Tenants

Life's been busy, and to top it all off, we need new tenants by February 1st.

Our previous tenant left after 13 months. Nice enough guy, a little nerdy around the edges (not a bad thing), but seemingly proven intelligent (though I do frown on his opinionated written word). I surf onto his website every so often. He's apparently a self-professed expert on all music electronic, if that isn't nerdy enough, I don't know what is. I chuckle because I sometimes liken him to Ross Gellar from the TV show "Friends" fame in his high school keyboard days. But I don't think this guy actually creates music; he just classifies them: house, (french, deep, euro, etc), jungle, trance, etc. Like I care to know the difference.

Hopefully we'll be able to find someone in time. I'd hate to find out what we'll have left in the bank after paying for next month's daycare.

Brain Farts

What the heck was I drinking when I wrote that last post? I apologize for the melancholy...I shouldn't be allowed to blog at 2am!

Anyone who knows me knows that I take on a lot on my plate; I can't concentrate on one thing alone. I multi-task. I have lots of hobbies, or could-be hobbies; if I had the time, I'd do it all.

While sitting at my desk at work today, my mind my buzzing. Brain farts. Yes, brain farts. A rather obtuse description of my rather flatulent brain working hard. Here I present a smattering of what went through my head today.

• Half-marathon. Yes, I would like to try it again. I did it once, back in 2003. 2:16:11, give or take a few seconds. My only problem is (ok, there is actually more than one!) I used to have quite a running base before tackling a half-mara. I did a few 5 and 10k runs before hand. Hey, if Katie Holmes can run the New York, and look fantastic, can't I get a piece of that satisfaction too? Could I even afford new shoes? Katie probably had 7 pairs...

• laineygossip.com. If you haven't checked out Lainey's website, it's a hoot. Wow, I wish I could sit around all day and blog about juicy celebrity gossip AND get paid! A sweet gig on eTalk doesn't hurt either. Sure beats looking down a microscope.

• University of Phoenix. Do people actually receive real degrees or are they the collegiate-equivalent of those postage-stamp adhesives I see in the bulk mail envelope advertising for high school diplomas, amongst the other highly-coveted choices of Professional Dog Walker or overweight Fitness Instructor? I fondly recall the chuckle I enjoyed when I saw this high school "diploma" belonging to the 16 year old son of my mother's friend, the same kid who, at Grade 10, was failing miserably at the real school he skipped out of constantly. I guess he needed a permanent vacation.
  

• Vegas. I need an el-cheapo flight from home to Vegas in the long weekend in March for a stagette. Yeah, right....so do hundreds others. Party weekend....bring on the booze!

• Pregnancy. When's the best time? Is it time? Gotta wait until after the March weekend of debauchery. Gotta wait until after that half-marathon I'm crazy enough to consider. Gotta wait until the wedding in November I have to attend in Virginia. Gotta wait.

• Birthdays. My sister is turning 30 this week. That makes me 34 this year; I'm getting old. Little brother is turning a Quarter Century. Ugh, I'm double-old.

I pretty much blanked out after that. Then I repeated the whole loop again with something else off-topic, starting with Guitar Hero (So grateful to have finished the last Battle on Easy in Career Play last night!) and ending with antiperspirant (you apply it at night, even before a shower, and it still works? Guffaw!)

And as soon as the brain farts occur, they cease, just like that, without a warning. Thank God; sometimes I wear myself out thinking so fast.

Movies

I'm a busy mom and wife trying to run a household, working full-time hours (and then some). I don't have time to do movies, in theatre or on DVD. I tried on Friday to watch go to the movies, no babysitter; I tried today, still no babysitter. No matter, since it's been a year or so, what's another weekend? I finally settled down and watched a movie on the small screen. By force, rather.

I was busy filing through old bills, working on some financial housekeeping (a future post, I promise), and my husband keeps passing by the room, pausing, and giving me this burning stare as if to say, "You busy?" He did this a few times within a 5- minute span, always shrugging, "oh, nothing", to my impatient "What?!?"

So I follow him to the livingroom and ask, "Do you really want me to watch Mr. & Mrs Smith with you?". Yes, was his reply, you'd enjoy it.

So I sat and watched, by force, like I said. We've owned the movie for a while, but I never got around to watching it. Entertaining piece of Hollywood. I won't reveal more about the movie in case you haven't seen it, but I probably was the last person in North America to bear witness to the Jolie-Pitt love affair unfolding on the screen. I must admit, that's one sexy couple!

We finished the movie, and my husband thought he would pop in another DVD for us to watch, since I seemed to be in the mood and not distracted like I normally am.

We've been test-driving a DVD service for the past couple of months, where we create a list of movies we want to watch and we get them sent in the mail and return them back via mail too. No late fees, no walking to Blockbuster. It's a little bit like Christmas when we find out what movies we get sent. We've had a couple of DVDs lying around just waiting to get watched; my husband popped in one of these movies: Blood Diamonds.

My husband had seen most of it already, unable to wait until we watched it together. Naturally, he fell asleep halfway through. I, myself, was entralled! As a pacifist, and a parent, I watched wistfully at the characters' plights. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly, it tells of Sierra Leone in the 1990s, ravaged by revolutionaries and rampant genocide, cursed with the taste for wealth due to trafficked conflict diamonds. A moving story of a diamond smuggler, a journalist and a man whose family means more to him than all the diamonds in the world. An amazing, gut-wrenching movie which is stll keeping me awake at 2am.

I used to watch movies and not be affected like this. It's one of the reasons why I don't mind watching horror movies; I never carry any of it away with me. But, somehow, a responsibility has grown within me, and I have this inane compassion that just spills out when I watch dramas now. Case in point: Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith. Never revealed before, I had an emotional breakdown during that movie. I commiserated so well with the main character, the dams broke and I just cracked, cried and cried and cried like I never had before. To this day, I believe that was a turning point in my life; funny how a silly, ol' movie does that to you.

