Shopping with a friend

I was very flattered when a friend asked me to help her shop for some items to help update her wardrobe. I'm touched that she thought that highly of my taste and opinion.... or maybe it's just that I'm the most available :)

We did most of the shopping today in the Fairview mall area. First we went to the Bay. I specifically suggested that mall because that Bay has the best selection in the area. There is quite a bit on sale right now and we snagged a gorgeous pencil skirt and blazer. After a brief lunch, we found the perfect pair of pants at Laura. I'm quite a fan of Laura; their petite store is very well-stocked :)

Since we'd had such luck with the main pieces and my friend wanted some new tops, we decided to brave Winners. I know what you're thinking: Winners? Well, yes. It's possible to not like shopping much and to brave Winners. If you don't like shopping that much and you're going to Winners, then follow these guidelines and you'll hopefully find it more bearable:

1. Shop during the day on a weekday. If you must shop at other times, shop in the evening early in the week.
2. Look for only one type of item, like tops; if you can, narrow that further to blouses or sweaters. Don't look for tops and shirts or tops and dresses on the same day if you can help it.
3. Get a cart and walk ONLY down the aisles that contain the types of things you want. It's better if you leave the cart at the end of each aisle so as not to block things, but not everyone does this.
4. Pick up everything in your size that you might like and put them in your cart.
5. Go to the fitting rooms and try on everything in your cart, 6 pieces at a time (that's the maximum you're allowed to take in). Make decisions quickly; a lot of what you picked up probably won't work. That's ok.
6. And then pay for the items that do work :).

I know that trying on a lot of things seems weird and exhausting. But if you restrict yourself to only one type of clothing article like tops and have some sort of idea about what you like, it won't take that long. I find it a good idea to try on new styles at the beginning of the season to get an idea of what those styles look like on me.

Anyways - back to the subject. My friend bought four tops at Winners!!! I have to say that she looks amazing in everything she bought. All the clothes fit her like they were made for her and so she looks beautiful, stylish, and sexy in them. I'm very proud of her for shopping for as long as we did and for trying my approach to shopping :). It was a lot of fun; I know I enjoyed myself, and I hope she did, too.

ps - I'm almost always up for shopping if anyone would like company and/or my help or opinions. :)

etsy

I'm home a lot these days and I can be very lazy so I spend quite a bit of time surfing the internet. I sell things on etsy and so read the forums there pretty regularly. Recent events there have left me feeling a bit frustrated with etsy admin these days.

Five sellers were recently banned from participating in the etsy forums, and of those five, two had received no warning about "bad" behaviours before (note: these people did tend to bully other sellers in the forums.... but then, so did quite a few of their friends who have not been banned). Etsy admin had previously said that there was a process to be followed when dealing with people who misbehave in the forums, but now they're saying that there's no such process and that everything is dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Really. A case-by-case basis. There are hundreds of thousands of users on etsy. I don't understand how they expect to make things work by dealing with bad forum behaviour on a case-by-case basis. So they can ban "Billy" without warning but they'll let "Jane", who continually disrespects people, makes fun of them, calls them names, and worse, stay there. Sigh. This makes me sad.

Swimming lessons

I had my first swimming lesson today. We practiced putting our faces in the water, blowing all the air out of our lungs underwater, flutter-kicking, and some front- and back-crawl things. There was only one other person there today (there were supposed to be two) and the other person hadn't been in the water as much as I had. Therefore, I ended up doing more actual swimming than she did. That's ok. At the end of the class we worked on treading water. I'm very excited to be really learning to swim.

Afterwards I was pretty tired - I'm not a strong swimmer at all, and swimming across the short end of the pool (ok, half-way across the short end) multiple times was tiring. The instructor said that it would get better over the next few weeks.

A new week

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm really, really tired these days. Ian got me up at 10:30 (after a half-hour of trying). After breakfast, I... fell over... and slept for another hour or so. Then later this afternoon I slept for another two hours. I guess I'm still recovering from the late nights I did working on the bag a week ago.

Still, I'm walking around feeling like I've been run over by a truck. More than once over the last few days I've just fallen over and gone to sleep. How weird is that? I hope I get back to normal soon; bellydancing and swimming lessons both start this week. Yes, I'll be taking swimming lessons as I am not a good swimmer at all. The lessons will help, I hope :)

For those of you in Ontario and who will be voting in the upcoming provincial election (and of course I encourage you to vote), there is information about the referendum at yourbigdecision.ca. A lot of the website is very high-level, but you can get a more detailed file outlining the proposal here (careful, it's a 3.75Mb pdf file).

Oops

Sorry, folks, I got the link wrong to my mandala in my original post. The correct link is here (and I've fixed it in the original).

Mandala workshop

I forgot to mention yesterday that I got a call from the insurance company. You might remember that they were calling every three months to check up on me. I've got a new case manager, and she's not going to call me anymore. Every year, she'll send out a form that I fill out and that'll be enough to maintain my disabled status. I could have had my doctor fill out a form once or twice a year for a couple of years and then I fill out the form myself, but we decided that that would be a lot of hassle. I came away very happy from that conversation.

Today I went to a mandala workshop. We meditated on our third eye chakra (between the eyes) and asked the question "where will I be in five years" and "who am I". We drew a circle on paper with a dinner plate and then used pastels and/or acrylic paints to draw. Oh, and we used our non-dominant hands to do the mandala, so I used my left hand :) Mine is here. It expresses who I am, I guess.

The interpretation the facilitator gave for mine is that the drawing brings you very strongly to the center, or soul, of the mandala. The outside is my "self", and there is a connection between my soul and self. She said that my soul needs to express itself very strongly and that as I go forward in self-improvement, it will find wisdom and discernment (two characteristics of the third eye chakra).

I guess if I were to do this again, I would draw a different mandala. It would be sort of interesting to see what I would do each time, huh?

More on the upcoming election

I watched the Ontario leader's debate tonight. I must say that I'm not impressed with the Conservative campaign, which is all about how the Liberals have "broken their promises". During the open debate periods, John Tory (the Conservative leader) continually interrupted Dalton McGuinty (the Liberal incumbent) with shouts about promises and whatnot. Sigh. I really wish the Conservatives had a positive campaign that outlined their stance on various issues as opposed to just pointing out negatives.

After the debate, I had a nap. Yes, I know the debate was in the evening, but watching it tired me out :) I'm looking forward to getting some good sleep soon.

Shopping, shopping, shopping

Ian and I went shopping today and we each got quite a number of good items. I bought a pair of jeans, a pair of khakis, and a pair of grey dress pants. The other day I bought a pair of black dress pants and a pair of black fine-wale cords. I also purchased a black pencil skirt. Everything I bought today was on sale or reduced in price :) I bought the pants at Mark's Work Wearhouse and I got $10 off because I tried on some pants in their new fits.

I have many of these articles in a smaller size, but they don't fit anymore :( I thought it was important to get replacements to fit the size I am. Besides, I can't wander around all winter wearing stretchy workout pants or a skirt every day! The bottoms should cover casual to dressy situations and a black pencil skirt is a wardrobe staple as it can be dressed up or down. I think I have a good selection of blouses and sweaters, although I expect that I'll buy one or two pieces to replace worn-out things (like my faded turtlenecks) before winter.

Ian set out to buy a new belt. He actually bought a belt, another belt, some pants, and some shirts. He spent more on clothes today than I have in a few weeks :)

Oh!!!! Our local Sears is bringing in Lands End stock. Lands End used to be available only by catalogue or online; many of their items are practical and stylish. I've heard good things about their fit, too. They were setting up today so I hope they'll have everything by the weekend.

More on me

You know, for all that I don't like to be interrupted on the phone, if you have something really important and urgent to tell me, then you should definitely call me. Although my first reaction will sometimes be somewhat brusque, that'll turn around in a hurry if something is happening. Similarly, if you're calling to talk to Ian, that's ok by me - you're not interrupting me then :)

However, if you're calling just to say hello and to chat, well, if I'm not expecting your call or I'm busy, then I'm not necessarily going to react well.

Onto another topic, I don't know what's up with me today. I'm so very tired and I've been sleeping most of the day. I had set an alarm to wake me at about 10:30am... I remember half-waking up and thinking that someone's alarm was going off. I didn't wake fully up, though, and I didn't get up until after noon.

Lots of flowers

I'm typing this while smelling the beautiful smell of our brugmansia - we brought them in to prevent them from getting frost. One plant has 6!!! flowers and the other has 4!!!; they're so pretty. Our brugmansia flowers are green at the stem and then fade to white, with dark pink upturned edges. I think (although I am not certain) that we have the Isabella variety. At least the flowers in the picture look almost exactly like ours.

I watched The Birds tonight. That is one freaky movie, all right. I find that it's still a scary movie even though it's almost 45 years old. That one scene where our heroine is waiting for the girl at school and smoking while perched on a fence makes me shudder. First there are a couple of birds, then a few, and in the course of 5 minutes every surface is covered in birds. Scary. The end scene where they're leaving the farm and trying to not disturb the birds that are everywhere is also scary. I was curled up on the couch all tense in case they made a noise and the birds attacked them.

Watching birds peck away at people in the movie reminds me too much of some of my dreams. I often dream that animals (usually very big dogs or wolves) are eating me. Most often the animals are after my hands, but they have eaten other parts of me as well. I do feel a great deal of pain in my dreams at the sites that are being eaten. I generally try and get the animals away from me but I don't try very hard and ultimately I open my hands to them.

