skipping like a stone

sleep is so important for (everyone) fibro suffers. if I sleep badly for a day, it's probably ok, but more than 2 nights of shit sleep and I am borked. I do take a sleep aid (prescribed by my Dr) but I find it seems to be less effective than it was once. I have an appointment to see him next monday so we'll see what happens then. but for now, ugh. sleep. where are you?

pickles seems to have gotten himself into quite a pickle! he showed up one day last week with his cheek covered in blood! I cleaned him off and saw he had a scratch on his face which he promptly made a billion times worse by scratching it until it was a huge bloody mess. enter the comfy cone .
I got Chris to stop at our local dog food shop to find something to keep him away from the scratch. I had called the shop before hand to see what they had in stock, and this seemed like the answer to our problem. it is a terrific solution to the usual hard cones. you can take the ribs out of it and turn it down so the little guys can see out and it is totally comfy enough for pickles to sleep in. which is great because he gets to wear the damn thing until this big gross scab falls off. I'm also cleaning it twice a day (we eventually did have to hit the vet*) and he's getting some antibiotics too. better safe than sorry I suppose. jerk.

I don't know about you but I eat the same thing for breakfast everyday. it's my own mixture kinda like a granola or muesli. I LOVE it. like maybe I eat it 2x a day LOVE. I usually use blueberries (frozen or fresh) but they had such good pomegranate arils in the safeway, I used them in my last nights/this mornings batch. SO. GOOD. with almond milk? shut the fucking door good.












*130$ to find out I was doing everything right. sigh.

in one ear

welp our trip got cancelled. silly. course that Chris was going to take got kiboshed as not enough people were signed up. now I just have to tell google to stop letting me know about Orlando things. damn you google now! easy come, easy go right?

I did it. I used my sewing machine and it was glorious. well, it was fine and it worked properly and I even took my jeans in (although maybe I should just but smaller jeans from now on?) but not really enough. the little machine purrs like a kitten and has me dreaming of quilts. jerk. well, maybe raggy quilts? there's even kits you can get on etsy that come all cutout for you.... cause that's what I need. another hobby right?

I've shaved the dogs down, the shortest I've ever gone and boy did this ever fuck them up but good. lily can't stop chasing her ass and biting it (her tail is now tickling her back/butt) and pickles, oh pickles. he has little blackheads on his back (schnauzer bumps anyone?*) that are gross but seem to be clearing up with some acne pads I've pickled up for him. also: it got COLD AS FUCK out so the both needed sweatering. this has cured lily of most her bum bum BUM-ness (she's always had some bum chasing going on. HILARIOUS) and now they can both go outside for longer than 20 seconds.

*not a schnauzer that we know of, but all the research I've done leads to this. it's totally it. silly beasties.

look now look all around

we are taking a vacation! to Florida! Chris is taking (not giving. that is weird) a class in Orlando next month so I"m tagging along to get a subsidised holiday. we went to California a few years ago and did Disney and Universal, and we enjoyed the hell of Uni. so take those opportunities when they're offered right?

I am very displeased with the state of my hair lately. it's always been on the fine side but ugh. I've been giving myself chemical cuts with over-zealous bleachings so have to tone that shit back. I made the colossal error of going black (demi-perm so not as bad as it could have been) and of course nothing looks shittier than a blonde growing out black. roots make you look bald. in my case balder than usual. it's now back to a very light level 12-ish) ash and I have to keep it like this for a while. I'm letting myself colour only with colour conditioners. sigh.

so vain so much selfie.

and all my thoughts just keep on playin'

I have a sewing machine. it's sitting in my craft room, with it's sweet little dust cover on it. the box has long been tossed away*. I always had access to a machine. the very noise of it sounds like my Mum. she was an amazing seamstress. she took dressmaking courses when she came to Canada. she made almost all my clothes when I was small. she made the most beautiful brocade dress and jacket when my Dad graduated from police school, it hung in her closet for years. so gold and stiff with it's lovely 60's lines. she'd try it on when I'd ask her. I thought she looked regal, like the queen. she stayed the same size all her life until towards the end. only when she got a job when I hit school did I start getting store bought stuff. even then, she was really fussy about fabrics and quality. always about quality. she would rather have 2 really good pieces than 8 low quality ones. I took home-ec in gr 8 (no choice about that, girls had to take home-ec while boys took shop. even though we got every girl in school to sign a petition, it was tough titty for us. sigh) and knew my way around a machine. about then my Mum bought a serger. it was a BIG DEAL. very new idea in the world of sewing. she was smitten. she re-kindled her love for making and off she went. she made everything from t-shirts to underwear (even for my friends! Rhian and Lael both got home-made gonchies I think) and sleep wear. I too started using both machines, my punk esthetic favoured home made stuff. I took jeans apart and added stripes down the legs, shortened EVERYTHING and cut it all up and started again. she made my wedding dress when Chris and I got hitched. every little detail, every little pink rose, the cuddle skin backed satin silk shawl so my shoulders wouldn't be cold. she even had to sew me into it as she forgot she'd only basted the zipper on the day. Chris had to cut me out of it at the end of the night with his dagger his had in his sock (wearing a kilt came in very handy) and we laughed for hours about it.

