An unexpected start to the day

I'd planned to sleep in a little bit today although I should have gotten up a little bit earlier :) Anyways, I was snoozing with the alarm around 10:30am this morning when the doorbell rang. Of course I didn't bother to go and see who it was because I was still mostly asleep. The person knocked and rang the doorbell again and I continued to ignore it.

I was ready to go back to sleep when the people ringing the doorbell actually came inside! I'm sure you can imagine how surprised I was. You see, the property management company arranged to have bathroom fans installed in the upstairs bathroom - previously, we'd had to open the window which is not so fun in the winter. Anyways, they wanted the work done quickly so they gave the workers a master key for all of the units.

Fortunately, Ian had closed the bedroom door when he left so I had time to dress decently and go down to greet the workers. Whew!

The property manager did email that these people were going to be coming (although we should have received written notice that this was happening, I think). I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea that these workers can just come in without being accompanied by anyone working at the property management company. You know? I'm sure the workers are bonded or something but it still leaves me feeling weird. At least I was home.

Things that made me happy today

I listed the custom laptop bag today. Before listing it, I took some time to really think about its construction. You might remember that I had a really difficult time finishing the last laptop bag - I think it took 3 days to sew 5 seams. This time, I'll be putting the padding in and then need to sew only 2 seams. One of them will be next to the padding and I'll make it quite short and the other one is not next to the padding. Hopefully it will take a lot less time to make this bag.

I got my fake ponytail today. It's awesome! It is very close to my dyed haircolour and looks and swings very nicely. It's got a weird smell from the packaging, though, and so I'm airing it out right now. I'll wear it after this week.

I also bought some creme eyeshadow, and I love it!!!!! It goes on sooo smoothly, blends easily, and lasts. I bought some brown colours and some gold, with a midnight blue eye crayon thing (which is also very nice, easy to use, blends well, and lasts). I think I can get a good smoky eye out of these :)

Finding suppliers

I need to buy some sterling silver clasps for a necklace I'm making. It turns out that the price of silver has jumped about $3USD/troy oz in the last month or so and my usual supplier has raised all of their silver prices by a ridiculous amount more than that. So I'm going back through old etsy forum threads, trying to find a supplier that carries these things.

Finding suppliers for stuff is tricky. For example, I ordered some swivel hooks from one place and rings from another place for the bag that I'll be making, and I haven't heard from either business. It's like my money has dropped into a black hole - the places looked reputable, so I hope they'll deliver, but every time I order from someplace new I worry that things won't go smoothly. Not receiving order confirmations doesn't inspire me with confidence, I'm afraid.

Not that things necessarily go smoothly with etsy sellers, either - about one third of the sellers from whom I've purchased have reminded me to pay after I've already done so. Then again, I guess it's better that they acknowledge me that way than not at all. In my ideal fantasy world sellers would always acknowledge that I've bought something from them and wouldn't mess up invoices or payment... but this world is far from ideal in more than one way.

Feeling like a teenager

I'm feeling a LOT better today. I think that most of the overwhelming fatigue over the weekend was caused by the flu shot I received on Friday. Those shots are very hard on me and I end up sleeping a lot and feeling really awful. Last night Ian sent me up to bed at 9pm (after I started falling asleep on the couch at 7:30pm) and I didn't get up until 11am today. I actually felt sort of good when I got up. Whew!!!

For the upcoming bellydance recital, I want to wear false eyelashes and have a smoky eye look. This afternoon, I played around with makeup and false eyelashes. I sort of felt like a teenager playing with her mom's makeup and trying to replicate the looks in the magazines.

Unfortunately, today's experiments failed. I had trouble with the false eyelashes because I think the adhesive I'm using dries too quickly and because I'm clumsy when it comes to applying them because it's not something I have done before. I must practice this more because I really, really want to be able to use them. My features don't exactly stand out in my face, especially on stage, and false eyelashes will help. Provided I can get them attached correctly - false eyelashes that are falling off are not the right look. :)

I tried doing a smoky look with black and grey eyeshadows and it didn't look right, even though I thought I put everything in the right place. One problem I had was that the shadow went everywhere. I think I need to work with less at a time and with a different brush. I may also prefer to wet the shadow or use a cream shadow. I'm also wondering if the traditional smoky eye colours are right for me - they're black and grey. Since I'm so fair, under stage lights my eyes might look a touch too skeletal. I'll have to look around. And practice, practice, practice.

I was also reading something that said if you're pale (like me) to use bronzer on the face and all exposed skin (like the midriff) for the stage. I hadn't thought of that. It would be nice to be less... ghostly? glowingly white? up on stage. :) I'll have to see what I can find.