There was a comment in my blog about being very sensitive to touch. I am, too. Ian doesn't understand why I cut the tags out of EVERYTHING. They itch and poke and hurt my skin. I am itchy a lot of the time too. My ears are extremely sensitive - I can hear a tv half a house away behind closed doors - and yet the sounds of a crowd overwhelm me. It's funny how some of these traits are so common, especially in my family, huh? :)

Oh! I got confirmation that I do not test positive for any of the known BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. This means that my sisters and mom don't need to do any extra-special monitoring aside from yearly mammograms. Yay!

A movie Sunday

Today we relaxed by watching a few movies.

First we went out to see The Bourne Ultimatum. We liked this movie and would recommend it to you. It is different than the other Bourne movies; this one is darker and moodier than the previous movies. The cinematography makes you feel like you are the characters; you feel like you are running, or angry, or hunting someone. If you get a chance, you should see it.

Later on, we watched The Number 23. It was pretty good, although the twist at the end wasn't quite as interesting as I'd hoped it would be. Still, it was worth watching. If you get a chance and it's free, you should see it.

Tonight we're watching the Primetime Emmys. I expect that tomorrow night's Colbert Report will be quite funny since Stephen Colbert lost twice - and the second was to Tony Bennett (you may recall that he lost last year to Barry Manilow). :)

How weird am I?

There was a link in the forums on etsy the other day to an online quiz that would tell you what your Autism Spectrum Quotient was. I scored 30 which is at the very high end of normal. I scored 32 on this one which is the low end of Autism around Asperger's Syndrome. Some information on Asperger's is here.

So does it seem strange to you that I scored that high on these tests? Wellll......

I'll tell you a secret: I don't know how to behave in new situations. I don't know the right things to say or do and so I watch other people to get clues on what I should be doing. I'm withdrawn until I "learn" the behaviour. After that, I come across as having known how to behave all my life. One thing that is helping me get over this is pretending that I'm someone else who's good at behaving in a given situaiton.

I tend to take things very literally. Whatever a person says, that's what they mean. I also don't get jokes, and often don't know when someone is being teased - I take things like that very literally. I think I know when people are bored, but I don't always understand facial expressions. I remember being in my teens and asking someone why movies showed such close-ups of people when they were looking at others - I couldn't tell what those people were feeling. I can now tell when people I know are happy or unhappy, but I'm still not very good at figuring out what people are thinking or feeling.

I don't know how rigid I am or how devoted to routines I actually am, but I can say that I really dislike being interrupted. I am not one of those people who has an open-door policy at work. Really, I want a door so that I can shut people out! I very much dislike being interrupted at home, too. If I'm watching tv or working on beads or reading a magazine and someone calls, I'm not going to want to take the phone. Some of you may have noticed that when you call, I seem uninterested in talking on the phone or that I'm somewhat abrupt with you. It's not that I don't want to talk, but it's that I prefer not to be interrupted (I hope that makes sense). For that reason, I encourage people to contact me by email (or for me make the phone call so that I'm doing the interrupting :) ).

I also have a hard time when people stay with me. There's no way that someone else in the house won't interrupt me in my daily routines, because even talking to me when I'm accustomed to things being quiet in my own house is an interruption to me. I love seeing people but I need my own space, too, where I can be me. That's one of the reasons that I don't have many people stay with me.

Of course I relax my own routine and work to be less sensitive when I'm staying in someone's house. : ) It can be tiring to do this for a long time, though, so I generally don't try to do this at home.

I can also handle more interruptions when I'm not tired - when I'm feeling good and when I'm not exhausted, I can better handle things. I get MUCH more rigid when I'm tired.... and I'm much more tired these days than I was a year or two ago.

Someone posted a question asking whether people who scored high on this test had sensory integration issues as well, which I do - I'm highly sensitive to certain loud noises. We had budgies when I was growing up and they would chirp and I would have done almost anything to make them stop because the noise hurt my ears. More recently, I remember covering my ears and screaming because I couldn't stand the sound of people drilling through concrete. I also have problems with the sound of a fork scraping against china.

So do I have Asperger's? Probably not, but I am not exactly what people would consider "normal", either :)

Oh - we went to see our old dragonboat team, the Silvermasters, in their last event in Stratford today. It was cold and windy and we were happy to not be paddling (although we were asked several times to paddle). The team came in 18th out of 59 which is a pretty good showing.

This and that

Because I stayed up really, really late to finish the bag, I have quite a sleep deficit now. I ended up sleeping a LOT today; 14 hours last night and then another 2 today. We're going to bed now and I expect to sleep 12-14 hours tonight as well.

I found out today that I was approved for CPP disability. Sigh. I'd kind of hoped to be not approved, you know? I can't even say why - although the fact that it's taxable and my LTD payments (which will be lessened by the amount of the CPP) isn't is certainly a factor. In many ways, being on CPP disability seems so final because the government is involved. Now it's like the whole disability thing takes on gigantic proportions, and I'd rather just tuck my illness away, thank you.

This afternoon I went to a Qi-Gong class over at Hopespring. It was interesting. We'd done Qi Gong during the retreat in June and I found it relaxing. At the end of the class I had to leave and the instructor made her way over to me to give me a big long hug. I thought that that was kind of strange. Do I look like someone who needs a ginormous hug like that from someone I've only known for 90 minutes? :)

Tomorrow we plan to go and watch the Silvermasters (our old dragonboat team) paddle in their hometown Stratford event. It's the last race they do in the season and we'd like to watch them and hang out there for a bit.

The bag is done!

I finally finished the bag today - yay! I'm very, very tired now and expect to sleep for a few days. I'm quite proud of the bag itself, though, as I feel that I've done a really good job. It is an awesome bag, if I do say so myself. I hope the recipient likes it, too.

I have learned quite a bit from doing this bag. First, I need to actually start making the thing right away - I waited a few days before starting and I paid for that at the end. Second, I should have put the padding in later. I had the most problems with the parts of the bag that I sewed around the padding after it was put in. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd waited to put it in.

You can see pictures of the bag here: http://uwaterloo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14221&l=38473&id=541371645

Some sleep required

The bag is not yet done but I'll be going to sleep very soon anyways. I have a zippered pocket left to insert into the bag, which is something that requires only two seams. After that I have to make a shoulder padding thing and get the straps all together. The bag looks very, very good. It's quite sturdy and attractive and I don't think it's too big.

It's been hard to work on this bag because I've fused a stiff buckram to a lot of pieces, making them very stiff and not at all pliable. Add in all this padding and, well, you've got a difficult thing to sew. I'll be glad to be finished. I hope its owner will be at least as pleased with it as I am.

But for now, sleep.

This is the bag that never ends

I haven't been posting much because I've been working on the messenger bag, which is supposed to ship today. I'm not quite done :( It's taken me a lot longer to make than I thought it would because I underestimated the impact of the laptop padding on the rest of the construction. I have developed an interesting technique where I wrestle with the padding, subdue it with a headlock, and force the nearby seam through the machine.

Anyways, more later. I may sleep a lot when this is over as this is not the first late night I've worked on this project but I will find time to write here.

More on the upcoming election

Even though I have a subscription to the local paper, I don't read the news every day. I also rarely watch it on tv, read it on the internet, or listen to it on the radio. That's why I didn't know about the referendum on the election ballot until yesterday. I expect that coverage of the referendum will increase as the election date nears.

I do see some advantages to proportional representation; it means that some of the smaller parties like the NDP are likely to get more seats, and it'll help prevent the conservatives getting a majority because people split the left vote between the NDP and Liberals.

However, I also see that there might be some issues with proportional representation. The biggest one is lack of geographic representation. It's highly likely that many of the people appointed by their party to fill the proportional representation seats will come from Toronto (or Southern Ontario, which is only marginally better). Right now, Northern Ontario has 11 electoral districts out of 107 or about 10% of the seats in Legislature. Even if they keep all 11 districts when the elected seats drop to 90, they'll only be guaranteed 11 seats out of 129, or about 8.5% of the seats in the Legislature. Some say that the 401 belt gets all the attention anyways, and restructuring like this won't help divert attention and resources to Northern Ontario. I don't know whether this issue is addressed under the current proposal.

Another drawback to proportional representation could be minority governments requiring a lot of coalitions. I know that many great reforms were made under a minority government, but minority governments can't make a lot of quick decisions. There's also a fair bit of compromise required to get things passed. Some compromises make bills stronger, but others make them weaker. I don't know if compromises will help things like environmental bills.

So I can see both advantages and disadvantages to this new system, but I'm not yet totally certain that it will bring significant benefit to politics in Ontario. Thoughts?

An election is coming

Apparently there is a provincial election coming up in Ontario on October 10 or 11. The parties themselves aren't campaigning yet, but there are a number of lobby groups whose ads are all over the tv and radio. These ads are driving me crazy. I'm not trying to be negative here, but these ads are all about how things were bad and now they're starting to get better - so be sure to not let them get bad again!

Without having the parties respond to these statements with their own statements, I feel like these lobby groups are very out of place. It's like they're jumping the gun and trying to force issues that I'm not sure exist. Even if they do exist, I don't think things are worth this kind of barrage this early in the game. Sigh. I can tell you that these lobby groups are not winning points with me; they're annoying me and I feel like they're applying too much pressure too soon.

