Category Archives: Sadness

Sick Day

Posted on February 14, 2012 | 2 Comments

For the past couple weeks my house has been a den of disease- coughs, colds, runny noses, sore throats, fevers and sneezes. When you’re sick, it’s nice to be able to take some time off work to recover, recuperate and regroup, so that when you do go back you’re refreshed and ready to tackle everything that piled up while you were ill. Unfortunately, I’m barely sick and can’t justify skipping work (taking sick days costs me $150-$200) so I’m slogging through it all while Taylor sleeps for 19 hours a day (although last night he very gallantly offered me “flu sex.” I declined.).

To be quite honest, what I really need right now is a mental health day, a catch-up day. A day that isn’t the weekend where I can finally finish cleaning the house and get my etsy stuff organized. My shop is actually doing really well- all the people posting their banners on tumblr, the ad I took out, the giveaways and discount codes I’ve done, they’ve all combined to form something that looks like it might well become a success! I’ve been selling quite a few banners each week and it’s great, but when I was promoting my etsy I overlooked one important detail: while I’m making banners and bunting I still have to do my regular job. You remember that one, the daycare thing that I do fifty hours a week.

I can actually do both- I work on banners when the kids are doing an activity, or napping, or in the evenings when they’ve all gone home. Unfortunately this doesn’t leave me with a lot of time for stuff like blogging (hence my weak posts recently) and cooking (hello, takeout menu!) and cleaning. Right now I’m maintaining the absolute minimum level of cleanliness in the daycare areas of the house, but everything else? SQUALOROUS. And Taylor being sick and unable to help doesn’t, well, help!

Yesterday I spent all my free time rushing to finish the last four orders I had so I could get them to the post office, and when I was all done and they were all shipped I heaved a huge relieved sigh and said “Now I can finally get my house clean and start working on all these other projects I’ve been putting off, like refinishing the bedside table I found in the alley and painting a backdrop to photograph my banners against!” but before I even sat down on the couch I got another order. Obviously I’m not complaining- I love making banners (and I love making money), but it’s a little overwhelming. A few weeks ago Taylor and I had a discussion about how much money I’d have to make off etsy sales each month before I could quit my job and become a full time crafter (I’m about 1/6 of the way there and not holding my breath) but like… even if I did have enough sales each month I would never have the time to finish them all!

Anyway, my latest order is fortunately a small one, so before I get started I’m going to take today to clean up around here; mostly my workspaces (since right now I don’t actually have anywhere to make anything!).

…but I really need to do the dishes and some laundry and Oh My God clean the bathroom. And who knows, maybe I’ll also find time to paint that backdrop, start refinishing that table, repaint the top of my desk, clean out my old, dying computer and transfer all my files to my new computer (I bought a new computer and I haven’t even taken it out of the box yet because everything is such a mess!),

… take out all the recycling,

… sort through/organize/put away all my boxes of non-Christmas holiday decorations,

… sort through/organize/put away all my boxes of random arts & craft supplies,

… paint my bedroom/bathroom/kitchen, work on some designs for new etsy items I’m planning, and while we’re at it, organize all my receipts & papers so I can find go see my accountant and file my taxes.

Yeah. That’ll happen.

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Issues, Life Etc, Rambling Text

Bad Reviews

Posted on February 8, 2012 | 6 Comments

Normally I try to only talk about nice things that I like, but I’m not feeling it today so here are some things I’ve tried recently that I didn’t like.

1. The Chocolate Chip Cookie Oreo Brownie Bars I made for my birthday.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Oreo Brownie Bar, with Ice Cream

That looks good right? Well in all honesty they were just okay. First of all, even though I baked them for less time than the recipe specified, they came out not quite burnt, but definitely overcooked and therefore really hard. Secondly, the recipe said to line the baking pan with wax paper. WHAT. This seemed insane to me, and I almost went with parchment paper instead but at the last minute decided to follow the directions since ironically, I didn’t want to mess them up. Once the bars were completely cooled they were okay, but we first tried them when they were still slightly warm and there was a total wax odor to them! GROSS. I think if I made these again they would be better since I’ve learned from my mistakes.

