Checkin' In

I'm sick. The stomach flu made the rounds in my house last week and I dodged that bullet. One of co-workers had been feeling under the weather, sore throat, achey. Guess what I got? Blech!

We've been in Northern Alberta for 9 months. Seven of that it has been winter. I kid you not. I understand the rest of the country also suffers from a tardy spring but our winter started on Oct 10th. Yes, you read that right. When you're expecting amber leaves, crisp mornings, fog and golden sun, we got snow. A couple inches, if I remember correctly. It appears that the interim seasons -supposing and autumn - last one hot little minute. That's it. If I get my hands on my Mother Nature I'm gonna wring her little neck.

Well, that's it for tonight folks. I wanted to try blogging from my phone ( a first generation Galaxy Note) and it was surprisingly easy. But alas, my battery, it is dying! So I must away!

I Have Commitment Issues

You know, in case you hadn't noticed. Seriously though, life has been one chaotic shit storm after another. And like the good little Pisces that I am, when the going gets tough, I amp up the escapism. So I have spent the past couple of months immersed in one obsession after another, doing my damnedest to avoid real life. Reading (a dozen or so books since we last met), movies (not as many of these as I'd like), TV(the latest obsession: 5 seasons of Supernatural in just under 2 weeks), music (whatever, whenever, wherever), creeping you on Facebook (no worries, my stalker is well fed). You name it, nothing really productive, just whatever it takes.

My 14 year old daughter is trying on every teenage stereotype in existence. So far, we haven't killed each other, but we've come close once or twice. My husband may run screaming, so much are the estrogen and stubborn. Or he may end up killing us both. No judge would convict him. Just in case you read that last paragraph in a literal sense instead of heaped in sarcasm, as it was meant to be read; I love my daughter dearly, but, wow! Were we all like this? Jesus, we were unbearable!

Female Rep hockey is the bane of my existence. That's all I got to say on that subject. For now.

The month of January, 2011 has done little else except convince me that it is indeed a fabulous idea to retire in a warmer location. You know what? Why wait, I say we relocate! Holy Snow, Batman!

Finally, I will be 33 in a couple of weeks. I think I may be having trouble dealing. Yeah. I hate to say it, because 30 came and went and I was a cucumber. But I'm staring down the barrel of 33 and feeling a little shit balls retarded. If I were a dude, I'd trade my new car in for an older, sportier model, like this:









Or I'd trade my hubby in for a younger, newer model. No, never mind, I don't think I would. I don't have the patience for that. Besides, younger men kind of seem like they may be a little too metro for me. I like my men, well, manly. If you've used more wax than I have since the new year or you've got your hair stylist on speed dial, you need not apply.

Aaaand, I've just proved that I am indeed old. Just shoot me now.

Anyway, Imma try to pay more attention to my little slice of Internet heaven.

It's Here! It's Finally Here!

What? You ask. Well, my sister's blog. I've finally succeeded in harassing her enough that she started one of her own. So, I ask you as a favour between friends, go! Visit The Rantings of an Awkward Genius, I promise she will have you laughing your butt off in no time (as long as she blogs at a reasonable hour!). And if she doesn't? I cannot be held responsible. It's not like I twisted your arm or anything. Or hers. Okay, maybe I twisted hers a little. But only because I think her brand of funny should be shared. Have I built her up enough? Do you think it will hurt when she falls off that mile high pedestal I've put her on? C'mon, my expectations aren't that hard to meet! Also, writing in any form offers a reprieve that is difficult to find elsewhere and who doesn't need that once in awhile? I know all of my bloggy friends understand. So? What are you still doin' here? Go! Read! Enjoy! And be nice, or I'll beat you up (she is my little sissy, after all)!

Hello, My Name is Eyvi.

My time management skills leave a lot to be desired. My follow through is not as strong as it could be, either. Also, I have an undeniably addictive personality. In addition to that, escapism is my drug of choice. What am I trying to say? The Cannonball was probably a bad idea for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love having a reason to read. But I hate writing the reviews. I’m not very good at them and they get in the way of the next book. I am 10 reviews behind. 10!!! And so, because I feel guilty for being so behind on my reviews I avoid blogging altogether. Every time I log in I think I should be writing a review, and then whatever I was going to write drowns in the pool of guilt. So I avoid my blog. This means I am missing out on y’all. Well, the ones I’m not friends with on crackbook. And of those I am friends with; I am missing out on what it takes you more than 400 characters (or whatever the limit is) to say. This all makes sense in my head.

