Sometimes it goes well

Today, as on many other days, George R.R. Martin made me sigh a little.

No, I wasn't re-reading the Red Wedding scene in A Storm of Swords for the fourteenth time. No, I wasn't watching good ol' Jon Snow get sliced and diced on TV. I was reading George's livejournal entry from January 1st, 2016, where he explains to legions of salivating fans why his long-awaited Winds of Winter won't be published anytime soon, despite repeated assurances that it would be.

"Unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked. You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and... whatever, but maybe all that had an impact... you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too...but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn't."

Word, George. I feel you, you big, bearded, suspender-wearing genius.

That's part of the reason I haven't written anything in this blog for years, why I haven't even put pen to paper to scribble any just-dropping-off-to-sleep-when-a-brilliant-idea-pops-into-my-brain stuff, or snippets of conversations I've pulled from shameless eavesdropping in restaurants and waiting rooms. Because sometimes the writing goes well, and sometimes it doesn't.

I can even pinpoint the exact moment my muse fled screaming: that day back in April 2015 when D and I learned our son Dylan is on the autism spectrum, which flipped typical parental expectations and hopes on their asses. The urge to write, to create, to dream on paper...well, all that energy drowned in a huge wave of grief and worry and WTF.

D and I have a strong foundation of love and respect in our home, and the unwavering support of our immediate family. We're damned lucky that way. Anytime a child in your life faces a health challenge, though, I think it irrevocably alters a family's dynamics. It alters your priorities, your marriage, your relationship with friends and extended family members who either don't get it, or don't know how to support you. Shit, I don't even know how to support me sometimes. You learn quickly who you can lean on, and who you want to punch in the throat.

Dylan is a beautiful boy. If anything, he's become even more precious to me simply because I treasure all that he is, now that I have learned to let go of my expectations of what he should be. Autism is not a disease that needs to be wrung out of someone. Autism isn't always fun, but it certainly isn't the end of the world. As I've tried to explain to our daughter Jade, who is a year older than Dyl, autism makes her brother's brain work differently than hers, and that's okay. We work with his strengths to overcome his weaknesses. We practice compassion and patience and humour. And isn't that how it should work with everyone, anyway?

So I'm back. My inner Mama Bear has become a little more badass, and I've come to a place of acceptance and determined optimism where my boy is concerned. Oh, there are still days where I cry in the bathroom because my little dude - in the most overused euphemism ever - is "being difficult." There are days when people, even those closest to me, just don't get it and I have to pace the cornfield for an hour and rant my frustrations to the crows and barn swallows. And there are days where Dylan's brilliance lights up my world and reminds me to open my heart to the times when it goes well so I can have the strength to power through the days when it doesn't.

Here's to more days where the writing goes well, for both me and Big George.

My, My, My...

How time does fly, fly, fly when I'm ignoring my blog.

I mean, come on: my last post was October 2014. What's up with that nonsense? Sheesh. You'd think that chest cold really DID turn into a raging zombie infection, causing me to become a mindless non-blogger who ate everyone in Kinkytown. Either that or I really got into the rum.

Turns out my affliction was nothing more serious than a case of mummy meltdown because Dylan started JK, combined with a healthy dose of "I don't give a crap about blogging right now." I know I'm a writer, which makes it strange and scary when I lose my need to write. It's sometimes hard to have faith that the urge to tell stories will return if I give myself permission to not write for a while. Then one day, I buy myself a new cahier d'exercices in a flashy colour, grab my favourite pen and sit down and scribble like I never stopped. That day was today. (Thanks, purple cahier!)

So fear not, faithful (and possibly frustrated) readers. I've been busy blogging in my head, so all sorts of things are ready to spill out onto scraps of paper and my keyboard. I'll try really hard not to abandon you for this long again.

Stay tuned for tales of dismembered rabbits, dancing at the Russian Tea Room, and that word of the year thing.

Hello my lovelies!

I'm here! Honest! I'm here, and happy and ready to start bloggin' again.