2. Moroccanoil Luminous Hairspray

I used this hairspray when I was curling my hair on New Year’s Eve and it works great as a hairspray, but it has an unfortunate fragrance. It’s a kind of weird, sickly-sweet baby powder and also antiseptic smell, and it’s the exact same smell as a Diaper Genie. Luckily I got this as a free sample and don’t feel like I wasted money on it, since I won’t be using it again. The last thing I want to be reminded of when styling my hair is anything to do with diapers!

3. Lancome Hypnose Doll Lashes Mascara

Lancome Hypnose is my FAVOURITE mascara, but the last time I needed a new tube I thought I’d try something new and I bought the Doll Lashes version. It was a huge mistake. Now, if you can get this mascara on properly it DOES give you really nice looking lashes, but the problem is that there is some kind of design disconnect between the formula and the wand. When you pull it out there is SO MUCH mascara glooped into the brush that if you don’t spend a million years carefully wiping it off you end up with the heartbreak of flylashes. It sucks because I did buy this so I DO feel like I wasted money, and I can’t justify spending another $28 on a tube of mascara when I have a sort-of perfectly good one already.

4. Real Steel

I know right? Like WHY would I even watch this movie? The answer is a certain husband (who has lost movie-picking privileges for a month) heard that the robot effects were really well done. And that’s true; the robots are very well done. The problem is with the people: every single human character in this movie is a terrible, unpleasant, nasty waste of oxygen. The dad is a horrible person, the kid is an insufferable brat, the semi-love interest, the aunt and uncle, the owners and promoters and spectators of robot boxing are all disgusting, awful people and watching the robots forced to destroy each other for the pleasure of these cretins was…. literally the worst movie watching experience I’ve had in a long time. I kept hoping the robots would become sentient and self-aware, then rise up and crush their human oppressors. I wanted Skynet to rain down nuclear destruction on them all! I read online that they’re already planning a sequel to Real Steel and in my mind the only way it would work would be if it was also a prequel to The Matrix.

Take that, Hugh Jackman!

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Posted in Issues, Rambling Text, Seriously

It’s For the Best

Posted on January 27, 2012 | 4 Comments

Last night all my feelings of sadness and trappedness and I-hate-my-jobness all came to a head in a fit of napping and weeping. After Taylor went to work I lay awake in bed feeling sorry for myself and planning out a big blog post about all the things that are bothering and upsetting me and why nothing can be done about any of it and blah blah blah. FUTILITY OF LIFE, basically. Anyway, then I fell asleep and when I woke up I’d forgotten Ev. Ruh. Thing. I was going to say.

So.

It’s probably for the best. No one wants to read that- even I don’t want to read that! I’m still having a crap year but OH WELL. It’s Friday night, I’m about to go get beer, and my banners were posted (featured?) on Bust.com today. WHO CAN COMPLAIN???? Not me, that’s for sure. Instead I spent all my free time today working on new headers and contact buttons and whatnot for all the pages in the Unicorn Parade empire. I’m not done yet (the ones that are up now are temporary) but the profile pictures for the facebook pages are SUPER SWEET. Here is the one for the blog’s page:

LOVE IT. So stuff can’t be all that bad, right? Right.

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Rambling Text, Sadness, This Blog

Winter Wonderland

Posted on January 17, 2012 | 2 Comments

This winter had been really unbelievably mild so far, so when I saw that the forecast for this past weekend was all snow snow snow I was a little excited. Unfortunately even though it snowed on Friday night and off and on Saturday, it was also very sunny and by Sunday morning all we had left was a few sad patches of snow.

Not very impressive. However, on Monday Mother Nature stepped up her game.

That’s more like it!! Of course I was working and couldn’t go out and enjoy it but Taylor and the dogs had fun.

It stopped snowing fairly quickly and by the afternoon it already looked mostly like that first picture again, but that didn’t stop every fool in the city from throwing giant handfuls of that horrible blue chemical salt stuff all over the place. That stuff is the worrrrrrrrst, it kills plants and is toxic for pets, I don’t see why people can’t just shovel their walks, especially since we only got like, AN INCH of snow! Two Christmases ago Taylor and I went to Kelowna to visit his family, and there is WAYYYY more snow up there than there ever is here, and yet NO ONE in his moms’ neighbourhood salts, the just shovel and deal with it. I wish people here would do that.