Ian's home!

Sorry that there was no blog entry yesterday - I'd been awake a long time meeting people and got to pick up Ian from the airport. He's home now :) Tomorrow he's going into his own office.

I enjoyed meeting the people from the list yesterday, although I'll have to say that having breast cancer mets doesn't necessarily ensure that we have anything else in common. I bonded petty well with two of the women and the list owner, but didn't have much of a chance to talk to the other two people. One of the people that I'd especially wanted to meet wasn't able to make it which was too bad.

Oh!!! It looks like someone is buying a laptop bag from me.... and someone I didn't know bought a pair of earrings. How awesome is that? :)

I'm still really, really tired and I expect to go to bed quite early tonight.

Silly fears

I got up early today to drive to Mississauga. I saw my family doctor and the xray he did last week came back normal. That's good news!

I spent the afternoon resting, surfing the internet, and occasionally watching something on tv. It was a wonderfully relaxing afternoon. I'm finding myself quite tired now and will probably be going to bed early tonight. I've got a pretty big day tomorrow: I'm meeting some of the people from my breast cancer metastases mailing list for lunch.

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow. At the same time, I'm a little nervous, because all of these people have mets like me (most have more extensive mets than me). I very much want to know them in person instead of just through email... but a small part of me is scared because meeting them in person will make it harder for me to deal with their deaths when they die. I probably wouldn't give this a second thought except someone in my in-person support group did just die.

I know that that fear is tremendously selfish. It's ridiculous to back away from meeting wonderful people just because it'll be harder on me when they die. It is silly to deprive myself of other people - both my life and their lives will be richer for us having known each other in person. Everybody dies, and so everyone I know will die (some may even die before I do)... and I wouldn't trade the people in my life for anything. I'd rather have known people well when they die than to have backed away from them because I was selfish and afraid.

This has given me insight into some people's reactions to this kind of disease, and that's a good thing.

OH!!!!! It looks like someone is commissioning a laptop bag from me. I'm quite excited :)

Busy and overwhelmed

On the days that I'm not sleeping all day, I feel like I'm crazy busy. I feel like I'm rushing from place to place with barely any time to just stop and breathe and I think that's starting to get to me.

Take today, for example. I got up, sorted some laundry, went for lunch with a friend, bought a mirror for the sewing room, worked on the belt thingy for bellydance, sorted more laundry, went to bellydance, and then curled. I didn't watch any tv or surf the internet or do email or anything that I would normally do for downtime, because there was none.

I can tell that I'm getting stressed, too. I lost my car key at bellydance; thank goodness the building manager brought it to class. I forgot to take my street (non-bellydance) clothes to change into after curling. I lost one of my favourite pairs of non-curling socks at curling - I know I put them in my locker but I couldn't find them. I think that maybe the kids who have their stuff spread out all over the floor in front of my locker covered up my socks. Sigh. I'm just not doing a good job of keeping it together, you know? And that's a sign that I'm overwhelmed and need a break.

When I got home from curling I had (am having?) a big meltdown because I'm just feeling so overwhelmed and rushed and pressured and stressed.

Please don't get me wrong; I love doing every single thing I do, on its own (and I really do need to spend more time with my friends), but I feel like I'm doing WAY too much. I don't know where to cut back right now, but I think that I will be missing one or more physical activities next week.

It turns out, by the way, that the group wanted changes to the belt thing - I was going to make a different style completely based on discussions with the group, but we've decided to order crocheted sequin scarves instead. Sigh.

Bellydance notes

My bellydance veil arrived today!!!! It's beautiful and I am so happy with it. There was a fairly noticeable spot of the wrong colour dye on it, but I had to shorten the veil anyways and that spot isn't there anymore. I took my veil to class today and everyone oohed and aahed over it. It turns out that I'll only have a one minute break between my first dance and the second at the recital.

I did manage to get up and get a bunch of stuff done this morning. I am almost finished my prototype belt-thingy for tomorrow's bellydance class. I'm quite pleased with the way it's coming together and I hope my classmates like it, too.

It's been a long day and I'll be going to bed early for me - at 10pm, which is what Ian calls bedtime. :)

Where did the day go?

What's happening here? I went to bed last night at 10:30pm and read for a little while and then got up at 3:40pm this afternoon. That means that I got 15 or 16 hours of sleep last night!!!!! I had no idea that I needed that much sleep. It's good when Ian's here because he wakes me in the morning and I can do things that day.