I guess we're also going to be voting in a referendum. Apparently there's a motion put forward to provide some sort of proportional representation. If approved, the number of seats in Ontario would rise from 106 to 129, and 90 of those would be elected as usual (the party with the most votes in that electoral district would get the seat). Each ballot will have a side on which people vote for their favourite overall party, and the remaining 39 seats are allocated based on the percentage of the party vote they received.

This makes sense to me at a federal level, as a way to reduce the power of Ontario and Quebec. I'm not sure it makes sense on a provincial level. Thoughts?

Feeling better

I'm starting to feel a lot better after having had a really long sleep last night - I went to bed around 8pm. Of course I'm staying up later tonight to work on the custom bag that I'm doing. I realized that I need one or two things and I'll have to go out and get them tomorrow. I'm hoping that since I've basically made the rest of the bag before, it won't take as long to make as the first one did. Whenever I make something new I always need to sew each seam two or three times before it's right. I'm very good at ripping out all kinds of seams these days.

So I was watching this tv show where this high school kid was expelled from high school (he brought a gun to school for a fight) and his mother didn't want him to not have a high school diploma, so she wrote the online tests for him. I couldn't believe this. In what world is it appropriate for anyone, let alone your mother, to cheat on a bunch of tests so that you can have a high school diploma? What is this world coming to?

Fall fashion trends

I've gone through a ridiculous number of fashion magazines (Elle, Elle Canada, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Fashion, W, and Flare) this fall. You might remember that I love looking at the fall magazines because they're so big - they have a lot of ads in them and lots and lots of new clothes and styles. :) It's an activity that I look forward to every year :) Here is my list of the fall trends for women:

Overall

• Lots of pleating and ruching to create interesting shapes
• Black, grays in every shade, and silver
• Red
• Other bright colours like purple and royal blue? The editors say they're in.... but almost every ad was dark and had dark clothes so I don't know if this is true. Maybe for evening dresses it is but not so much for everyday wear.
  
• The waist is the focus. Empire waists are on their way out (but can be updated with a belt). Low-rise pants are definitely on their way out. Yay!
  
• Lots of 40s-inspired shapes, styles, and colours
  
• Patent leather is everywhere

Clothing

• Trapeze dresses, especially if worn with a belt
• Dresses, especially shirtdresses
  
• 3/4 and 7/8 length sleeves
  
• Tunic tops
  
• Very wide-legged jeans
• Skinny jeans
• Menswear-inspired clothes: trousers, jackets, shirts, and patterns
• Pleated pants are on their way back
  
• Pencil skirts with new seaming and that are fuller on top or at the bottom.
  

Fabric

• Plaid, plaid, plaid!!!
• Glen plaid, flannel - the types of fabrics mens trousers or suits might be made of
• Aran sweater patterns in other colours like blue, green, and red
  

Shoes

• Stiletto heels. Chunky heels are around, but heels are pretty thin and light these days. Wedges are on their way out. Yay!
  
• Platforms are getting lower.
• Flat boots
• Round toes
• Small peep toes
• "Booties" - lace-up brogue, wingtip, or oxford shoes as a stiletto. Example here. Personally, I think these are hideous. They're worn with skirts. I don't think this will stay long because it just isn't attractive on most people.
  
• Ankle boots (differentiated from booties by the fabric that goes over the ankle on the front and back of the leg on ankle boots) with a medium to high heel

Accessories

• Hats. The structured kinds, like cloches
  
• Belts of all sizes
  
• Big clutch bags
• Smaller handbags; ginormous bags are out
• Lots of hardware, studs, and chains. Bags are to be noticed
• Jewellery is getting smaller and more elegant or not used at all. An outfit with a lot of ruching or interesting folds can't take a big, chunky necklace.
  

Hair and makeup

• 40s-style wavy hair. Think Veronica Lake.
• Red, red lips
• Smoky eyes. Not with red lips.
  
• Gray or bright coloured eyeshadows. Also not with red lips.
  
• Black liquid eyeliner extended past the eye (sort of a 60s Mod look), but not with gray or bright coloured eyeshadows. Do this with natural colours only. And not red lips.
• A matte face. In past seasons the face has been dewy (ie just this side of shiny). Now we're looking at a matte face - not with too much powder, though. Use powder really only in the T-zone across the forehead and down the nose and cheeks.
  
• Short, dark nails. Like black or midnight blue nailpolish on nails that don't extend past the end of the finger.

Whew! That's a lot of stuff. I guess there aren't that many trends, but when broken down into each of these sections, it seems like a lot.

Flare has given themselves a new look. Personally, I don't like it. I find their pages disconnected with not enough information about fall fashion. They had pages featuring what certain people like. The fact that no one has heard of these people is irrelevant, I guess. The magazine simply didn't do enough to show the trends. Their fashion shoot photos were awful and uninspired. I'm quite tired of seeing models in that "put your hands on your hips with fingers pointing to the bellybutton, push your stomach back and your shoulders forward and your elbows out". I mean, we see that everywhere. Sigh. I don't recommend Flare and I won't buy it again. I will be writing to tell them my opinion, but I'm not sure it'll matter because I don't think I'm in their target market.

More sleep, please

In my travels yesterday I received the pneumonia vaccine. What with Ian's dad's and my cancer situations, it's better that I receive as many immunizations as I can. My immune system isn't exactly compromised but then it isn't exactly running in tip-top form, either.

I've been completely exhausted today. I feel like I've been run over by a truck - I can barely keep my eyes open. Ian woke me at 9am and I got up at 9:45am... only to fall asleep again until noon. I wasn't certain that I would go to Well-fit today because I was so tired but I did manage to go. Since then I've been very, very tired. I'm pretty well assuming that my overwhelming fatigue is a result of the shot yesterday... I hope it ends soon. I have things to do, you know :)

I spent the evening reading fall fashion magazines. Is it just me or are there more of them than in previous years? I'm hoping to provide you with a fall fashion trends report tomorrow or the next day.

Tumour marker results and doctor's appointment

I got my tumour marker results today. In June, they were 41.3, having gone up 1.8 over the previous result three months prior. At the end of August, they were 46.2, so they've gone up an additional 4.9. On October 13 last year, before the oophorectomy, my tumour markers were 48.0... so they're almost the same now as they were before. They're going in the wrong direction. They're supposed to go down or stay the same. I'm a little worried about this but not overly so.

I know, the markers haven't gone up all that much. I'm going to call tomorrow and request that tumour markers be done again before I see my Oncologist on October 22. If the markers climb a third time, well, that's an indication that the treatment may not be holding the cancer back very well and that it might be time for a change. We may need to do some tests to figure out where the cancer is growing at that time.

I had my appointment with the gastroenterologist today because my family doctor felt that I should see a specialist. The doctor today said that I probably have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and that he can give me some pills that might work. He recommended that I use Milk of Magnesia instead of dulcolax or senokot as a laxative (needed to counteract side effects of the narcotics) because it's better for me. I guess I'll make the switch.

He also said that the chances of my having colon cancer are extremely small but that my situation is far out of the statistical norm already what with having breast cancer and all. Apparently people with breast cancer (and some other cancers) have a slightly higher risk of colon cancer as well. He gave me the choice of just treating the IBS with the drugs or doing a colonoscopy to be sure about what I have. Some people who see a lot of doctors don't like to be poked and prodded any more than necessary and so don't want the colonoscopy. On the other hand, some people who see a lot of doctors like to have peace of mind about possible medical conditions and so would choose the colonoscopy. You might have guess that I've decided to do the colonoscopy to give me peace of mind :) It's scheduled for November 22.

He said that the worst part of that procedure (for him) will be getting the sedative and painkillers right because of the amount of oxycontin that I take. The worst part for me... well, you can guess. :)

No sewing today

We're in Mississauga and so I didn't do any sewing today. I'd planned to; I asked Ian to wake me and 9am and I was going to get up, have breakfast, and sew until it was time to get ready. That didn't work out. Ian woke me at 9am, I had breakfast, and then I slept until 11am. Sigh. I'm still quite tired and I hope I sleep well tonight. Last night's dream was quite upsetting (although the transportation system was very cool).

My sale is still on.... I'd love for some of the items in my shop to go to a good home :) 25% off everything there (except custom orders) makes for some very reasonably-priced items. Happy shopping!

Just a lazy Sunday

I didn't sleep all that well last night - I had pain issues that woke me around 1am. My sternum was hurting pretty bad for some reason. They did just change my program at Well-fit and I know that I have more pain when I open my chest wide, so it's possible that one of the new exercises is contributing to increased pain. I'd have expected the pain to come on Thursday or Friday, though. And yes, I know that I had been trying to decrease my pain meds but they've been up to normal the last few days. I'll talk to the Well-fit people on Wednesday.

I also had some nightmares last night which didn't help my sleep. I don't know where these dreams come from, but they're certainly interesting. In one earlier this week, I dreamt that I was showing people through this house that I've seen quite a lot in my dreams. It's a nice house, most of the time. Sometimes it's scary. Anyways, as I walked through and saw all the changes that had been made to the house, I told the people I was with that I used to live in this house but I don't anymore; that I'd moved on and these people had taken it over and fixed it up. I'm sure there's deep psychological meaning to this but to me it's like a movie that plays just for me at night.