In case you didn't know, I've been completely and wholly absorbed in finishing the second draft of (gasp) my book. That's right, people. I wasn't just slacking off, eating bon-bons on the couch and drinking wine this whole time. Nope, I've been proofreading (ugh), editing (double ugh) and killing my darlings. Out of approximately 70 eager-to-be-told tales from Someday, I've whittled the collection down to 50. Have mercy, that was a sucky job. Even more painful a task was trying to organize them into some semblance of order. Anyway, it's done and it's now in the hands of my intrepid editor. Let's pray she doesn't use a lot of red pen.

So for those of you who still check in here to see if I'm alive, thanks! You rock! I'll be posting regularly again, promise.

And for those of you who care, my book should be available next year (she said while crossing her fingers and knocking on wood and promising the literary gods a sacrifice of several squirrels).

Can you believe it? Someday is finally around the corner!

Lovin' the LEIBSTER!

A big shout out to my dear pal Susan at Notes from Innisfree...she awarded me a Leibster!

Whoo hoo! Hurray! Yippee!!!

Okay, I didn't know what it was either, but hey, I got an award, yo.

Susan told me that Liebster is a German word, meaning dearest or beloved, or favorite. This lovely little award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers in order to help them get a little well-deserved attention and coax more awesome readers to visit their blog.

Further to my earlier post about paying it forward, once you win a Liebster, the idea is to pass it along to other bloggers you love, and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog. Apparently I'm supposed to do this to eleven other bloggers, but to be frank, I'm kind of like a hermit in the bloggesphere and I don't really know eleven other bloggers who need that many followers. So I'll keep it to four of my favourites and stick to the other rules by posting four random facts about myself, and answering four of the questions Susan asked as my nominator. Oh, and I have to make up four questions for my nominees to answer...mwah ha ha!

Normally I detest form letter type stuff, but this feels more like a big, bloggy love-in. So, thanks Susan! And here goes nothing, my leibschens...

Four Funky Facts about Me
1) I have seen Michail Gorbachev, Cybil Shepherd and Tony Danza in person. I know. Now you want to be my friend, right?

2) Someday I'm going to travel to Japan and climb Mt. Fuji at sunrise. I even know a few words in Japanese. I just need to learn the ones for "I am not dead, I am just resting here on the side of the mountain."

3) I have a terrible, terrible crush on the guy that plays Jaime on Game of Thrones. This has replaced my terrible, terrible crush on Hugh Jackman, which replaced my terrible, terrible crush on Scully, which replaced my terrible, terrible crush on Harrison Ford that pretty much lasted a decade.

4) The four foods I can never get enough of are olives, ice cream, popcorn and sushi.

Four Questions from Susan
1) What motto do you live by?
I'd like to say it's something philosophical and deep, but I think it's more along the lines of, "Knock yourself out." Which I say a lot to my kids when they ask whether they can do something, like build a fort out of every piece of furniture in the house, or take off all their clothes in the sandbox. Basically, I figure if it isn't dangerous, unkind or unhealthy, go for it! We shelter our kids too much these days. They need to have harmless little adventures. And so do I.

2) What's your favourite movie?
Favourite feel-good movie: Greencard. Favourite movie I never get tired of watching even though my husband doesn't get it: The Matrix. Favourite foreign movie: Oldboy. Favourite nostalgic movie: a tie between Grease and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

3) If you could wave your magic wand and solve one world issue, which issue would you choose to address?
I wish mental health issues like depression, anxiety, bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders would just vanish off the face of the earth. Cancer comes a close second. And the repression & abuse of women and children. I know, that's three things. But man, that's a tough question.

4) If you could have dinner with any living person, who would it be?
Wayson Choy. I just love that guy. Plus he's funny and would never judge me for ordering too much bacon or wine.

And My Nominees Are...
In no particular order, here are my awesome Leibster nominees. Check out their blogs! Stay a while! Leave a comment! (Us bloggers really dig comments because then we know real people are reading our stuff)

Public Recluse The Lesser - your daily dose of truth with a sprinkle of sarcasm

Tea and Spice and All Things Nice - tips, recipes and other funky posts from a local tea goddess

Converse, Wookies and the Pursuit of Joy - the title kind of says it all, doesn't it? Zen zaniness and sharp observations from one seriously cool woman

Hick Chic - a little Johnny Depp (okay, a LOT of Johnny Depp), musings about country life, hilarious barn stories, sweet posts about her critters. What's not to like about this girl? And did I mention we went to high school together?