I hadn't planned to do much today (I was just going to a fabric store) but I don't like it when I can't do the things I'd planned because I was asleep. At least I must be awake early for the next few days so I won't feel like I'm sleeping my life away starting tomorrow. I just feel that way about today.

A slow but ok day

I felt more refreshed today after all that sleep yesterday, although I wasn't at all excited to be getting up today. However, I'd missed the last two swimming classes and I really wanted to catch up. My instructor says that I'm doing just fine and that it looks like I've been practicing :) I talked to her about when I should be going to practice. I wouldn't call what I do "lane swimming", but it isn't really "public swimming" because I'm swimming back and forth in the shallow end (with breaks). So I should be going to shallow-end lane swimming :) There appears to be shallow-end lane swimming most days of the week.

After swimming I did some shopping; I picked up all sorts of Halloween things at 75% off. I got pumpkin scraper and saw sets for $0.24 - an awesome price, really :) I also got some stuff that we could use next year, if we wanted. We'll see. It's good to have options.

Shopping recovery

I guess all that shopping in Toronto takes a toll on me - I slept until 1:30pm (after the clocks were turned back) this afternoon and then had another two-hour nap a couple of hours later. I'm still really tired and will be heading off to bed soon.

This probably means that when I plan big trips, I have to make sure that I have time to recover the next day. The most exhausting part was walking around and shopping at stores on Queen Street. It involved a lot of walking and contortions to look at fabric in some of those stores; my feet were starting to hurt by the end of the day.

I'm still glad I went yesterday because I got some great stuff, but I didn't go shopping today as planned. I'll go tomorrow or Tuesday instead.

Fabric shopping!

The best part about learning to bellydance is doing a recital at the end of term. I'm learning two choreographies; one with the veil and a second, more complicated one, without a veil. We've decided in the second class that we'll all wear red tops and black bottoms and that none of us will match that way. We figure that if we all have the same belt thing around our waists that our looks will be pulled together.

Since I'm not working, I volunteered to do the belt thing. My classmates want fringe and metallic mesh in either gold or silver. I checked the local fabric stores but they don't have any fringe so I went fringe shopping today in Toronto.

I started with my favourite fabric store, Designer Fabrics. They have a lot of fringe :) I wasn't sure what length of fringe to get but I figured that since the belt thing will have only one tier of fringe, I could go with a longer length. I settled on 10" long fringe in gold. It's not metallic but it looks gold-coloured enough.

I went to a few other fabric stores after that and got some gold mesh fabric (it won't be enough, but it's a start)... and then I started shopping for me :) I bought some teal knit fabric, some green rayon jersey, and some red knit fabric. I am a sucker for a four-way stretch, I'll tell you :)

I'm not exactly sure how I'll do the belt thing. I think I'm going to have to bring the fringe at least around to the front so that it doesn't just stop and look weird. I could also trim the fringe so that it angles up at the front so that it doesn't look so weird. I'll have to think about this.

Happy about insurance

I'm feeling much better today, thank goodness!

As you know, I'm on long-term disability right now and am not working. A little while ago, I'd applied and was approved for CPP disability. The CPP disability payment was back-dated for last September (which is when I went on LTD) and I received a lump-sum payment from CPP for all the payments since then. I also received a payment for this September, so they paid me 13 payments.

The insurance company deducts the original CPP disability amount from the LTD payment, so obviously I had to pay back the amount that CPP has paid me since last September. I thought that they would need the entire back-payment as well as this September's payment, but I was wrong.

An advantage to the CPP disability benefit is that it has a cost-of-living increase every year and my insurance company is not taking that increase into account. As well, I didn't receive an LTD payment in September of last year so I didn't overpay for that month. Therefore, I only have to pay back 12 months x my original CPP disability entitlement.

I received 12 months of the original CPP disability plus 8 months of the cost-of-living increase, and I received CPP disability for one month before I actually received my LTD payment. So the 8 months of cost-of-living increase and the extra month of CPP disability is mine to keep - I don't need to pay it back! Yay! :)

The insurance company didn't make a mistake: I checked the book describing the coverage and it specifically says that cost-of-living adjustments in government plans (like CPP disability) are not deducted from the LTD payment amount. I'm pleased that this has worked out so well for me.

A lonely day

Ian's been gone a few days now and I'm starting to feel a bit lonely. Normally I like being on my own for a while as I'm an introvert by nature and I lived by myself for a long time. I do love living with Ian and spending time with him ... but I love being by myself, too. Usually I don't start to get lonely like this until at least a week or so after he's gone.

I'm finding myself sort of puttering around here and there doing little bits of things. The place seems too big for just me; I can't seem to fill it. I try and follow the routines we have (except for the exact bedtime time - when Ian's not here I stay up later), but they're not the same without him.