I did spend some time cutting out the fabric for the custom bag I'm making. Tomorrow we're going to Mississauga and so I won't spend as much time sewing as I'd thought. That's ok, though; I'll do some before we go.

I also spent some time looking at all my beads. Yes, I made some earrings, but the majority of my time was spent just looking at the beads I have. While doing this, we watched two movies on tv from the 80s - Weird Science and Class. Oh, the memories :) It was a lovely way to pass the time.

Cleaning up

My sale is still on! I've even added new stock and expect to add a few more pieces over the next few days. Happy shopping!

I was thinking tonight that it was eight years ago this weekend that I moved here to Waterloo. I have such vivid memories of that time. I remember being so excited about school; I was really looking forward to starting over. Not that things were that bad before.... but the person I was before I went to UW is very, very different from the person I am now. In many ways I did start over by going to school, and while it was very hard, it was definitely a good choice.

I spent most of today organizing things. I finally re-organized all of my beads and put all of my purchases away. Finally. We also bought some small shelving units on sale for $5 (regular $15) and I'm able to keep my beads there when I'm not using them. My beads, craft show, and shipping paraphernalia take up much, much less space than they did before. The living room is quite a bit tidier :)

Making jewelry again!

For the first time in a very long time, I made earrings today. Before the last craft show in June I'd gone kind of overboard by creating lots and lots and lots of earrings. I'd hoped to sell a lot at that show but I was sick :( Anyways, since I'd worked so hard on jewelry before that I couldn't really make myself make more.

Until today, anyways. I was able to make six relatively simple pairs of earrings. I even listed three pairs so that I'd have some new stock for my sale. Tomorrow I'm going to work on the bag (the parts I can do, anyways) and when I take breaks I'll organize my beads. While I haven't made anything, I've certainly been buying beads :) I haven't put anything away and I have a ton of re-organizing to do. I hope that I'll be able to do that over the weekend and then work on the custom necklace and some more complicated pieces.

I'm very much looking forward to getting everything in its place and getting my work area set up again. I'm itching to do some more jewelry work for the holiday season. I'm glad that my jewelry dry spell is finally over.

Not much sewing for me

My sale is still on... take 25% off everything except custom orders in my store. Please wait to pay until I send you a revised invoice. Otherwise, I have to issue you a refund! :) Happy shopping!

As you know, I've got a custom order for a messenger/laptop bag on the go right now. I'm going to use brown strapping and I've ordered some in a wide width for the over-the-shoulder strap. Unfortunately, they aren't going to be shipping it until tomorrow at the earliest :( That means that I won't get it until Wednesday at the earliest. Sigh. I can do some stuff, but I can't do most of it until that strapping arrives.

Now, I do have some 1" brown strapping that's used for everything but the shoulder strap... but there are actually different colours of brown. And I have at least two of them. So I can't use any of what I have until I get the other stuff in so that I'm using the same colour brown everywhere. I did order 1" strapping from the same place.... hopefully it won't be a third colour of brown.

I did manage to get a dress sewn for myself today in that pattern I'd bought. I think it looks really nice; I'm quite happy with it. I'll see if I can get a photo of it for you.

Sale!!

I received my 100th "heart" at etsy (meaning that 100 people have listed me as one of their favourites), and to celebrate, I'm having a sale! Take 25% off the already-reduced prices in my shop!

Sale goes until midnight EST, September 5. Please wait to pay until I've sent you an updated invoice.

Happy shopping :)
http://angelstuff.etsy.com

Crazy sexy cancer

I watched Crazy Sexy Cancer tonight. I thought that I would be upset by it, but it didn't really bother me too much. All of the women were young and had different cancers. The main woman is awesome, of course, but she spent most of the show talking about her alternative approach to her cancer - eating macrobiotic diets and that. Her cancer is different than mine because hers doesn't really grow - she has cancer (24 tumours) but it's stable and has been for 2 years, so she hasn't had treatment for it.

I wish that my cancer would behave that way. Right now I'm stable and that's good, but if I end up with 24 tumours, well, things are pretty darn serious. Maybe not deathbed serious, but "I'd better have a lot of options left" serious.

Anyways, it was sort of interesting. I don't think it was quite like I expected, and I don't think I'll buy the book, but it was still interesting. The main message is that you can live a life even though you have cancer. Life doesn't just stop happening - it keeps going, and it can still be good. Even if you have cancer. That's a message for everyone, not just cancer patients.

Bellydancing fun

At least I made it to bellydancing today... after sleeping in until noon!!! It's hard to believe that I'm sleeping so much. Sigh.

There was a creepy guy standing in the front entryway of the building after the second class. The instructor locked the building shut but later there was a creepy guy outside. The studio isn't in the best area of town but they have never had those kinds of problems. Strange.

In the first class tonight we were working with the ball and I was able to stay with my hands and knees on the ball for quite a while - and then I was able to take one hand off! How cool is that? :)

BTW I missed the lunar eclipse last night. I think the sky was clear but if I'm sleeping I couldn't see it. Did any of you see it? Was it awesome?

Slowing down

I don't know what happened to me today - for whatever reason, I slept and slept and slept. I got woken up at about 8:30am because Ian needed my driver's license for our rental car (our normal car is going in to be fixed after being rear-ended). I got up, took my pills including Ritalin, and went back to sleep at about 9:30. I got up around 12:30pm again.

I had some errands to run and when I got back I was still very tired. Instead of going to Well-fit, I slept. I took my second Ritalin today, too. I'm exhausted again and will be going to bed soon. How did this happen?

I do know that my pain is up a little; I had been lowering my painkiller usage a little bit. For whatever reason the pain is spiking a bit - could that be the reason why I am soooo tired?

Anyways, it looks like this custom bag is really going to go through - I'm so excited! Of course I've spent more on options than I'll take in, so I hope that I get another order soon.

Cross-border shopping fun

We did go to the US to shop at Jo-Ann's Fabrics today. We went to two different stores and I bought a ton of different fabrics in the clearance department that could be used as bag linings or outer fabrics. I also bought some denim at 50% off. I don't really have any pants that fit because of the weight that I've gained, so I was thinking that I might sew myself some pants. Of course losing weight before fall would be the better option... but there's always room for new clothes :)

I've put the fabric and webbing choices up for my custom job; you can see the fabrics here and the webbing here. The current outer fabric will be the same as was used for the first bag. One of the big differences between that bag and this custom one is that this client wants it to hold a laptop. So I had to get padding things and some ripstop nylon to use as an underlining (for water resistance).

The entire day was exhausting, I must say. We left around 9:30am and didn't get back until 8:30pm. Ian was very patient with me as I looked and looked and shopped.

Just a little bit of Busker-watching

We went to the Busker festival this afternoon but the only buskers playing when we got there were the ones from last night. Then it started pouring rain, we got drenched, and we left.

We came back later in the evening and the same buskers as we'd seen yesterday were playing again, so we wandered around a bit. If we'd known that we were only ever going to see these ones we might have chosen to see something different yesterday :) Finally we got to see a new busker - Andy Zap, a comic from Australia. He makes fun of the audience members which is very funny. He does very little juggling. Eventually he strips down to a purple unitard and does an act involving audience members. It was ok - some of the things we've seen before. If you've seen the other acts that are playing, go and see him.

I don't think we'll go to see any more buskers tomorrow as I need to go to a fabric store in the US. The custom messenger bag order is actually coming together (yay!!!) and I need to get some supplies that I can't get here. This person wants the bag to hold her laptop so it'll have a slightly different construction than the previous bag. I'm charging $100 for these custom bags, which seems like a lot but which won't actually make me any money. Oh well; I'm doing it because I love it and because I want to make things. Making a profit is a bonus, I guess. Maybe someday I'll be famous enough that I can charge way more. Then y'all can say that you knew me when :)

Buskers!

It's the Waterloo Busker festival time again, and Ian and I spent some time there this afternoon and evening. Apparently the Waterloo fest is highly rated amongst performers which might be why they get them from places like Australia. Who knew?

We saw three full acts today: Wheel in Motion, Bamboozled, and Jeff Collins. Wheel in Motion was really, really good - we recommend that people in our region plan to see them. It's a duo act from Quebec with one person using one of those giant acrobatic wheel thingies. The first part of the show is fantastic - it's funny and it's attention-grabbing. The acrobatics are really, really good.

Bamboozled are a couple from Australia - Pandora Pink and Mr. Spin - who do a bunch of juggling, hat tricks, and cigar box tricks. Their act is good and their juggling is pretty spot-on. They're quite funny, too :) It rained through part of their performance but they kept the show going anyways. This was good, especially since it stopped raining, but it made their final trick harder. If you happen to be around while they're on, go and see them. It's worth it.

Jeff Collins is a single juggler who used to be part of a duo act, apparently. He claimed to have been on Sesame street but that may have been a joke (you might remember that I don't get jokes :). His juggling is ok and his patter is fine. His jokes tend to be a little off-colour which he excuses by saying that the kids won't get it anyway. If you had traveled to see Wheel in Motion and Bamboozled isn't playing, then you could see this act. He said that he is retiring from the road after this fest is done because he is married and has a five-week old baby. I guess if you're going to see him, you'd better do that this weekend.