Four Nosy Questions for my Nominees
1) What's your favourite childhood memory?

2) In four sentences, describe your ideal day.

3) Do you believe in Heaven?

4) When's the last time you had a really good belly laugh, and why?

Hey Shorty, it's your Birthday...

I'm 43.



43!!!

Which is kinda awesome, in my opinion. No longer in my carefree, naive 20's, or my semi-tragic, semi-romantic 30's. Nope, now I'm in my ever-evolving 40's. Mother, daughter, sister, wife, writer, unrepentant coffee addict, and looking to gain ten pounds, I'm adjusting my Aries horns and ready to ram my way into my 44th year. Look out, Bruce County.

Having dealt with so much nastiness these past three years, you'd think I'd be less than thrilled with this decade of life so far. Not so. I've been able to occasionally grasp that ephemeral sense of peace people have been encouraging me to seek. It's fleeting, but now at least I know it's there. Plus I'm filled with relief that the worst seems to be behind me, thankful for the funny, cosy, healthy moments that make regular appearances in my life now that I'm taking the time to notice them. Mindfulness, living in the moment, blah blah blah. I hate all that Oprah-speak, but the concepts are surprisingly great when you discover they're real and not just some crap Dr. Phil made up.

"So what do you want for your birthday, Kimmy?" is the question from D that starts getting asked in mid-February and usually lets up around April 1st, the day before my birthday. It's weird. This year, I didn't really want anything, not even a get-together with friends or a fancy dinner out. The absence of anxiety seems like gift enough. I was treated to cake and gifts by my family and in-laws on the weekend, and Jade drew me the cutest card, complete with a giant green balloon and a portrait of me with enormous ears. That fit the bill.

Then I found out that for the last two weeks, D had been frantically trying to buy me a 150 CC motorbike. What the what?? He'd put in three separate offers that all fell through, which explains his extra grumpiness lately. He told me he was going to put it in the garage with a big pink bow on it and make me take out the recycling. I was tickled by his covert plan, even though I don't really need a motorbike. I convinced him to buy me a non-fiction book I've been wanting to read called An Inconvenient Indian instead. Somehow, I don't think he was overly thrilled with the substitution. Motorbike vs. book? He just rolled his eyes.

"It was very sweet of you to try and buy me a bike," I whispered to D in bed on April Fool's night. He grunted, still ticked off at his bad luck. As I drifted off to sleep, my mind wandered over to that back shelf of my brain where I keep my (clean) fantasies. If I could have anything I wanted for my 43rd birthday, besides a motorbike, what would I want? How about..

- a plane ticket to Calgary and a rental car so I could drive out to Banff for a week of writing at the Banff Centre. I soooo miss the mountains and the smell of the air there. And the food at the Banff Centre canteen. Banff always makes me feel like a writer.

- rent a horse and go riding for a couple of hours along a wooded trail. I'd hear the jingle of the bridle, the squeak of the saddle, the whoosh of horse breath and the clump-clump of horse feet. There would be warm flanks under my legs, cold air on my nose, sunshine in my hair. There would be birdsong and blue sky. Yeah.

- hole up at the cottage on the couch with the fireplace cranked up and a dozen blankets on me. I'd sip coffee and Baileys, read the paper and my books, snooze, order pizza from Ripley for supper and drink wine with D as we devoured each gooey slice. We'd curl up together on the couch and watch the fire after the kids went to bed and listen to the waves, newly released from their icy shackles. And, um. You know. "Cuddle."

- go back to Florida for another 10 days!