So, just like after Pursuit of Happyness, pondering on my own financial destiny and my meaning of happiness, I ponder yet again, tonight on the genocide and emotional scars of Sierra Leone's youth. The movie, despite its Hollywood sensationalism, reminds me of how frivolous and petty my own problems are and how there are many, many issues in this world that are just so much greater than ourselves. I survive to go to work to pay off a mortgage, spend whatever time possible with family, keep the house clean; others just survive. Period. For me, movies have become a lesson to learn from, a window, of sorts, of what life is like on the other side for others. Being born in Canada, I don't have a history of walking through barren fields, heavy jungle or even urban disaster zones of gunfire. I'm blessed to own a home, my parents still talk to me, I have a car, a job, my health, even some friends. Clearly, I have many things in life to be thankful for; a couple of them lie peacefully asleep in beds under warm blankets, breathing gently amidst the still of the night. I should join them, and dream with them, because I can.

Towel Bar

Yes, friends, we have a towel bar!

In previous posts I may have alluded to my disappointment in unsuccessfully persuading my husband to install another towel bar in our bathroom, after my toddler decided to swing on our previous one for fun. After almost a couple of months of hanging my wet towels on the handle of our closet door in the hallway, we finally have a place to hang our towels again!

It's a rather stunning towel bar, as far as towel bars go. We got it in chrome, since most of our fixtures match, and it's a double-bar, which will bode well for the survival of our marriage.

We have a really tiny bathroom, with really only enough space for one attached towel bar. I had always taken the bar while my husband always resorted to hanging his towels behind the bathroom door, on a plastic, accordion-like hook system (installed when we bought the house, and we didn't bother taking it down). Call me anal, fussy, whatever, but I like to hang wet items up and get really teed off when I find a wet towel over my side of the bed. By the time I find this used towel, it's been few hours and it's dried, somewhat, taking on a stiffened shape of a ball. If you've ever had the pleasure of hanging up a stiff towel over a plastic knob such like we have behind our bathroom door, you too would enjoy the endless joviality of bending over again and again to pick up the towel off the floor; they refuse to stay on the hook unless wet. Many a violent time had I had with that towel and hook!

It's a tough call, actually, which I hate more, the wet towel on my bed or it falling off that plastic rack. By having a dedicated place to hang our towels once again, I'll be able to direct my husband to bring his towel to its righteous place, be it wet or dry. All order is finally restored....for now!

2008...Bring It!

I got a little depressed a few hours ago, reflecting on the past year and what became of it. What brought it on was a situation I find myself in year after year: finding a christmas gift certificate from the previous year, and wondering where in the world was I, that I couldn't take the opportunity and spend "free money" on myself in the previous 365+ days. It was a spa gift certificate given to me by my brother in 2006. Judging by the date on the gfit card, he bought it as a last minute choice, resorting to ambiguous, generic gift-giving rather than giving something I wanted or needed.

But maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's not the fact that I didn't use the certficate, wondering if it's gone stale, and my incessant penchant for "getting value" out of everything, or that my younger brother actually thought I was worth the $70 to go pamper myself. And maybe it's not the plain reminder that a whole year in my life flashed before me, and I haven't gotten around to smelling the roses and taking care of myself or even being organized enough to realize my pile of gift certificates accumulates more and more dust each year. Am I bothered more with the fact that my brother didn't think he knew me well enough to buy me an actual present? Am I mad at myself for allowing me to devalue his well-meaning gift when I didn't use it? And why do I psychoanalyze everything......

Maybe it's just that time of year. Many of us female-species tend to have a time-of-the-month, yes, I admit. I submit a possibly new imprint on the female persona by way of that time-of-the-year. Yearly cyclical moods must have an impact on how a female operates. Case in point....most females, correct me if I'm wrong, go ahead and make New Year Resolutions in the hopes of emerging a thinner, smarter, prettier version. Believe me when I say I'm still working on my beta version and have yet to set a release date!

But nonetheless, the beginning of a New Year always signifies, to me, not really what is good to come, but what in the past was bad. Not remembering the past year, alone, is bad, very bad. I can't say anything terrible happened to me, but nor did anything absolutely stellar happen to me. I used to do resolutions, and the typical ones at that. Lose 10 pounds, save more money, get organized, etc. I've stopped resolving to do much of anything, simply because history always dictated the opposite of my intentions. But if I were to resolve to do anything this year, I think it would be this: remember the extraordinary mundane.

Huh? Ok, my life's isn't fast-paced, hell, it's not not even clocking 50. But every single moment of boring I come across should mean something. If the house is quiet, that means everyone is content; if the house is loud, then life abounds and my family is active, healthy, alive. The floor has crumbs....my son has food he wants to eat, so who am I to stop him? So I'm loading the dishwasher...at least I've got one now, and now have the option of loading or handwashing. More laundry? At least my washer is holding on despite how horrible it sounds and all the work I put it through. Husband's dirty socks on the floor again? Ok, I haven't figured out the wondrousness in that yet...but you catch my drift.

This reminds me of an email we've probably all received, about living life to the fullest, that there's nothing negative that abounds, and all is good in the world. I want to believe it's true, and that's my resolution. Wear my special dress even though it's not a special day. Make my face up each day, even though I feel like crap and feel like a mask would work more wonders. Smile more get smiles in return. Just being plain positive about everything and not being a schmuck. Maybe, if I do this, I'll be able to remember my mundane life in clearer focus. I guess I should start by not calling it mundane.

So, 2008, welcome! I give you myself, whole, uncut, raw. Happy New Year, everyone!