The festival runs all weekend, and Ian and I will be there tomorrow and perhaps a little while on Sunday. There are more acts we want to see, after all :)

ps - we have SIX flowers on our two brugmansias!!!!!!!!!!!!! the plants are only about one to two feet tall - the flowers almost overwhelm the plants :) The pink flowers are so pretty :)

More bellydancing

I missed a night of bellydancing while we were at the cottage. Since there were only six nights, that's a lot of bellydancing to miss. Fortunately, my bellydance studio allows us to make up classes at another time. I chose to go to two classes tonight; an introductory course and a veil class. The veil class was great! It was really hard, though. When working with veils, your arms have to be straight which places a great demand on your arms and shoulders.

I'm glad that I have been working out because my arms can take some of it :) My left shoulder (the surgery arm from 2000) isn't as strong as the right one and tends to get sore faster. I don't know what to do about that; maybe I'll talk to the people at Well-fit and see if there's something to be done.

Our backyard

Our Brugmansia (Angel's Trumpet) is finally flowering with its dark pink flowers! We'd overwatered it the winter before last and almost killed it. It spent all of last summer recovering and making itself into two plants. We separated those plants and this year they both flowered! We're pretty happy that they're still alive and doing well :)

The brugmansia are joined outside by about nine orb spiders in many sizes from baby-sized to almost fully-grown. Some of them like to put their webs parallel to another web; I don't know where they'll get much to eat doing that inside the cedar bush. Oh well; no one said spiders were smart.

And in an unrelated note, someone contacted me about making a bag like the one here but that was more girly. Hopefully this person will reply to my questions and I'll actually get to make another one. Not that I'll make that much money off of it, but it's not about the money, is it? Either way, it's nice to have strangers express interest in my work.

I need more time. Or money. Or both :)

I bought a sewing pattern today for a dress that I like. I'd tried on a similar dress by Calvin Klein but it didn't fit seeing as how it's built for non-short people like me. Fabricland is having a sale this week on their McCall patterns and I bought #5466. This pattern is very similar to the dress I tried on and I think it'll work. I also got some fabric for it (on sale for $5/m, down from $15/m). I've washed the fabric and done all of the pattern adjustments.

I'm still working on a new purse, and I got some of it done today. I hope it looks good when it's done :)

I also bellydanced in my marathon 4 1/2 hour bellydance night. She's setting up the schedule for next term, and there's so much I want to take! She might offer an advanced choreography class (that she said I could take) at 4:30pm on Thursdays which might slightly overlap with curling. We'll see. She's also offering several yoga classes, a core stability ball class, and other bellydance classes. If only I had unlimited money!

Sewing, sewing, sewing

For whatever reason, I have this crazy need to sew these days. Yes, I should be making jewellery, but I want to sew instead. Fortunately I'd bought all of those fabric remnants before :) I washed a bunch of them today and have figured out a design for a purse.

Some time back I'd started making a flower focal piece using dyed feathers, tulle, and some stones and crystals. I finished that flower today and have designed a purse to go around it. Actually, the purse design can be used for other purses that I might make.... and I'm thinking that a couple of them might be well worth it :)

I'm looking forward to working on this first purse tomorrow. It really shouldn't take that long to make except that I'm using four layers of fabric as my outer fabric. I also have a dentist's appointment at 8:40am and I'm bellydancing at 5:30pm, so I may not have quite enough time to finish the first purse tomorrow :( We'll see.

The gift secret revealed

Soooooo... have you have been dying to know what the super-secret project I was working on was? No? Are you at least a little curious, if I'm going to tell you anyway? :) Uh, good, I guess.

The gift has been shipped and the recipient has it; it was a messenger bag for my niece commissioned by her mother. I've put the bag up for sale so you can see it here. My sister will buy this from etsy so I can keep track of what I make. I'd be thrilled to make more bags similar to this one - keeping each of them unique - and I'll be putting up a custom item for that. If you're part of my family then I can work out a reasonable price for you if you want one or more of these for someone :)

This afternoon Ian and I watched Stardust. It's a movie based on a book by Neil Gaiman. The book is fun and is a relatively easy read. It's a very good story with humour, adventure, love, challenges, and magic - a combination that it very hard to resist. The movie is much like the book but in movie form. They did a fantastic job of adapting the screenplay from the book; the feelings evoked by the movie are very similar to those evoked by the book, and that's quite an achievement.

The story is great, the acting and special effects are awesome, and the cinematography and scenery are spectacular! We highly recommend this movie. It's probably not for really little kids as there is some implied nudity and sexual situations as well as some violence that could be scary to young'uns. It should be just fine for older kids, though :)

I don't get jokes

We had our first accident ever today :( Ian was driving and we were waiting behind someone turning left at a green light. The person behind us rear-ended us. Sigh. Nobody was hurt at all, thank goodness. Both vehicles got off the road, inspected the damage, and exchanged some information. There are small dents in the bumper where the other vehicle's license plate screw hit the bumper. We don't know what the bumper composition is but we expect that this might be a one-time-only bumper (like helmets) where if the foam is cracked it won't protect us again. We expect that we will have to get the bumper replaced; I'm pretty sure that this will cost more than our insurance deductible and so we'll be contacting the insurance company tomorrow.

It turns out that we didn't get quite enough from the other people. We got their insurance, address, and license plate, but we didn't get the driver's license number that's needed for the reporting forms. Also, the person gave us their name as "C. " with no complete first name. They said that they'd been hit from behind and that pushed them into us - which could have happened, I guess, but the vehicle behind them drove away and none of us got their license plate. There was no damage to their rear bumper, either. The first thing the passenger said was that she'd been in an accident earlier this week. Hmmm. And the driver apparently had had surgery on his forearm recently. It feels a little fishy to me. I guess it doesn't matter.

In Ontario (I'm not sure about the rest of Canada) we don't call police to the scene of a fender-bender like this one. Instead, within 24 hours of the accident, you have to go to a Collision Reporting Centre. There you fill out forms about your vehicle and the other person's information. In an ideal world I suppose both parties would go there at the same time but that didn't happen today. The form does ask for both parties' driver's license number, so we'll know to get that if this ever happens again. Actually, we'll make up a little form to keep in the car - not that we want an accident! But just to be safe.

The centre wasn't busy and so we got everything done in about 20 minutes. When we finished filling out the forms, the police officer checked Ian's driving record. He said that it was perfectly clean except that it was expired because he didn't pay the renewal fee. I froze and started to worry.... but then both of them said that it was a joke. Right. I don't get jokes :)

The officer didn't put a sticker on our car indicating that the damage had already been reported because the damage is hard to see. We do have a police report number, though, which we'll need for the insurance company. I'll call them tomorrow. We will take our car in to our nearby Honda dealership because we don't trust that any other dealership would correctly deal with the hybrid technology. I don't expect this to be an issue with the insurance company. I hope I'm right :)

After all that we headed into Toronto. We were going to the Shoebox Tour show and wanted to go to the big Winners at Yonge and College. It took about 2 hours to get there because the Ex is on and traffic was slooooooow. Both Lakeshore and the Gardiner were jammed. We did get to the Winners in time. It's very big and has a good selection of clothes from a variety of designers and if it had been less busy and we'd had more time I would probably have spent a couple of hours there. I guess it's just as well that I didn't spend that much time there because I didn't buy anything.

We did see the show. It was held on the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health grounds at a theatre there. This is in an area of town that's not all that good. Just to the east it's getting better but this area hasn't finished being revitalized. I was a little uncomfortable in the building for the addicted and mentally ill; I felt very much like we were invading their space.

The show was awesome! The first half had a lot of unicycling which was interesting. The second half, with the Shoebox troupe (see here, too) featuring Jay Gilligan, was fun. It was sort of like we were watching them sit in their living room trying stuff out. It was very arty, in a way. Jay Gilligan played one of a couple of theremins there.... I think I've listened to all of the theremins I need to for the rest of my life :). I like some theremin sounds but I thought it went a little over the top.

At one point in the show, one of the guys had called two people up to the stage - when he yelled some keyword they were to twirl some ribbon things (like rhythm gymnastics). He balanced a chair on his chin and then it fell on him. I was stunned and worried that he'd hurt himself! He fell to the stage and yelled out his keyword. Apparently this was a joke. Yep. I don't get those :)

As you can tell, it's been a long, eventful day :)

One thing I wanted to add to yesterday's discussion on boundaries..... I had set some extremely rigid boundaries relating to someone in my family. My boundaries were much too rigid and were very hurtful, both because I forced them on this person in a mean way (using forceful, arrogant, self-righteous tones of voice that belittled the other person), and because I didn't respect that person enough to let them have boundaries; I forced mine on that person. In doing this, I hurt that person very badly.

I've apologized for this before but I'd like to apologize again now, knowing what I do now about boundaries. I'm very, very sorry that I did this to this person. Yes, I needed boundaries but the way I set them and enforced them was hurtful and mean. I love and cherish this person very much and I accept this person for who they are, no matter how they might change (or not). I don't know how I can make this up to the person, but I will continue to work on learning to set and enforce boundaries in a gentle, loving way.

Where are my boundaries?

You might remember that Ian and I went to a Skills for Healing retreat at the end of June. You might also remember that by the end I was very frustrated with the group and that I was questioning whether or not I'd return to Hopespring - I'd certainly had enough of Hopespring people at that point.

Since then, I've stayed away from Hopespring (except for the Young Women's Group) until today, when I went to a workshop exploring ideas from the retreat. We were talking about being a whole person and how to accomplish changes we might want to make. Each person decided what "being whole" meant for them and what they would like to change to be more whole. I consider myself to be pretty well-rounded and whole but I do have issues with anger and anxiety that I'd like to change.