The reality of my 43rd birthday was pleasant, if not as exciting as some of my fantasies. I had a lazy morning with the kids, where we cuddled and tickled and teased, before Grandma took over for the rest of the day. Sushi was on the menu for lunch, with a great girl from my Mom's group for company. We had some good laughs together about hapless husbands and wacky preschoolers. I went for a pedicure to get rid of my hideous hobbit feet, after which I foolishly ruined the polish job with a long hike in what the kids call "The Muddy Woods" (aka the Kincardine trails). I discovered a new trail that led me up a steep hill flanked with cedars and reminded me of the trail that connects the town of Banff to the Banff Centre. It even had icy spots and coyote tracks. All it was missing was elk poop. On my way back into town, I grabbed a mochaccino at Books N Beans, snuck into the library with it and my laptop to blog and write and Facebook the afternoon away. Sunshine on the desk, dude reading a Wolverine comic in the corner, a collection of sweet birthday greetings online, peace and quiet. In a word: lovely.

After a few flirty texts, I packed up and met D for supper at the dim, cosy room at the back of the Governor's Inn. The food's always great there and the servers are sweet. After that, kid pick-up and tuck-in, a few glasses of wine in front of the fireplace and 43 spanks. (Okay, I made that last part up) (Sort of)

Let's hope the rest of 2013 perks up for this ol' lady, cause the first half hasn't been a laugh riot. I guess that's my biggest birthday wish.

I'm baaaaa-aaaack!

My first instinct was to call this post "Yo bitches, I'm back!" You know, a catchy, gleeful, boo-YA! type of title since I've been out of action for so long. But it seemed a little too gangsta for some of my more gentle readers, not to mention the fact that I don't actually talk like that (except in my head). All I could think of instead was the voice of that little possessed girl from poltergeist: cute and a wee bit creepy.

Because when a blogger that I follow (and by "follow," I mean check in on when I'm bored) drops out of the blogosphere for no apparent reason, it is a little creepy. I tend to fret. Did they die? Did they lose both index fingers in a horrible keyboarding accident? Or did the activity of blogging just become so boring they threw up their hands in disgust and vowed never to post navel-gazing claptrap again?

F*** You Penguin, Zombie Guy and YayNayDay, all blogs that I enjoyed reading, have all gone the way of the dodo in the last few years, ceasing their entertaining posts without much, if any, explanation. Their disappearances left me feeling a bit bereft. Even though I didn't visit their blogs every day, dropping in to find no recent entries was like going over to a friend's place, hoping for a friendly chat, only to discover your friend won't answer the door. You just wanted to pop in and chat for a minute, dammit; where the heck did they go?

So if anyone out there has experienced a similar feeling of mild disappointment (or irritation) after arriving at Someday to find I haven't been posting since December, I do apologize. The truth is so banal that I'd rather tell you what didn't happen. As in:
- I did not break my leg skiing after winning the Canadian Butter Council's all-expenses paid trip to Banff.
- I was not arrested for participating in peaceful, naked protests on Parliament Hill.
- I have not gone all Honey Boo Boo on my kids and hired them out to toddler modelling circuits.
- I did not adopt a Vietmanese potbellied pig.
- I did not catch c-dif again. (THANK GOD)
- I was not swept away on a romantic month-long vacation to Japan, Kuai or Bora Bora. (sigh)

Okay, okay. Here's the truth:
- in early November, I pulled two muscles in my neck and became severely dehydrated playing my very first game of hockey, which led to a violent migraine, which led to 48 hours in bed. (I did score one goal though)
- Both kids contracted the flu, which led to a reocurrance of an anxiety disorder I thought I'd just said goodbye to.
- The anxiety triggered a month of wildly unpleasant bowel experiences, which resulted in a joint colonoscopy/endoscopy (or, as D put it, a "two-fer"), which resulted in a diagnoses of IBS, which is what I think doctors tell people like me when they find out we're not dying of colon cancer or cursed with colitis, but will be stuck for life with a cranky tummy and unpredictable bowels
- Enter medication, which my body decided to unceremoniously reject, leaving me in bed for over three weeks, unable to eat anything that didn't resemble broth or applesauce.
- Say hello to full-blown anxiety attacks, with an occasional smash of depression, which made me feel as though I'd fallen into a rather large, rather black hole that I couldn't seem to claw my way out of...