even when my Mum moved down here for a while as she was getting sicker and sicker, she still had my dad set up both machines in the basement. I'd walk down the street to use them. fixing stuff, hemming. it was always there. when they moved back to Edmonton my Mum gave me both of her machines. I knew she was sick, but this confirmed my worst fears. she never sewed again to my knowledge. I gave away both of her machines to people who would keep them alive. I put away the idea of fixing, of making. then one year (3 years ago?) Chris got me a machine for X-mas. it sat in it's box until I was embarrassed by it. I took it out of the box. I moved it to my craft table. then I moved it to a shelf. I've been buying jeans online and while I am a fat lady, I'm a pretty un-hipped one. all of my jeans are great except they need to be taken in just that much in the hips. I toyed with going to the tailor, but I think it's time. time to thread this, to hear the pupupupupupup of the needle. I know my Mum would approve and wonder why it took me so long.

note; hair is back to blond. may be blue soon. change.




*recycled. our recycle box is always so much more full than our garbage. I take strange pride in this.

any which way

small things make all the difference in enjoying stuff. a perfect flat white (stop asking me what size Starbux. there can be only one*) and a ginger molasses cookie. how can these small simple pleasures incur such a huge release of endorphins? I asked on fb what people do when they want to get out and don't have anything specific planned. I got lots of lovely answers, the one I think I may have follow is hit a coffee shop. I'm so used to getting the coffee, drinking the coffee getting the fuck out. you know except on saturdays with my ladies. when I have no problem sitting, enjoying, taking my time. I find it harder to do on my own. like I'm taking up space that someone else might want. like I"m overstaying my welcome. while actually taking up less space alone. it's never to late to have epiphanies. like the one I had about white sauce. red sauce is significantly lower in calories and I had internalised this for my whole life. watch out for those extra cream calories. be careful you might enjoy something too much. I'm tired of watching other people enjoying what I want. I'm tired of worrying about taking up space. I'm tired a lot. I think I'm going to try to make this year the year I figure out how to be me without worrying about anything except BEING ME.

*Highlander reference FTW

she's so goddamn cold

going out never used to be a big deal. I used to do it all the time. anytime of the day. day/night whatever. now I have found that I'm not a huge night energy person. I wish there were dance parties in the afternoon. when I wrote that on fb my MIL told me that in the retirement house that her mum lives in (Chris' gran) they have them all the time. well fucking sign me up! I'm pretty sure they wouldn't like say Queens of the Stone Age* but that'll change when we get to that place right?? going out at night involves wearing pants of some kind and well.. I'm not sure much is worthy of that. I'd love to be proven wrong, maybe this has to do with not really drinking at all anymore? hangovers KILL me now. the last time I over imbibed (about 5 or 6 years ago maybe?) it took DAAAAAYS to feel better. I can't imagine that would be improved with time. so for now it looks like the party has stopped, at least for now.

* see what I did there?

merrymaking at my place

so pickles has this kinda gross thing going on with his coat. it's not *totally* grody, but he gets these little spots on his back near his tail. the good thing is I've figured out how to treat it. it's just this special shampoo. it's like 28$ a bottle but whatcha gon' do?* the thing is, it has to stay on him for like 10 minutes to work. that is a REALLY long time to have him in the kitchen sink (where I usually bathe the dogs) staring and trying to shake the stuff off. so I've solved the problem by letting him shower with me. I start out by getting him all lathered up and by the time I'm done I just rinse him off and VOILA!


but it is awkward as hell while we are both in there. sigh.  

*immortal words of Chris Rock