Basically, the process is that once you figure out what you want to do, you figure out what you need to do to get there. We were told to set priorities, make choices, and set boundaries.

This naturally led into a discussion about boundaries. This was the most useful part of the workshop for me. They said that boundaries "are a system of limits that enhances your ability to have a sense of self". The facilitator also talked about how boundaries can be rigid, flexible, or very loose. Flexible boundaries can change a bit with a given situation but don't disappear; loose boundaries may not exist or may disappear often; and rigid boundaries are not at all flexible.

The facilitator said that flexible boundaries are the healthiest to have. Rigid boundaries don't allow the person to change in response to a changing situation. Loose boundaries often mean that the person has no sense of self.

When I was younger, I had very, very loose boundaries. I allowed people to treat me badly and I made a number of choices that were quite stupid. I didn't recognize that it was possible to be with a person and not be with them all the time (this is where boundaries between two people mesh, and it's not healthy because neither of the people has a complete sense of self on their own). Over time, I've learned to develop boundaries but I'm still pretty bad at it; I tend to make mine rigid and unyielding at first.

I have learned that making rigid boundaries this can hurt other people unnecessarily, in part because the way I conveyed the boundaries was hurtful and in part because rigid boundaries don't show respect for the other person. In setting rigid boundaries, I was saying that I didn't respect the other person enough to allow them to be themselves; they had to behave as I wanted them to and that's not allowing the other person to be themselves. I am learning to develop flexible boundaries, but it'll take time.

Needing to lose weight

I gained a bit of weight while on our vacations :( The weight is in different places than it used to be, probably because I'm in menopause. Blah. I've decided that I want to get a bit more exercise in the hopes that the weight will come off.

So I biked to Well-fit today. I plan to bike to Well-fit while the weather is good - in the past, when I've ridden my bike on a regular basis like this the weight has come off more easily. Hopefully my plan will work.

I have thought about doing yoga. It's offered as a session at my bellydance studio (which is expensive) and also at Hopespring (which is free). I think I'll try the one at Hopespring and see how that goes; if I don't like it then I'll try the bellydance one. I don't know what types of yoga are offered at each place, but I'll find out.

New and improved young women's support group

I got to go to the Young Women's Support Group today - I haven't been there in two months and I've missed it. There had been problems with the facilitator and they've brought in a new facilitator; I think this new one is going to work out. She has lots of great ideas and I'm really looking forward to attending the groups this fall.

The only thing I didn't like about today's group was that we talked a bit about cancer being a gift. There are a lot of people who see that getting cancer gives them a new lease on life and is therefore a gift. I disagree with this idea as far as it applies to me - I can't speak to whether other people have benefited from having cancer, and I can't say that it hasn't been a gift for anyone else.

Anyways, it bugs me when people make the blanket statement that cancer is a gift. Sure, I have different priorities now than I did before my first cancer, and I think I'm a better person now than I was before.... but is my cancer a gift because I've made these changes? I'm kinda thinking no. I was making these changes after I quit drinking (before the first cancer) and I expect that I would have got to the place I'm at one way or the other whether or not I'd had cancer. I guess there are people that would say that quitting drinking was my gift.... which it was, but not necessarily just for that reason.

But I digress. Before the session started, I talked to the interim facilitator of the young women's group (she's also the facilitator of the Spirituality and Healing group) about belly breathing. I guess you could say that it's a form of meditation where you breathe deeply into your belly and then slowly breathe out. It's very relaxing and I find that it helps me get unstressed and unanxious in a hurry. I think I mentioned before that I was having problems with getting wound up and anxious about some things. That isn't healthy and it doesn't do me or anyone around me any good. So I'll continue to work on the belly breathing as a way of dealing with this.

My eyes

Remember I had my eyes checked and my glasses prescription needs to be updated? Well, I took my glasses in to the optometrist yesterday. They'll be shipped to Montreal, the lenses installed, and then shipped back, so hopefully I can get them back by the end of the week. Anyways, since my normal glasses are(hopefully) on their way to Montreal, I'm wearing an older pair pf g;asses. The prescription is pretty close to the last one as I think my eyes only changed by about 0.25 or so that time.

Interestingly, I have three pairs before the pair I'm currently wearing; they go all the way back about 10 years. It's funny to look at them; not all were perfectly flattering on me. They do reflect the time that I bought them, of course.... but glasses that go halfway down my face are not the best style for me :) My face is too round and too short for that look to work well. I do remember feeling attractive in those ones, though.

Wearing an old prescription is pretty tiring on my eyes. I'm wearing contacts to drive because they are the last prescription I have and so are theoretically better for driving. The only thing is, my eyes are very dry and if I wear contacts for longer than a couple of hours (like today) my eyes start to drive me crazy.

My eyes are very grateful to be under glasses now, and will be even happier when I go to bed :)
On a completely unrelated note, I was able to borrow a drum (technically called a doumbek) from my bellydance studio so that I can practice using it. This is pretty cool :)_

More doctor's appointments

I saw the pain and management specialist today for follow-up. She's doubling my Ritalin dose because it I'm still sleeping a lot - 11 or 12 hours a day. I think she expected more of a benefit from the radiation, but we decided that it wasn't worth changing my pain meds now since they seem to be working just fine at managing my pain. My pain is under control and doesn't reach the same peaks as it used to. I haven't been able to significantly reduce my painkiller intake, but then again, I haven't had to increase it, either. She did say that if my pain increased again that I should see her and we would try morphine or dilaudid for the pain.

I also got a prescription for the H. Pylori bacteria. It's a seven day course of Prevacid, amoxicillin, and clarithromycin called HP-Pac or Prevpac. I thought that the treatment for H. Pylori was a lot longer, but I guess they've made advances in this area, too. I hope it works :)

Cottaging vacation last week

As promised, here is the blog entry about the cottage vacations. Enjoy! :)

Sauble Beach

We started our cottage vacation at a friend's parent's cottage near Sauble Beach. We were there last year with university friends and most of those same friends were there again. It's great to be able to catch up with our friends again. It's amazing how much has changed in a year! One couple is expecting their first baby in January and another are getting married in September. I guess we're all growing up now and being adults. It feels weird, in a way. I don't feel grown up at all, so how could our friends be getting married and having babies?

Everyone slept in tents which was fun. It was like camping but with a shower and flush toilet right there. Ten people shared the one bathroom so you can imagine that there were some lineups! It wasn't that inconvenient, though, and fortunately there were no bathroom emergencies :)

We enjoyed our time at this cottage. both because of the people and the location. It's very low-key, with no internet access or tv, and it's very comfortable. The beach is very, very shallow - you walk 20 minutes just to get to the beach (they have a lakefront cottage) and then you walk 20 minutes to get to water above my shoulders. I spent my swimming time learning how to tread water.


Whitestone Lake Resort

We left Sauble Beach to go to Whitestone Lake Resort with a different group of friends. The resort is very nice and kind of casual in a bed and breakfast kind of way. It There was a restaurant on-site and a small store with snacks and gas at the dock.

The hotel is right on the water and has a small beach and dock. Our room overlooked the lake and had a balcony on which we could sit and read (or dry our swimsuits) which was very nice. The room had very high ceilings and a ceiling fan but no air conditioner. Fortunately it wasn't too hot while we were there so it wasn't too bad in the room. There was no tub although there was a shower. All of the furnishings were solid wood and antiquey, if a bit small for the scale of the room.

The restaurant ran on cottage time. Breakfast took 45 mins, lunch one hour, and dinner two hours. The service tended to be as slow it wasfriendly - and they sure were friendly! One weird thing was that they mis-named some things. For example, the menu said that pancakes were served with maple syrup when they were actually served with packets of pancake (table) syrup. Also, they served something they called a creme brulee which was neither creme nor a brulee. Things like this struck me as weird - I think the person who owns the place makes up the menu and I don't think she really knows much about food. The food did taste ok.

We spent a lot of our time swimming, playing with the two- and four-year old children of our friends, and doing stuff with the boat on the water. I practiced treading water and am ok at it now :) :) I also practiced swimming and feel much more comfortable in the water. I'm very proud of myself. I'm also proud of my one friend who jumped into the water from the dock. She's not comfortable in deep water but she jumped anyways. Yay!!!!

We did some tubing and I also tried kneeboarding. I was able to get up once and to balance on the board correctly once. In that order, which is not the norm :) Ian helped me a lot. Doing this was a very difficult and therefore rewarding experience for me. I'm afraid of falling into space or overturning in deep water, and I overturned a lot while trying to figure out how to balance on the kneeboard. The first time I tried I got really, really scared and thought I couldn't do it again. I forced myself to try again the next day and I managed to work through the fear then. I was proud of myself for trying something new and working through my fear. Ian was proud of me, too.

Ian had kneeboarded about 15 years ago and picked it up really quickly. He was doing turns and everything! He's very awesome :)

Sudbury

It turns out that Sudbury is only about two hours away from the resort. It was supposed to rain one day so we wemt to the Big Nickel (Dynamic Earth) and Science North. The big nickel is cool. There's a museum there that's like a mine tour. It was cool in its own way but maybe less interesting than the mine tour we did in Scranton. That one took us way deep into the earth and this one took us about 75 feet down. They played a movie thing as the elevator took us down, too. I felt that it was very touristy and a bit tacky.