...but I did. With lots and lots of help. Phew.

So, see? I've got reasons, people! I didn't just bugger off and decide blogging was for foodies, celebrity hounds and sarcastic moms. I was here, fretting about my own absence; I was here, writing poignant, moving blog posts in my head that I promptly forgot; I was here, wondering if you'd come back and knock on the door again. I'm so glad you did.

Just so you know, this blog was never intended to be about anxiety, depression or IBS, and it's not going to change now. There are so many other, more talented bloggers who capture these experiences in a much more graceful, succinct manner than I ever could. The Someday Diaries is just going to be about life at Someday, in all its crazy glory.

And I'm back to answer the door, even if I have to crawl over to do it.

Oh yeah baby...I'm back!

Oh true and faithful readers of this ol' blog, I'm back.

Finally.

I'm not back with a vengeance, or back to kick butt and take names or anything. But hey, fingers to keyboard and arse in chair are pretty impressive after having written barely a word apart from countless inane facebook status updates since the spring.

2011 was a tough friggin' year. Thanfully, it didn't kill me. It did, however, make my life miserable on a number of levels. It also made me appreciate my body, my health, my doctor, my kids, my husband, my extended family and - most surprisingly - my sanity. Which, I'm happy to report, is now intact and functioning at a near-normal 90% success rate.

So thanks to everyone who stuck by me, encouraged me and held my hand, both literally and through cyberspace, while I battled some nasty demons in body and soul.

I'm back. Yeeha!

5 Things I love about...

To commemmorate having achieved my 1000th comment (THANKS my bloggy friends! You rock!), I think I'll start a new series. Every month, I'm going to list some stuff I love. Don't get me wrong: I'm not becoming Pollyanna or Anne Shirley or (shudder) Oprah. Wenching, whinging and venting are highly necessary in many cases and will still occur on a regular basis in this blog. Consider these love-ins small antidotes to the grouchies.

Today, I present: Things I love about my house. You know, I really loved my old yellow brick house in Waterloo, but you could fit about 3 of them in our place here at Someday. There was hardly any closet space at 139 Moore and the neighbours were so close you could reach out the window and patty cake them if they did the same thing. Living here makes me feel like a woman instead of a girl, and that is a good thing. Why? Here are 5 reasons:

1) The heated floor in the bathroom

I was prepared to live with a run-down, beat up bathroom, avocado-green tiles and all, since we were spending so much on insulation and windows. And then the contractor showed me the mould behind the tiles. And under the floor. And behind the walls. And voila! A great reason to re-do the bathroom. Although I never pictured myself as someone who would have heated ceramic tile. That was what rich, retired, older folks had, not young-ish, working, poor-ish people. But now that we have heated floors, I'm afraid I can never have anything else in my bathroom again. Ever. It's so luxurious I want to lay on it naked after every shower. Oops - did I type that out loud?

2) The balcony
It's off our bedroom and it's the sweetest little white balcony I've ever seen. I feel like a less hormonal Juliet when I stand on it. It's fun to catch glimpses of the sunset or the lake through the tree line, and I could even see fireworks in Point Clarke on Canada Day if I leaned just the right way. D got trapped up there this winter while dismantling my balcony Christmas tree (don't ask). Last year I painted it while in my bikini; it was fun getting honks from passing cars (although likely they were all from D's cousins).

3) The fact that I can see a tree from each and every window
Blue spruce, mountain ash, maple, pine, lilac and crabapple. 'Nuff said.

4) Our ridiculously big bedroom
When I begged D to please knock out the wall between the balcony room and the master bedroom, he gave me that look I have come to know as the "Geez Kim, you're crazy" look. I grew up with a big, airy bedroom of my own. He grew up sharing a small room with two brothers. So in his mind, the enormous bedroom I had envisioned was impractical, over-the-top and slightly insane. To me, it was a necessity. But I wore him down with pleading and my favourite line, "I hardly ever ask you for anything...can't I just have this?" And you know what? He loves our big, balconied bedroom just as much as I do.