We put booties on the dogs every time we took them out but I still had to wash their little salted feet, and my hands got totally chapped raw just from pulling their boots on and off. In fact, even though I washed my hands every time, at some point I put my fingers in my mouth and I got total salt-mouth and now I have an ulcer on my tongue O___o So gross, and I’m probably poisoned and going to die now.

ANYWAY. At least Kichou enjoyed himself (he looks grumpy here but he’s THRILLED).

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Posted in Issues, Life Etc, Pets and Husbands, Seriously

The Only Cure

Posted on January 11, 2012 | 9 Comments

Well so far it seems like this week is gonna be as much of a butt as last week was, in fact, I’m going to go ahead and say it: 2012 SUCKS. Bring on the end of the world.

I’ve tried everything I can think of to get out of this funk but every day I feel crabbier and more miserable. Too crabby and miserable to blog, even. I have a bunch of real posts percolating in my brain, waiting to get typed up, but instead I’m going to post the only thing that I can: DOG PICTURES.

I was eating cheese popcorn the other night and Dougal was ON BOARD, like he REALLY wanted some. I don’t share people food with dogs though, so he was out of luck.

Georgie has a faux-fur dog bed under my desk but Claire has been hogging it. Cats are no respecters of property ownership.

Finally a picture of Georgie and I in better times, ie New Year’s Eve, before this turd of a year kicked in. God my hair was fantastic that night. WOULD THAT WE COULD GO BACK TO THOSE HALCYON DAYS.

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Posted in Pets and Husbands, Sadness

Anything Helps

Posted on December 17, 2011 | 5 Comments

If you were linked here from facebook/twitter/tumblr, please click here for an update on my kitty.

A couple of people have asked me if they could contribute to help with Claire’s vet bills and after getting an update from the vet this evening (her blood sugar is still way too low even after eight hours with an IV full of sugar, she’s not flinching when you put your hand in front of her face i.e. she can’t see it i.e. she’s currently pretty blind) I can safely say ANYTHING HELPS because at this point I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring her home tomorrow, and every day she spends in the hospital is another $1,500-$1,900 (the picture of the estimate I posted before didn’t include taxes).

Anyway I’ve added a donation button to the righthand sidebar on my blog, and I’ll also put it at the end of this post. EDIT: I’ve removed the donation buttons because my bills are taken care of. Thank you again to everyone who helped out! I know it’s a big dumb internet cliché to ask for money to help pay your cat’s vet bills, but OH WELL.

I’m running a Cat Aid sale on my etsy shop, get 25% off your order with the code CATAID25. If you’ve been thinking about getting a glitter banner now’s the time! There’s some new stuff too; in addition to the fancy letters for the Christmas banners I’ve added custom ombre glitter banners. They’re really beautiful and also cost effective! Who wouldn’t want to buy one of those? Cat haters, that’s who.

I know it’s the holiday season and lots of people are stretched pretty thin financially, but I’m not even kidding, LITERALLY ANYTHING WILL HELP.

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Posted in Issues, Pets and Husbands, Sadness, Seriously

Emergency

Posted on December 17, 2011 | 9 Comments

I’m not having a good day.

That’s my poor sick kitty meow in intensive care at the emergency animal hospital after I got up this morning to find her unresponsive on the living room floor. Like she was breathing and everything but her eyes were staring and not blinking and her body just… wasn’t working. I tried to get her to sit up and she just collapsed like a poor sad pancake.

We took her to our vet right away and they sent us the emergency hospital, where we were told she was very hypoglycemic (low blood sugar), with low blood pressure and a low temperature. Just low everything you need to be alive, basically. Because we don’t know how long she was like that (probably a while, judging by her temperature) they don’t know what kind of damage their might be to her brain (hypoglycemia = your brain starves). She could go blind. She could die.

Because she’s pretty old and what with this whole diabetes thing, I thought I would be okay if something happened to her. Like it wouldn’t be totally unexpected or shocking if she passed away, so I thought I had resigned myself to it, but I guess not. As soon as I realized something wasn’t right I just started crying and crying, I wrapped her up in a blanket and carried her around the house crying and then when I was getting ready to go to the vet I made Taylor carry her around because I couldn’t bear for her to be left on the floor.