I guess that part of the reason I'm feeling this way is that the pain is up a little bit and there's no one to be whiny to. :) Seriously, when the pain is up I get a lot of comfort from being with Ian. I'm also quite tired; I worked out at Well-fit today instead of yesterday because yesterday was Halloween, and I had bellydancing class, and I curled tonight.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day - I'll sleep in, take it easy, and generally enjoy myself :)

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is the best time! We get to decorate the house in tacky Halloween stuff and carve pumpkins AND give out candy to cute little dressed up kids. Photos of the decorated house are here. Closeups of the pumpkins are here. Ian designed both pumpkin patterns this year and I think he did a great job. He's also much better at actually cutting out the patterns than I am :) I had to re-do my pumpkin as it didn't turn out very well the first time, but I'm pleased with the final result.

Usually we get a few teenagers out but there were none this year; all of the 41 kids who came to the door were under 12 or so. I'm ok with that because I like giving candy to kids.

This year, there were princesses and frogs and teenage mutant ninja turtles and zombies and batman and spiderman and more. I love the little boy's superheroes costumes with the muscles :) One very young person (he was maybe 2 years old) pointed at my candy bowl and kept saying "Caaaaaanddyyyy!!!!" His mom told him that he had to say "trick or treat'", so he then said "tri or tre". I figured that was close enough :)

One lovely young zombie asked me, "What did one casket say to the other casket?" Me: "I don't know." Zombie: "Who's coffin in here? *cough* *cough*" :) What's not to love there? :)

Magazines and shopping

The second magazine I subscribed to - Fashion - arrived today. It had three perfume inserts, and I've emailed them and asked for perfume-free issues. Elle Canada did respond and I will receive non-stinky issues of that magazine beginning in January. Whew! I am prepared to cancel any subscription that can't provide scent-free issues, but I do like reading those magazines :)

I went shopping today, and would you believe that I didn't buy any clothes? Yep, it's true. I did go to Fabricland and buy some fabric, though :) They have a lot of fabric on sale - their silk charmeuse is 50% off, and Vogue patterns are only $5.99. I didn't buy any of that. I bought some black stretch crinkled velvet and black knit for bellydance skirts, and I bought some swimsuit lining and flesh-coloured stretch mesh for bellydance costumes.

There were some beautiful fabrics there... a stretch berry red crepe that I loved, brushed yarn-dyed cotton plaids, embellished velveteens, corduroys, houndstooth fabrics... I love them all. Unfortunately, I have no real use for any of those fabrics :( If I bought them, they'd end up sitting there and wouldn't be made into anything.

Magazines and movies

I'd subscribed to a bunch of magazines and I got the first one - Elle Canada - today. I thought I'd asked on the little card for perfume-free issues, but that isn't what I got. In fact, I think I got extra perfume samples. When I buy a magazine off a newsstand, there might be two or three perfume inserts. My magazine had FIVE. Five!!! What a ridiculous number! How could any one scent be distinguishable in that perfumery? I've sent them an email asking how I get perfume-free issues. I'd rather not get the magazine if it's going to smell like that.

I also went out today and bought a bunch of DVDs that were on sale. I got Dreamgirls (I hadn't seen it, Children of Men (seen it, but it's worth watching multiple times), Murderball, Saw, Saw II, and Saw III.

I'm watching Dreamgirls now. It's pretty good even if it is a musical :) I love the eye makeup on the ladies - they all look like they have these beautiful doe eyes. I wish I could make my eyes look like that; next time I dress up, maybe I'll try :)

Ian's away

I woke up very early see Ian off; he's gone to California for training. Yes, training - he's starting a job tomorrow :) He'd taken a break from school in the summer and then had interviews in the early fall. He'll be working at a high-tech company in the city. I'm so very proud of him :) I hope he likes the job.

I meant to go and do some bellydance workshops later in the day, but I didn't. I made a conscious decision to not go to the first workshop at 10:30am in order to sleep. I'd planned on going to the 1:30pm workshop but I didn't get up until 3pm. Sigh. I guess I needed the sleep.

I did make it to the Bewitching Bellydance Ball this evening, though. I dressed up in costume; you can see it here. It was a lot of fun - if you're in the region during the last weekend of October next year, you should definitely attend. It's bellydancing set to other kinds of music and that tells a story. Of course most of the stories are ghoulish and spooky :)

I don't like funerals

So I don't love funerals any more than I did before. There were a LOT of people at the funeral for the young woman - she was 41 - from my in-person support group. It appears that she had made a huge impact on the community and people around her.