Not to worry though! My blogging friends aren’t the only social circle I have been avoiding. I’ve neglected everyone else as well. This weekend I tried very hard to remind my family that I am still there and I still care and I am willing to participate in family life in between pages and chapters and books. I decided if I couldn’t spare my company (because you can do a lot of things in tandem with reading but talking to people isn’t one of them), then I would demonstrate my love via the culinary arts. I made Spaghetti sauce, chili, cream of potato soup and molasses baked beans. My husband is required to expand very little energy feeding the family this week and it’s all healthy!

So what’s my point besides sharing my faults? Putting one of the many dark areas of my mind on display? What? That isn’t enough? You want blood, too? I don’t have much of one really. I just wanted to share and thought at least I’m blogging something. Right? Right.

Another Award? Seriously, You May Need a Recount.

Yep, you read that right. Cynica Sarcastamos saw fit to bestow the Awesome Blogger award on me. This means I am required to tell you, my devoted followers 7 things you didn't know about me. So here we go boys and girls, this is gonna be quick and dirty.


1. My first serious boyfriend was a crack addict and a criminal. I thought I could fix him.

2. I moved out of my Mom's house when I was 16 years old.

3. I was an obstinate teenager (see 1 & 2). I'm an obstinate adult (ok, so you knew that).

4. I am afraid of the dark. Seriously. You want to cause me irreparable damage? Throw me in a dark room (especially an unfamiliar one), and lock the door. I will curl into a ball and cry like a baby while imagining unspeakable horrors in the dark.

5. I have never broken a bone. I am tough as nails.



6. I like my steak served blue. Google it. When you are done tossing your cookies, don't yell at me. I am not going to make you eat it. If you didn't toss your cookies, congratulations, you earn one brownie point.

7. I am a lucid dreamer. Which means I can control my dreams. While I sleep, I am the coolest, happiest, most successful me. Is there any wonder I like to sleep?

Good Gawd, that was difficult. I must admit though, while I am a crazy embarrassed by these crazy awards, I am also pleased as punch.

Now, it's your turn. You didn't think I was going to suffer through this alone, did you? Oh no, my friends, misery loves company!



1. never passing this way again
2. Anna von Beaverplatz
3. Platitude Paradise
4. An Oreo in Trouble
5. Girl with Curious Hair
6. Welcome to Stabbymart
7. Xtremely Boring/Ragey

And because I'm feeling rebellious (even though misery loves company, but remember how lonely I'll be), I am not going to insist you follow the rules and post 7 things about yourselves (Although, I love to learn more about y'all). I'm also not going to insist you nominate 7 more bloggers, because that shit is hard. I don't want to hurt any one's feelings!

Hmmmm.....

Hi! Happy No Whining Wednesday! What? I know it's Thursday, thanks for pointing out that I'm late, but I thought better late than never. Yesterday I was at home sick. I promise I didn't whine too much. Not anymore than was absolutely necessary to get the attention required to get all better. Other than that, NWW was pretty uneventful.

I'm not sure what to blog about tonight. My thoughts are all disjointed, no real train to them. Nothing really interesting has happened this week. Cause, you know, I'm all kinds of interesting every other week.

Things I would like to blog about but don't have attention span needed tonight:

1) Age inappropriate songs I would sing each and every word to as a youngster (the next edition of By Today's Standards)

2) Whether or not Canada should pull out of Afghanistan when our UN/NATO commitment is up in 2011. I read a newspaper article about a month ago that got me pretty riled up. And as the blog title would suggest, I have an opinion on the matter. Also, I'm a military spouse so, it's kind of a given.

3) A poem I wrote and have yet to finish (attention span) for NWW.

Oh! The kids started school yesterday. I'm not a parent who shoves my kids out the front door the first day of school and then thanks whatever brand of God I pray to that they are finally out of my hair. I like having my kids home. If I could afford it (and thought I was even close to being able to do them justice) I would home school them. So I'm always a little sad on the first day of school. So, my son gets off the school bus all long faced and glum yesterday afternoon. I ask him why the long face? Did he have a bad day? He tells me he got into trouble. I know my son. He's got the attention span of ....well a 9 year old boy (he leans a little toward 9 year old on chocolate, if I'm being honest, sweet, milky chocolate). He has to be engaged. He doesn't yet possess the will to concentrate on the task at hand without guidance. The other end of that is if he is interested, its hard to get him to notice anything else. I figured he got into trouble for goofing off. Not so much. He tells me they were asked to record a summer memory, but they can't use sentences. They have to use words and pictures (it took a number of questions before I got the gist of what he was told). He was having a hard time limiting himself to that. So there's a note in his agenda saying he didn't think he should have to follow instruction and I quote "Not a good start to grade 4". On the first day.