I’m supposed to call the animal hospital in a couple of hours to see how she’s doing, and I’m really hoping against hope that she’s doing better because I feel like her passing away is gonna break my heart. Also, this:

They bring you the estimate while you’re waiting and let you “discuss it as a family” before you decide, and it’s like, either I’m gonna pay all of my money to try to save her, or I just let her die. How can I just let her die? I can’t. I just can’t, she’s just a tiny kitty and I’m supposed to take care of her! But that estimate is for just one day, if they need to keep her longer I can’t afford it, so please send all your positive thoughts to my poor Claire-Claire. I just want to bring her home.

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Posted in Issues, Pets and Husbands, Sadness, Seriously

The Twerrible Tweens

Posted on December 1, 2011 | 7 Comments

So about a month ago Symphony turned ten. Double digits. It’s a big deal; she says she’s a tween now (before she was a pre-tween).

She is also a total butt.

Every thing I say to her turns into an argument. EV. REH. THAH. NNG. This week my mom sent her an advent calendar, and last night I told her she could have the chocolates every day after she practiced her piano, partially because she’s not always here in the morning/evening, and partially as a clever trick to get her to practice her piano more often. Her response: I CAN’T DO THAT BECAUSE I DON’T PRACTICE EVERY DAY SO I LIKE JUST DON’T GET CHOCOLATE THEN I’M GONNA THROW SOME STUFF ACROSS THE ROOM AND WEEP AND SNIFFLE LOUDLY THROUGH THE WHOLE OF MY PIANO PRACTICE BECAUSE IT’S NOT FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR. Really? I make her practice for like, 20 minutes a day. It’s not a Big Deal, or it isn’t until she FREAKS OUT about it.

This morning we had three dumb arguments before she went to school. Like, between 8 and 8:45. THREE ARGUMENTS. ALL DUMB.
1. I asked her to brush her hair again because it was still full of tangles. She stormed off muttering “I ALREADY brushed my hair whine grumble SLAM the bathroom door whine grumble complain eyeroll.”
2. She was running across the apartment with a pencil. I asked her not to because she’ll put her eye out! She walked for two steps and then started running again. I told her to stop and she goes “I was skipping eyeroll eyeroll god I’m so clever to sidestep your authoritarian rule with my brilliant skipping tactic.” OMG DO NOT EVEN ARGUE SEMANTICS WITH ME BEFORE I HAVE HAD COFFEE.
3. I was holding Georgie and stuck her little feet in my sweater pocket and joked to Taylor “Look, I have a Georgie in my pocket!” and Sym chimed in with a snotty “No you don’t, only her feet are in your pocket eyeroll.” REALLY??? I DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE THAT, I THOUGHT THE ENTIRE DOG WAS IN MY TINY POCKET. SORRY FOR JOKING AROUND MS. LITERAL MINDED. Okay so this probably didn’t have to be an argument but I was on my last nerve and had already had two talks with her about her Attitude Problem.

So what the hell? Is this going to be every day now? Because I’m already sick to death of it.

UGH. TWEENS.

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Posted in Darling Child, Issues

Top Tips for the Carsick

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 10 Comments

I came up with the idea for this post in April, and started writing it in June. Then I saved it as a draft and never looked at it again until this weekend, when Taylor’s and my trip to Ikea ended in me making him drop me off a block and a half early because I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the last two turns without barfing everywhere.

I have always always always been prone to carsickness, ever since I was a little kid. It sucked because my parents always hated stopping the car so I could puke on the side of the road so I heard a lot of “Just sing a song, then you won’t feel sick anymore” and “We have one of those anti-static strips on the car so it’s scientifically impossible for you to be carsick.” Cut to me crouched in the dirt on the side of the Malahat on Vancouver Island, barfing my guts out. Cut to me sprawled across my sister’s lap with my head stuck out the window, puking all the way from LAX to Anaheim. Cut to me spewing on some poor unsuspecting guy’s jacket when I couldn’t get off a bus in Horseshoe Bay in time. Cut to me yakking in the parking lot at a scenic overlook 9,000 feet up Haleakala in Maui. CUT TO ME VOMITING EVERYWHERE.