Apparently she had wanted a service with lots of poems and songs and that's what we had. Yes, people talked about her and there was mourning, but it was really a celebration of her life and so was quite positive.

I'm hoping that our young women's group does some sort of memorial thing so that we can remember her, too.

Fun after curling

We went curling tonight for the first Friday night of the season. We like Friday night curling because it's very relaxed; most people are newish or beginner curlers so there's not a lot of pressure to curl really well. This means that we can try things we might not normally try and we can practice our technique.

More importantly, we have a lot of friends who curl on Friday nights. There are three other couples that we like to spend time with outside of curling, and they all curl on Fridays with us. This makes the games and overall atmosphere upbeat and fun. After curling, we usually go for dinner with some or all of these couples.

Tonight we'd thought we wouldn't go out for dinner as we have a lot to do tonight and tomorrow, but we ended up going to The Keg with them anyways. We haven't been out with these people in a long time and I've missed them. We all had a great time talking and eating yummy food :)

Bellydance costume

We came home to Waterloo today. Thursdays are quite busy; I have bellydance followed by curling, and when Spirituality and Healing groups are meeting, I have that before bellydance.

We're learning the choreography for the recital in December. We actually spent a bit of class figuring out what our costumes were going to be. Funny though, our instructor doesn't care at all about costumes; it's those of us in class who are interested in our attire. We've figured out that we'll all wear red tops. I'm going to look at the market and see if there are broomstick skirts there. Personally, I'd rather go with a black skirt - then I can make it to be more flattering on me. Because I'm short, I'm better off with a skirt that is more mermaid-like or form-fitting than with one that hangs straight down from my hips. The latter widens me and makes me look shorter.

We may also make some scarves to wear around our hips - something with some mesh and long fringe. I was going to try and make a sample as well. I rather like the idea of fringe, as long as it's pre-bought.

Anyways - my instructor was not impressed with all of this talk as she'd be happy if we danced in jeans. It certainly entertained the rest of us, though :)

Mourning twice over

I am so tired of cancer.

When I finished my blog last night I checked my mail and found out that one of my young women's support group members had died. Her funeral is on Saturday and we will try to attend. She had had breast cancer that had metastasized (spread) to her bones, liver, and brain. For the last few months she had been bed-ridden as one of the brain tumours made her paralyzed. She leaves behind 3 little kids (the youngest is about 2 1/2 years old - she was first diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant with the littlest one) and her husband. He's been pretty well out of work for two years now. What will happen to them? I'm so sad for the family.

After I finished reading about this, I went to one of my online breast cancer support groups and found out that one of the members there had died. She had bone and liver mets and she'd only had them for five months, since May, 2007. It all happened so fast - her liver started to fail a few weeks ago and then she just died. She didn't have any children and she leaves behind her husband. He's heartbroken.

Both of these women were about my age. My heart is aching for their families and friends - it's so not fair that these women died so young. Last night I cried and cried and cried; I will miss them. They were both wonderful women who went out of their way to help people whenever they could; they were honest, loving, and patient. It was like each of them had a light that just shone around them - the world is a darker place now that they're gone. :(

Oncologist's appointment today

I saw my oncologist today. It turns out that my tumour markers have gone down, to 41.3 from 46.2. So they've done this: 57.8 (August, 2006) -> 48.0 (October, 2006) -> 39.6 -> 41.4 -> 46.2 -> 41.3 (October, 2007). We think it's safe to say that my tumour markers are oscillating between 39 and 48, and that's just what is normal for me right now. This is really good news; normal for this particular marker is 38, and I'm just about normal. Well, in this sense, anyways :)

What this also means is that we can continue to look at this tumour marker, and if it starts heading out of this normal range we know that there's something going on.

I also talked to my oncologist about the fact that I still feel that I can't relate to her and have asked for a referral to another oncologist at this cancer centre. She had no problem with it at all and will go ahead and refer me to someone else. Whew!!!! I talked to the nurse afterwards (not the usual nurse as she is on vacation) and she said that switching doctors there is not at all uncommon. I had been quite worried about how this would go - I didn't want to burn my bridges, as it were/ I think I handled it very well and professionally and I was quite impressed with me :) I should have an appointment with a new doctor in four to six weeks.

I've been uncomfortable with my oncologist and nurse since the beginning. I've tried hard to change this and to be comfortable with this oncologist/nurse pair, but in the end I just couldn't do it. During my recent liver mets scare, I realized that there was no way that I would put myself in the hands of my current oncologist - if I couldn't have seen another oncologist right away I would have gone back to my old oncologist in Credit Valley.

