people who take their flax seed and cleanses seriously but better than my usual habit of eating the kids leftover Kraft Dinner and nibbling on the ends of Oreo Sippers. But I still have been feeling like crap - like the title says - bloated, gassy, nothing fits around my waist, tired and cranky. And this isn't just pre or post menstrual, this is all f**king month long. Yes, I know the recession that is supposedly over isn't helping the mood around our house. We run a seasonal business and right now we are headed into the off part of it and it looks like it is going to be a long one. My Other Half isn't sleeping much and working too much and the kids, well, they are kids. We can't expect them to understand why we aren't booking tickets to spend Thanksgiving with their cousins or even contemplating heading south for Spring Break.

But, again, back to my bloating. So I was flipping through a mag, one that I always thought was for older women but lately seems to be aimed right at me. Yes, that makes me their target - middle aged with school age kids, no money for designer shoes and needs recipes that involve using up leftovers ***** sigh*****

Anyways I came across an ad that described my "symptoms" to a T.

• My stomach is going to explode


• My friend thought I was pregnant (Well, maybe she did. She just had enough sense not to say it out loud)


• Always craving sweets


• Vaginal itching (not in a good way)

It seems I am suffering from a yeast overgrowth - YUCK - called Candida Albicans. The irony is that I had just told my sister that I thought her baby might have thrush and we were running around trying to find Acidophilus for her to take while breastfeeding. So it seems both PJ and I have an over abundance of yeast in our systems.

So now the fun begins. Really no one should ever go on line looking for answers to medical questions. Everything you find points to one of two things. Either you are going to die and you have to spend a fortune trying to prevent that outcome or you aren't going to die but you still have to spend a fortune trying to fix what ails you.

So if anyone knows anything about the other kind of yeast infection (I can't believe I am posting this for all to see but tough times require tough posts) and have any suggestions, recommendations and/or words of wisdom which don't require giving up coffee or wine, I'm all ears. For now I am off to the health food store to check out the selection of probiotics. (I can't believe that just came out of my keyboard)