Last year, I tried to be super sweet. Last year, I tried to be nice. I wrote long notes spouting how much I agreed with the teachers point of view and how I thought it was important we communicate. I drilled my son every day. To no avail. My son got stressed, I got stressed and the teacher continued to be a bitch. Don't get me wrong, my son can be a challenge, and I can only imagine how much more challenging it becomes with 20 or so more very much like him. Fact is though, she teaches for a living. Is patience not listed as a job requirement? This year I said fuck it. I wrote a note back. I informed Mrs. Impatience that I thought she was being a little hasty with her judgement and requested she give the kids a chance to get back into a groove. I was not polite. What happened? She wrote a note back. It was full of butterflies and puppy kisses assuring me she wasn't judging.

So tell me this folks: why is it when I bend over backwards to be nice, I go out of my way trying to appease the unappeasable (hmm, not sure that's a word), I get jack for my efforts. I get a bit of a backbone, tell a person or two off and then people start treating me differently. With more respect. Ok, so let me see if I've got this straight: Nice Girl = Door Mat, Bitch = Respect? Nope, that ain't fucked up at all.

Well, I'm done spreading sunshine for this evening. I'll be back tomorrow cause I've got a job interview and I'm going to need someone to wallow in my pity with me or to help celebrate (let's hope for the latter). G'nite folks!

I Accept Your Challenge!

It's No Whining Wednesday again. Damn, time is just zooming by. At this rate, I'm going to be blogging from the old folks home in no time.

I've lots of things to talk about today but I had fallen a little behind on the blogs I follow and there were 6 (6!!!!) comments on yesterday's post that I had to reply to plus my family were hilariously distracting this evening (they were watching Wipeout and laughing like half-crazed hyenas), so I'm short on time.

To begin, I have a new follower! Yay! Welcome, Xtreme. Come in, sit down. Tea (or booze, there's some of that too)? Each new follower makes me ridiculously happy!

I let No Whining Wednesday slip to a sort-of co-worker last week, not that NWW is a big secret, but the blog I use to document my NWW's kind of is. So it's the blog that I let slip really, which I sort of hope she forgets about. NWW she hasn't forgotten about, though. Last week she tried to convince me I had to clean the cartridges on the photo copier just to see if I would whine about it. It seemed fishy from the beginning, but I was game. Trying my damnedest to be polite, I said I thought for a copier that looked like it could very well operate as mission control for NASA, you'd think it wouldn't require that sort of maintenance, but I'd do it, if it needed doing. She laughed at me and then let me in on the joke (oh yay! practical jokes on NWW to test my resolve). Today, she simply asked me how NWW was going so far. She said she was to busy to test me. Thank God for small mercies.

Little does she know, I hope the idea begins to manifest itself in the lives of others. Hopefully, without conscious effort on their part, kind of what happened to this blogger. Another co-worker has also begun to take notice of NWW and I hope that she too, will one day partake. Lainey should be proud, she's started a movement, an anti-massacre movement. If fifty people a day....sorry, bit of a tangent there. I'm a geek and if you aren't familiar with Arlo Guthrie that last bit made absolutely no sense to you. If you are familiar, then you are now fully aware of the depth of my geekdom. I have made peace with it.

Guess what I did today. Go ahead......Ok! Fine! I'll tell you! I had a phone interview for a new job! Which I think went very well. I expect an interview in my near future. Yipee! It's not my dream job, but it will get me away from the shit storm that is my current place of employment. It's something I've done before, so I know I can do it and will be content until the dream job does rear it's head.

Speaking of the Shit storm; one of the people that is responsible for attempting to drive me out of my ever lovin' mind while I am at work made a comment today while I was speaking to another co-worker that, combined with past comments, I took offence to. Rather than brood about it for the rest of the day, I decided to address it. I told him as professionally as I could muster that I thought his comments offensive and would appreciate if he would not attempt to make jokes at my expense because I thought his comments rude. I kind of want him to get the idea that I don't like him and that when he insists on listening to a conversation being had between two other people of which I am one, his comments are not welcome. It isn't really his fault, he's just that person. You know the one you can't stand, no matter how hard you try? The upside there: I didn't tell him to Fuck Off and save his asinine comments for someone else. Which would have been very unprofessional, something I am trying very hard not to become (which is hard to do in my current environment, I gotta tell ya). I hope I've staved off any further unwelcome comments/advice/speech from him.

Oh boy, it's late and this is much longer than I thought it would be. Coffee is gonna be my best friend tomorrow. Oh! Who am I trying to kid? Coffee is my BFF everyday!