These feelings were so strong that I knew that I had to ask for the referral now while things are quiet. It's very important that I be completely at ease with my doctors because I have to trust them with my life. Hopefully I won't get a doctor that I'm LESS comfortable with :)

Lazing around watching tv

I didn't feel my best today. I woke up in the night because I wasn't well and have spent most of today feeling a bit off. I've had a very bad woogly back since last night - I took some Ativan in the afternoon and had to take more when that wore off this evening. Sigh. I wish I knew what was wrong.

This evening we watched Dragon's Den on CBC. My parents watch it and told me about it; it's a reality show where people come on and try and get one or more of five investors to invest in their idea for a share of their company. It's understated and low-key, which makes it all the more interesting. The "Dragons" themselves are very successful Canadian business people who are willing to invest in small companies if they think those companies have a chance. This show is definitely worth watching

Tonight a fellow was demonstrating a thingy that can be used to clean horses. He demonstrated it on a dog and the Dragons couldn't see how it could be used for horses or even that there is a market for that. I'd expect that there is a market for something that will clean horses quickly (and they may even like it because it combs them down to their skin). The fellow got no money from the Dragons. :(

For this season of Dragon's Den, I guess you can vote on your favourite business that got nothing from them. If they get the most or second most votes for that week, they might end up as part of a final five who get to appear before the Dragons on November 28. The top finalist there wins $50000 (and people who vote could win $5000, too!). It's a way for the audience to second-guess the Dragons. :) You can vote here: http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/armchairdragon.php (registration required).

I need more pants

Remember I bought new pants because I'd gained weight and my old pants didn't fit anymore? Well, that must be a surefire way to LOSE weight, because most of those pants are now a little bit to a lot bit too big :) The jeans are definitely too big and I don't like the colour of my other jeans. In the hopes of finding nice jeans that fit, I spent the afternoon trying on pants.

You know, I love shopping, but a whole afternoon of trying on pants and having them not fit is less fun than my usual shopping experience. I tried on 10 pairs of pants at Mark's Work Wearhouse and bought one pair that was on sale and that fit. They have some amazing jeans there - some of them have something called "CurveTech" that is supposed to make your butt look full, firm, and high. What it is is a layer of strong mesh inside the jean but it wasn't strong enough for my butt, I'm afraid. I'm not sure that there's anything short of surgery that could make my butt look any of full or firm or high - and certainly not all three at the same time!

I tried on another 18 pairs of jeans at Winners, which was basically everything they had in my size in that store. I had no luck at all there :( The only thing I came away with was a scrapey mark on my left leg from their theft-marking device. Sigh.

I hope to look at some other stores over the next little while. For now, I'm back in Mississauga and so I'll do some more relaxing here.

Back from Mississauga

I managed to get a ride home with some friends who were in the GTA today. When Ian and I had gone to Mississauga for yesterday's appointment, I didn't drive our car because I was too tired and nauseous. Ian is staying in Mississauga but I needed to get back. Thanks to all my friends who offered to drive me :)

I watched two episodes of Meerkat Manor on TVO today. I loved it!!!!! It was a really great show, much more interesting than I thought it would be. The meerkats are adorable, and they really do have dramas - both in their own clan and with other clans. I highly recommend it.

No mets!!!!

That's right, I have no liver mets!!!! The ultrasound was completely clear and showed no inflammation, and my liver function numbers are well within normal. YAY!!!!! We're very relieved :)

My doctor thinks that my problem might be stomach-related and so is putting me back on Nexium. I'll continue to take the Zofran for nausea.

My doctor also gave us tips on how to talk to my oncologist about getting a referral to another oncologist in the same cancer centre. Ian gets to open up the discussion, which he's not at all happy about, since he doesn't like conflict. If you didn't know, I'm not comfortable with my current oncologist and I want a new one. I've heard good things about a couple of other oncologists at the cancer centre and so I'll ask for a referral to one of those doctors.

How much I've changed

I went to my Spirituality and Healing group this afternoon for the first time in three weeks. We talked about letting go of things - like anger, or being control-freaky, or whatever. I told them about how, when I was working, I could be quite mean and callous; that I didn't give the people I worked with enough credit for being themselves and for having their own talents, and that I expected everything to be done my way. I've changed a lot in the last year and a half and I know that I'm more patient, compassionate, and forgiving than I was before.

Anyways, as I was saying all this today it struck me that one of the main reasons that I want to go back to work is to show people just how much I've changed. I guess I want to show other people that I'm not the person that I was and that I can still get as much done and be as efficient while also being a better person. One person in particular bore the brunt of that and I've apologized to that person for the way I behaved.... and I think I also want to apologize to other people as well, you know? But the only way I can really apologize is by showing people that I'm different. I can SAY I'm different, but, well, saying so doesn't make it so.