Seeing the "mine" was interesting - we could see what conditions were like one hundred years ago, fifty years ago, and today. Mining there is almost all automated now. They blast out the rock and then send it to be sorted. This is very different from a coal mine where each vein is worked individually and surrounding rock isn't supposed to be sent up with the coal. I liked the mine tour just fine but I liked the Scranton one way more. Still, if you're up in Sudbury, I'd recommend taking the tour.

Science North was very cool. It's a science museum and there are lots of hands-on activities for kids of all ages. We even got to try riding a Segway! We enjoyed poking around there quite a lot. They have very nice turtles :) If you're in Sudbury, definitely try to go to this place whether or not you've got kids.

Overall, we very much enjoyed our time away from home but as you can see it was very busy. We were in the sun a lot and we both have colour and freckles. I liked it - it reminded me of when I was a kid and played outside all day and evening.

An update tomorrow, really

Yeah, I know I promised to update you all on our trip today, but I'll have to do it tomorrow. I spent most of the day working on the thing I didn't finish before I left and it's past bedtime now. The thing is finished now and it looks awesome! I can't tell you any more about it right now because it's a gift. I'm shipping it tomorrow morning and it'll arrive two days late :( :( :( :( I hope the recipient loves it like I do. I'm including some surprises as well.

Home, sweet home

We are home! We had nine wonderful days of sun, sand, water, and play, but we're very tired now. I'm going to read now (perchance to sleep) and so tomorrow I'll update you on everything we did on this vacation.

One thing: when we got home there was a message from one of my doctor's offices. The test I did for H. pylori came back positive for the bacteria so they'll be starting me on antibiotics by Monday. Hopefully fixing this will fix all of my tummy troubles. Wouldn't that be nice?

On the road again...

And we're off. I'd really hoped to finish the thing I was working on, and I really did work hard to finish, but I ran into a snag in the second-last step :( We have to get going and so I won't finish it until we get back. Sigh.

I'm looking forward to the trip, though :) I won't be updating my blog while we're away, so I'll leave you to read these sites:

Google news
Go Fug Yourself (a sarcastic fashion police blog updated daily)
Bluefly (a shopping site)

It's hot out there

It was very, very, very hot today and so I spent most of it sewing in the basement. I'm making a custom-sewed item as a gift and it is looking really good - just like it does in my head and in my drawings :) I'd hoped to finish tomorrow... we'll see. There's a small chance that I will provided I don't do everything two or three times over again like I have been. Many of the techniques and things on this item are new to me and when things are new I get them wrong the first (and sometimes second) time I do them :)

We are going away on Friday for a fun-filled week at two cottages. Our laptop just died (wah!) so even if we had internet access at the second place (there's none at the first place - we were there last year), well, we don't have a laptop. Unfortunately, this means that you and I will have to go without my blog fixes every day for a whole week!!!!! I'll see if I can dig up some other fun reading for you while I'm away.

Bike-riding

I got my bike out today for the first time this season! Ian was kind enough to get it ready for me so that I could ride it. He's in Mississauga tonight and I needed to get to Well-fit. Walking to the bus stop and riding my bike to Well-fit take the same amount of time and I figured it would be better for me to ride my bike.

As it happens, I had to go to Conestoga Mall afterwards and so rode my bike there and then home. That's a lot of riding for the first time this year! At least I've been doing a lot of exercise lately so my endurance and lung capacities are pretty good. I didn't have too much trouble with the hills I had to ride on, either.

The first time I ride my bike each year I remember how much I love it. This year is no exception, and I hope to be able to ride my bike more often this summer. I've been riding a bike since I was 12 or so and I love the way the wind rushes around me when I'm on a bike. I can easily get to a state where I think about nothing at all while riding; just the feel of the wind and the buildings rushing by me. It would be so nice to be able to get around without having to use the car :)

I saw my family doctor today

My insurance company wants me to apply for Canada Pension Plan Disability because I've been off work for awhile and it's expected that I'll be off for some time yet. My family doctor has to confirm that I do have a medical reason to be on disability. I also needed to update him on what's been going on with the Ritalin, the radiation, and the possible cataracts. He figures that I most likely have the start of cataracts as well. Sigh.

Mostly, I needed to talk to him about some problems I've been having digesting certain foods. I don't seem to be digesting foods like bananas, lettuce, and red peppers properly. When I eat these foods they give me terrible pain (it kinda feels like razors scraping my insides) followed by diarrhea that sometimes wakes me in the middle of the night. I've always had problems digesting some foods like fat and dairy products, but the inability to digest the foods above is new and is getting worse. When I talked to my doctor about this today, he at first told me to just not eat these foods. After I explained what it felt like and what happens he decided to look into it further. He's referring me to a gastroenterologist.

It's entirely possible that the problems I'm having stem from some subset of the drugs that I take, or that I have some kind of food intolerance, or even that I have an H. pylori infection gone wild. I don't know whether to hope for more tests to figure out what's going on or for the specialist to say that these symptoms are nothing to be concerned about. I guess it's important to get these symptoms checked out.... but in some ways I'd rather remain blissfully ignorant. You know?

Optometrist's appointment

I have been noticing that I don't see things as sharply as I used to, and that my night vision was terrible. Also, whenever someone was backlit (in normal ambient lighting) I couldn't make out any of their features. Therefore, I concluded that I needed to see the optometrist. I was able to get in to see her today.

My eyes are worse, all right. They're -9.25 in both eyes. This is pretty bad - I don't know if I'm quite blind without my glasses, but it is close. I've decided against getting new frames because these ones are only two years old and are still in good shape. The lenses themselves are costing me $374 including dispensing fee and my insurance only covers $200 of that so new frames aren't all that important to me.

We are going away on Friday for a week so I won't take my glasses in until we get back on August 13th. It'll take a few days to a week to get the glasses back as they have to be shipped to Montreal to get the lenses put in. I'm getting the super-high refractive index (1.74) Nikon lenses which have different optics than "normal" lenses. This means that my lenses are more flat, less thick, and don't create a "hole" in my face the way "normal" lenses do. I'll be very excited to get my new glasses :)

My optometrist also said that since my prescription is so high, I needed to watch for signs of retinal detachment. Apparently that can be an issue, although my retinas look like those of a person with a -1 prescription :) She said that the signs of this included sudden blackness in one eye, a starry or lightning effect, lots of floaters, or curtains of darkness in an eye. It rarely happens in both eyes at the same time.

My optometrist did the other exams where she checks my cornea and my retina. You know, the tests where you get the dilating drops put in your eyes and the "puff" test where they test the pressure of your eyes. She also did the usual exam where she looks at the eye with her bright light.

It seems that there is a tiny spot on my left cornea that could be either the beginning of a cataract or some residue from when my eyes were developed. That spot has never shown up on any eye exams I've ever had, though, so I'm thinking it's more likely to be the beginning of a cataract. Both Tamoxifen (which I had before) and Femara (which I am on now) can cause cataracts so it wouldn't be a surprise if I were to develop them. My optometrist is going to watch my eyes for a while; my next appointment is in December. At least I won't have to pay the $75 exam fee. I'll be covered again by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan which removed this service from coverage except for special cases a few years back.

We had a bit of a scare as well when she did the "puff" test. It seems that the pressure in my eyes was at 21 or 22, which is high for someone my age even though I'm in premature menopause. Apparently high pressure in the eyes is a sign of glaucoma. She said that sometimes the pupil dilation drops used to look in the eye can cause elevated pressure and asked me to come back in an hour or so. I did and the pressure was back to normal at 17 and 18. It's a relief to know that I don't have signs of glaucoma.

I must say that I'm not thrilled about the idea that I might have cataracts. How many more new and unusual ways can cancer affect me?

Spies

I did some work on a project I'm working on, but I spent most of the day watching Spy on the National Geographic Channel. I remember seeing a few episodes before on PBS - it's a BBC production where they take 8 people and teach them spy tricks. The channel is showing all of the Spy episodes back-to-back in celebration of the new Bourne movie coming out.

Watching these ordinary people do spy stuff was pretty cool. A lot of things seemed hard - like recognizing when you're being followed or getting people to do things. I don't think that I could do things like that... I don't manipulate people well enough and I'm not that good of a liar. Not to mention that I don't have the best memory :)

Lots o' bead shopping

I did go to the show today :) It wasn't very busy at all and I heard some vendors telling others that they didn't think they were going to make as much as they'd hoped. Some retailers who had an unusual selection did quite well, though. Most of the vendors had similar bead strands in rose quartz, turquoise, and coral. There was one selling very high-end gemstone strands but I couldn't afford to pay $400+ (some were $1000!!) for beads, even if they were gorgeous. Some vendors sold rough rocks which were beautiful and others sold finished jewelry. The finished jewelry was pretty ugly and/or cheap looking and they weren't selling at all (I think the vendor mentioned above was a jewelry vendor). Some of the vendors I've seen before didn't bring all of their stock; I'll see them at the Oasis show at the end of September.

I love shopping for beads with other people as a fun activity but when I'm by myself I can meander back and forth between vendors and make several passes over the vendor area. It was quite satisfying to wander around with no real purpose or direction for a long time comparing things. I enjoyed myself very much :) Since Ian went to a movie, I was able to spend about three hours there.