I looks so happy because I just VOMITED EVERYWHERE

Now I have my own kid who is also prone to carsickness, and I try to be very sympathetic with her because I know how it feels. Maybe it’s annoying to have to stop the car and pull over on the side of highways everywhere so a carsick child can walk it off and spit bile in the grass, but would it be less annoying to clean vomit out of the upholstery? I don’t think so!

Over the years I’ve been working on developing a system for FOOLPROOF CARSICKNESS TREATMENT AND PREVENTION and after painstaking research on roadtrips and throughout pregnancies (morning sickness is a great carsickness substitute) I’ve come up with my Top Tips for the Car Sick.

1. Gravol Ginger tablets
Regular Gravol/Dramamine/motion sickness pills make you sleepy. Ginger Gravol is made from ginger (duh), which prevents carsickness without drowsiness, which is great if you have to navigate, or take care of a carsick kid, or function as a human being once you reach your destination. These pills are small and easy to swallow, which makes them great for Sym as well (normal Children’s Gravol pills are big and need to be chewed up, and she doesn’t like the flavours). You could also try ginger gum or tea but I think they taste disgusting, and things that taste disgusting make me want to throw up, which pretty much defeats the purpose of anti-nausea products.

2.Jolly Rancher candies
You know that weird gross pre-barf taste you get in your mouth when you’re about to be carsick? You need something that will get rid of it without putting anything in your stomach. Some people like gum for this but when it loses its flavour it gets gross, and having to spit anything out when you already feel like puking is a recipe for puking. Jolly Ranchers, the original hard candies, are PERFECT. The fruit flavours totally overwhelm the sick taste without being overly sweet. Whenever we go for long car trips with Sym I put a big bag of them in my purse and we suck on them the whole way. SORRY, TEETH I know all that sugar isn’t good for you, but neither is being constantly bathed in stomach acid.

3. Hickory Sticks
I discovered the anti-nausea properties of these hickory-smoked shoestring potato sticks when I was pregnant with Sym. The starchiness of the potatoes calms your poor acidic tummy, and I don’t know what it is about the hickory flavour, but it WORKS.

4. Water
LOTS of water. In spite of my best efforts, Sym and I do still end up puking sometimes, and the only thing worse than throwing up is throwing up straight bile, or a big dry glob of masticated Hickory Sticks. Drinking lots of water means if you do vomit it’ll come up quickly and easily, plus the added bonus of more pee stops means you’ll have more chances to walk it off. Note: please bring your own reusable water bottles instead of being an environment trashing bottled water drinker. Anyway the last time I bought bottled water (because I forgot my water bottle at home) it tasted like vulcanized rubber. EW.

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Posted in Issues, Vacation

Get To Work

Posted on November 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

What’s up, internet? I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I haven’t really been making with the blog posts recently. Like, only two or three posts a week? WHO AM I???

The reason for this is because I have been in a Grade A Funk. Mad and sad and feeling bad, and all I want to do is eat a billion cookies and watch tv. Last year this happened right before Halloween; this year I was so busy at the end of October that it waited for November. I guess the key is to constantly be doing things so that I don’t have time to start feeling miserable.

The perfect thing to brighten my mood right now would be to get going on some serious Christmas crafting, but I have a little problem with that: my craft desk. It looks like this right now.

FUN FACT my computer desk ALSO looks like that. Two desks, piled high with mess. The best part is I always always ALWAYS get on Sym’s case to keep her desk clean so she has somewhere to do her work. I think it’s time I start practicing what I preach, I mean MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS glitter banners aren’t going to hand-cut their own letters.

Speaking off, check out this sip & see featuring a fancy banner by yours truly! tbh I wasn’t entirely sure what a sip & see was when I made the sign, but I guess it’s a chance for parents to introduce their baby to everyone at once instead of people dropping by constantly when you are all sleep-deprived and unshowered with a messy house. Huh. I wish I’d known about these ten years ago!

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, House Beautiful, Life Etc, Sadness

Category Archives: Sadness

Sick Day

Bad Reviews

It’s For the Best

Winter Wonderland

The Only Cure

Anything Helps

Emergency

The Twerrible Tweens

Top Tips for the Carsick

Get To Work

Myself

People I Like

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