I don't expect that I'll work again. If it turns out that I don't have liver mets, there is a chance that I might get to work. If I have liver mets, well, I won't be working again.

I'll let you all know how things went after the appointment tomorrow. Ian and I have decided that we're hoping that I have some kind of liver infection and not liver mets.

Test results on Friday

I have a doctor's appointment on Friday and I should get my liver ultrasound and liver function test results then. It was going to take 4-5 days to get the ultrasound results so they should be ready on Friday. The liver function tests should have been available on Monday so I'll definitely get those as well. I'm quite nervous about the appointment, because I'm scared that I have liver mets. However, I've talked to some people who have had similar symptoms as me but who had something other than liver mets - so it's possible that there's something else wrong with me. Wouldn't that be awesome?

I've been quite nauseous with a fair amount of pain in my liver today. Sigh. I just want the pain and nausea to go away - I feel like crap. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

More and more sleep

I should have known that having a bit nap yesterday afternoon would make it more difficult to sleep last night. I ended up getting up at about 3:30pm today. For some reason I thought it was around 11am, but all the clocks said about 3:30pm, so I must have been wrong. I did feel very refreshed when I got up which is a big change for me - I'm usually tired when I get up.

Of course I did nothing at all of interest today - I mean, I did some laundry, but that's not exactly interesting, is it? :) Tomorrow I'm going to Well-fit and then bellydance which will at least get me out of the house :)

How much sleep do I need?

After my swimming lesson, I went shopping at H&M. This time, I got four non-black jersey shirts, although it took me two hours to do it :)

Once I got home, I had a nap, intending to get up in time for Well-fit. Unfortunately, I didn't get up until four hours after Well-fit started... oops. It's not like I didn't go to bed last night; I got 10 hours of sleep which should have been enough. But no, apparently I needed another six hours tonight. I hope I'm tired enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour :)

Looking for some colour

Ian let me sleep in all the way until noon today! I felt quite rested when I got up. I could barely type my blog by the time I was finished it last night - I started going to sleep right there, and I fell asleep really quickly when we went to bed.

After dropping Ian off in Mississauga this afternoon, I went to H&M. I'd planned to get some tops that weren't black as most of the tops that fit and look nice are black. Don't get me wrong; black is a fine colour. Worn every day, though, it's a little much. I tried on a ton of things there and ended up buying five tops: a fuchsia and white t-shirt, a black cropped cardigan with big silver polka-dots, a beautiful black blouse with white polka-dots, a grey jersey shirt with a black pattern, and a black, white, and grey jersey shirt. Hmm. That's four black tops by my count :)

I'm going to return the two jersey shirts - they're like t-shirts but not in the same kind of basic t-shirt pattern. They're nice, but maybe I can find something that's less... black. :)

Went to a wedding today

We went to a friend's wedding today. We've known the happy couple for a few years - they're really great for each other and together make the world a better place.

The wedding ceremony and dinner were each delayed but about 30 minutes because we were waiting for someone. There had been an accident on the 401 and so the ceremony was delayed in hopes that people stuck in that traffic would make it in. The dinner was delayed because we were waiting for a projector that someone was supposed to bring. Aside from those two delays, everything ran very smoothly. The food was delicious, the hall clean and bright, and the decorations festive. It was a very nice venue with very good food.

I think that if Ian and I ever get married, we're going to ask that children under 10 not come. There were about eight or ten kids there of varying ages up to about eight years old. They were brats. One whined and cried through the whole ceremony and refused to listen to his parents (I asked the dad whether the child had a form of autism since he didn't respond to people's instructions and seemed lost in his own world, but the father said that he was normal. Hmm). During dinner several kids (including the aforementioned delightful one) ran around the tables chasing each other. During the speeches, they played cars and throwing toys over on the dance floor, blocking out the speeches themselves.

Not that the speeches or ceremony is necessarily interesting, but I'd rather not be distracted by small children with short attention spans forced to stay awake and do stuff with their parents from noon to midnight or so. Those kids were LOUD.

Not that I hate kids; I don't. I don't much like them these days, partly because I can't have any, but I don't mind them if I don't really notice them. That's why, if we ever get married, we don't want little kids there. Don't worry, if there were such little people whenever this hypothetical wedding happens, we'll provide entertainment for them during the "boring" parts. Fair enough? :)

Tests today

I was able to get in to have the abdominal ultrasound this morning. They squeezed me in for 9:30am, and the whole procedure took about a half hour. She took a lot of pictures of my liver and did quite a few measurements - some of those are things like pancreas and gallbladder and all that. She said that my doctor would get the results in four or five days.