5) The bookshelves

On the east wall of our living room are two built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. This is a far cry from their previous makeshift cinder block and nasty Ikea homes. I adore my books; they're like old pals and I often re-read certain ones. They are good company, and it's very satisfying to finally give them a classy place to rest.

I could go on and on about the many lovable qualities of our home. Sure, sometimes we get frustrated with the fact that it's old, the water smells like bad egg salad and it will always need a bit of work to keep it from looking unkempt. But it's pretty much everything I've ever dreamed of. Add an awesome husband and a sweet baby girl to the mix and honestly, what's not to love?

Spilled Milk?

I was thrilled when the Globe & Mail published the tongue-in-cheek essay I wrote about my experiences milking cows. (The very first draft was crafted here in my blog, for those of you to whom it sounds familiar)

The Facts & Arguments column is widely read across the country, so I was nothing less than tickled to know that my humble little article would appear there (illustrated, no less) for all to see. I thought it would be a nifty little feather in my writer's cap and something to clip out and show my Dad on Easter weekend.

What I didn't count on was the 30 reader comments it generated in the online version. Apparently I ticked off quite a few animal lovers and what my friend Bryan calls "the politically correct crowd." There were several positive comments too, and of course both my sisters jumped in to defend me, but I was taken aback by the mini-lectures I received on animal cruelty. But I love cows! I've never hurt one in my life! I just don't think they're the sharpest knives in the drawer. It was all in fun, people! Sheesh.

As another friend pointed out, "Thank goodness for free speech - otherwise we'd never know who the crazies are." Guess if I'm gonna be a writer, I will need to start developing a thicker skin and remember that not everyone is going to enjoy my stuff.

The article is here if you want to judge for yourself whether my misguided sense of humour about cows was truly offensive. And hey...at least people read it!

5 things that tick me off

Yes, I know, positive thinking is ever so much hipper than a good 10 minutes of grousing, but if I see one more "you are your attitude" tagline on a co-worker's email signature I'm going to barf. So you know what? I'm going against all those happy-positive-things-to-be-grateful-for (sorry Jaime and Susan!) blogs I've been seeing lately and I'm gonna let loose and post five things that irritate me. Not that I have anything against happy, thankful blogs. Just think of it as me helping to create a bloggerland balance.

1) Saran wrap that gets hopelessly tangled in my hands. How it manages to do this in the 3 seconds between the moment I rip it off and the moment I want to attach it to my bowl of Jell-O/pasta salad/soup, I will never understand. Wretched stuff.

2) Alarm clocks where the snooze button can be hit endlessly. Not only is this feature counter-productive, it's damned annoying for the person who DOES NOT need to get up. I bought D one that has a three-snooze maximum. It has preserved our marriage.

3) Driving 15 minutes into town in the pouring rain to get a video, then driving 15 minutes back, popping some corn, getting snuggled up on the couch, pressing play...only to discover they've given you the wrong video.

4) Upsetting an entire cart full of milking machines (including a hot bucket of water, paper towels, a hoe and dog biscuits) into the manure-filled gutter because your brother-in-law hasn't put air in the tires.

5) Putting on your favourite K-Os CD in order to get you in the mood to cook a fabulous supper and hearing two of the best songs skip.

Ahhh, I feel much better now! You will, too, if you wanna share some of your tick-offs...

Note to self...

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday: be very, very careful when posting images "borrowed" off the internet onto your blog. I didn't realize that when you google images (e.g. "scary eyes") and use said photo that there may be copyright issues. Or at least a pissed off photographer who apparently feels possessive about his or her images and enjoys retaliating in passive aggressive ways.

I thought anything I found on google was free for the taking. Boy, was I wrong! Thankfully, my fellow blogger Jabbering Jaime alerted me to the fact that someone had removed the cute picture of animal eyes I'd added to my "Things that go rrrrr in the night" post and thoughtfully replaced it with a nice piece of gay porn. Which gave the title of my post a whole new meaning.

My apologies to anyone who might have been alarmed by the naughtiness! It wasn't intentional.