I looked around to be sure I would be getting things that I really needed or loved. Of course I bought some things. I got a few strands of gemstones that were on sale as well as three types of sterling silver chain and some sterling silver spacers and beads. I did spend more than I'd budgeted but I'm ok with that. I'm very happy with all of my purchases :)

It was a very satisfying, if very long, day. Now I have to actually organize all my beads from my recent purchases :)

H. Pylori test today

You might remember that I'd been having stomach problems where my tummy would hurt a lot after I ate. My doctor prescribed Nexium for it and that seemed to take care of the problem until recently. When I saw the pain and symptom management doctor, she suggested that I get a test to determine whether or not I have H. pylori bacteria present. I had that test today.

It was kind of cool. You can't have anything to eat or drink for 6 hours prior to the test (although I did take my pain pills because I needed them, but I took them without water). They give you a capsule containing carbon-14 and some water, followed by more water 3 minutes later. Apparently the H. pylori bacteria reacts to the carbon-14 and rises to the top of your lungs. After 7 minutes, you breathe in, hold your breath for 7 or 8 seconds, and breathe out through a straw into a balloon. I felt bubbles when the water hit the carbon-14 :) It felt really strange.

My doctors will get the results in a week. If I test positive for the bacteria, then I need antibiotics to get rid of it. My stomach problems (which started to get worse again in May) should go away then. If I don't test positive for the bacteria then there might be something else wrong with me and I might have to do more tests. We'll see.

Should I stay or should I go?

There's a bead show in Toronto this weekend. I don't know whether or not I'll go; it's quite a ways away. It's also mainly for gems, and I need mainly sterling silver findings. There might be some things I need there at a reasonable price (some of the vendors carry that kind of thing) so we'll see. Can I trust myself not to buy too much? I'd like to think so :)

I had dinner with a couple of friends that I haven't seen in over a year. They both look great! It was really good to see them - this last year seems to have been a big one for many people, as they've had some changes too. It was so nice to get caught up with them; I hope that we do make it a regular thing.

Getting back to normal

The "About my Breast Cancer" section over on the side is new today - I thought you all might be interested in seeing my breast cancer history, as it's a way to quickly see at a glance what I have and the treatments I've had. I actually use a similar version of what you see there as my signature on the Young Survival Coalition bulletin boards.

I watched Dying at Grace today. It's a documentary about five people who agreed to have the filmmaker film their last days at this hospital, up to and including the moment of their deaths. So it shows some people who die as they die and leading up to it, which is very hard to watch. One of the women had liver mets and had been responding to treatment at first before the cancer got her. It was very, very difficult to watch this movie, but it was well worth it. I don't mean to be morbid, but I need to have all the information possible about my cancer, death, and dying. I know it sounds strange but in a way it helps to know how things will end. I'd recommend this film. It is heart-wrenching, real, and respectful.

Even with the movie, I actually got some stuff done today :) I wasn't sure I would because my body was quite stiff. Last night I had my first of six bellydancing nights. I decided to sign up for three classes on Tuesdays starting at 5:30pm. I didn't know that the class time has been lengthened to 1h15min from 45min and so I won't get out of class until nearly 10pm on Tuesdays. The first class is core training for bellydancers, the second is a technique class, and the third is a holistic approach to learning the different rhythms. We will do some drumming, some zills, and some dancing. I'd never done drumming or zills before so it'll be a good introduction to these.

Anyways, last night was really long - it was a good thing that I worked out a couple of times while on vacation or I never would have made it through last night and then Well-fit tonight. I'm glad that I don't have to do anything physical tomorrow. :) On the bright side, I have muscles on my back that keep surprising Ian. That's not bad, is it? :)

The last leg of our trip

As promised, I'm going to tell you more about the last leg of our trip as well as some general observations.

We were in Pittsburgh on the last night. We didn't know anything about Pittsburgh except that it's compared to Hamilton, a steeltown city which is ugly. Pittsburgh is beautiful!!!!!!!!! It's all hilly and has lots of trees and bridges and it's just gorgeous. We had no idea that it was so pretty. The downtown is especially lovely with lots of interesting buildings and bridges. We were in another part of the city that was still lovely. We'd think about visiting this city another time because it is so pretty.

One thing that we thought was really cool about Virginia and Pittsburgh is that we had to drive through tunnels there. Yes, tunnels!!!!! They were so cool - the ones in Virginia that we went through (Big Walker Mountain Tunnel and East River Mountain Tunnel) were about a mile long each so that when we were in the middle we couldn't see either end. I'd have loved to take a picture of the inside of the tunnels but of course we couldn't stop :). We went through two tunnels in Pittsburgh: Squirrel Mountain Tunnel and Fort Pitt Tunnel. There's a LOT of traffic in these tunnels and so they are pretty slow. In one of them a lane was blocked by a couple of young teenage girls in a Mercedes SUV "seat dancing" and driving at about 5MPH. I'm pretty sure these girls were under the influence of something.

Unfortunately I didn't sleep well that night. I wasn't feeling well that evening and so I didn't take my evening pills, including my painkillers. I hadn't taken painkillers in the early evening because I didn't need them then. This meant that I woke up at 4am with the start of oxycodone withdrawl symptoms. I had sweated a lot (this could have been a night sweat or a hot flash). I also had a wickedly woogly back and this is a definite symptom of oxycodone withdrawl for me. Sigh. This was very stupid of me. It took me about an hour and a half to get this under control and I'm not going to do that again.

I also learned through this incident that I will not be able to reduce my painkiller usage to nothing. The pain in my sternum was very, very bad during this time and so while the radiation helped to some extent, it didn't make the pain go away completely.

The drive home was uneventful - we pushed pretty hard because we really wanted to come home. We were both quite tired because I was awake in the night but we were able to get through the drive pretty easily. The border crossing took about 15 minutes and then we had a bite to eat. We got home while it was light out and were able to get settled back in and everything.

One cool thing that we saw when we came home was a bunch of orb spiders!!!!!!!!!!!! One or another of the spiders last year must have laid eggs because we have about 9 little orb spiders in the back and some number in the front. They're so cute!!! Their legs are smaller than their bodies but they still have the striping we'd expect. I tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out. I'll try again soon. I'm looking forward to seeing them grow up - and seeing how many we actually end up with.

I really enjoyed our trip overall. I liked the juggling shows and I was happy that Ian had a good time at the festival. I liked seeing the different parts of the country that we saw, from a flora, fauna, and geological perspective. The different types of rock in each part of the country were really neat. The views were spectacular almost everywhere we went. I also liked seeing different buildings and cities with differing architecture.

One thing I didn't like was that I discovered that I had a tendency to panic whenever I had trouble navigating or driving when navigation was difficult. I think that I basically was having panic attacks and winding myself up into them. It was sort of like I was watching myself get more and more wound up and overwhelmed. Ian and I talked about it and he suggested meditation during those times. I think that this is a good idea. I'm also going to talk to someone I know over at Hopespring to see if she can give me some help with this.

Overall I loved our vacation and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had a great time and I would do this again - I really like a driving vacation. I'm glad to be home, though :)

Home at last

We're finally home. We are both exhausted after all of that driving but we're very, very happy to be back home with all of our own stuff and to be able to sleep in our own bed. I'd love to update you all on the last leg of our trip as well as some other things that I wanted to say... but I'm too tired. I'll tell all tomorrow :)

A long drive and Fallingwater

It's a long drive from Winston-Salem, NC to Pittsburgh, PA via Fallingwater. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, clear and bright, and the drive was very nice. Ian and I took turns driving and navigating so that we could each have a rest. We drove through the mountains and they were gorgeous and breathtaking. We couldn't take any pictures of those, though, because there was nowhere to stop on the highway. It's not like way up north where you can stop in the middle of the road and take photos without having to worry about any traffic in either direction :)

Fallingwater is gorgeous. The tour was well worth the $18 each. It lasted about an hour and it took us through most of the house. We couldn't take photos in the house but we took a lot outside. When we get back we'll post them and you'll see :) They do strongly recommend reservations (purchasing tickets in advance), and I totally agree with that approach. People who just showed up hoping to get in waited for hours for a tour and some were turned away. Our tour was scheduled for 4pm which was a perfect time of day to go. When the tour was done we could take photos of the house without any people in it.

Did I mention that the house is gorgeous? It's not totally my style but I do respect and admire Frank Lloyd Wright's (FLW's) architectural and engineering capabilities. The house was a cottage for the Kaufman's who owned it. A cottage!!!!!! It has a fair bit of room in it and lots of meandering pathways. When standing in a room looking out you really do feel like part of the nature outside. The windows don't have frames in the corners or where they attach to the wall which helps create this illusion.

The house is made mostly of concrete that has been texturized and painted. Ian thought it looks like an adobe house, which I guess it sort of does. The ceilings can be quite low and the bedrooms felt very dark and close because of the lack of lighting and all of the wood in the rooms. I love the stone walls, myself :) All the floors (except in the bathrooms) are stone as well. The one thing that FLW got wrong was that apparently he didn't think much about the practicalities of the house - ie women's work. So the kitchen was apparently quite awful with metal cupboard doors and no space and there was no room for the washer and dryer apparatus. Had he been a woman he wouldn't have gotten those wrong! He also designed a lot of the furnishings which are very masculine.

All that aside, we do recommend that you try to see this place if you're in the area. It's well worth the trip to see this amazing and beautiful work of art/architecture.

Tomorrow: home!