The bloodwork to check my liver function took no time at all after waiting for about a half hour. The technician asked why I was doing these tests and I said that we were checking for liver mets. She asked what kind of cancer I had, and I said that I had had breast cancer and now I have mets to my bones. When I said that, she looked so sad. After she finished drawing the blood, she squeezed my hand. Surprisingly, that made me feel better.

So I won't know anything until late next week. There is a small chance that I don't have liver mets; I could have some sort of infection or my liver may have decided to stop processing all of the drugs I take. Or I could be living in an episode of House and I have some rare disease. :)

Yes, I'm scared, but I'm ok. I'm still doing things I like to do and I'm trying to keep myself happy (ie distracted).

I wasn't hoping for this

Sorry that there was no blog entry yesterday; I'd fallen asleep at 8:30pm and went straight up to bed at 11pm to wake at 10am this morning. I'm less tired today :)

I did see my family doctor today and talked to him about my nausea, pain in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen, and tiredness. He had me lie flat and then he checked where the edges of the liver were. After that, he applied gentle pressure on different parts. The gentle pressure caused some pain - not, like, excruciating pain, but pain nonetheless. It turns out that my liver is swollen. He is pretty sure that I have liver mets. Sigh.

He's sending me for a liver ultrasound first thing tomorrow - I don't have an appointment but I'm to go to the clinic and beg for one. My doctor is also asking for bloodwork that will give us an idea about how well the liver is functioning right now. I kept telling him that I was seeing my oncologist the week after next but he wanted to do this all on his own. Yes, I know I had a scan in late June, but I think my mets (if that's what's there) were just baby-sized then and couldn't be seen at that time with that technology.

He also gave me prescriptions for Zofran for the nausea and Ativan (lorazepam) for the anxiety. I have been feeling pretty anxious for a while as I have been worried about the pain and achiness in my abdomen around my liver.

I won't lie: I'm quite scared about this whole thing. Liver mets are more serious than bone mets and that scares the crap out of me..... for now, though, I'll take this one step at a time.

Ontario votes tomorrow

The Ontario provincial election is tomorrow: please vote if you're eligible! Aside from the fact that voting is our democratic responsibility, there's a referendum tomorrow, too, and it's important to vote in that. In case you aren't familiar with the referendum question and background, you can find all the information you want to read over at yourbigdecision.ca.

Ian and I are in Mississauga this week and so can't vote tomorrow in our electoral district. We didn't find out we were going to be here until after the advance polls closed and so what we've done is to ask one of our friends to cast our vote for us - aka we are voting by proxy. I'm really glad that we have this option as I was going to be disappointed if I couldn't vote. I mean, we might have been able to drive back to Waterloo before the polls closed at 9pm, but we didn't want to have drive that much.

A crafty Thanksgiving

I spent most of the day working on the dress that I'll be wearing to the wedding. I bought it to fit my hips and so the top is too big because my top size is smaller than my bottom size. It took a while to fix up the seams that had come undone because I'm not accustomed to working with that fabric.

I got the shoulders taken up (part of fixing the dress was to shorten the bodice by shortening it at the shoulder seam) and as I was checking the fit, Ian and I realized that the dress might look better sleeveless. If it was sleeveless, it would make a cleaner, sleeker line, making me look taller. We'll see. I'd hoped to finish the alterations today but didn't have time, so I'll be doing them through this week. We'll be in Mississauga starting tomorrow afternoon and I'll just take my sewing machine there to finish up.

I don't yet know whether I'll take all my beads or just some of them to Mississauga. I've been making some earrings lately and part of me would like to pick through my beads and create more. Then again, I should be working on this custom stuff so I should only bring things associated with that. At least I've made some new earrings recently; I hope to get these ones photographed and listed over the next while, so if I don't make anything new it's not the end of the world.

Early Thanksgiving dinner

We went to Ian's parent's house for Thanksgiving today and got to eat very yummy turkey and pumpkin pie (as well as stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, and other sides). We're both quite full after gobbling all of that food. :)

You know how we're trying to lose weight? Well, I've lost 4 pounds in the last week but the software indicates that I'm only 1500 calories under what I should be eating to lose 16 pounds in a year. I don't feel hungry at all - and I occasionally even feel stuffed - but the weight seems to be melting off just now. Not that I mind :) I would like it come off just a little bit more slowly, though.

I'm very tired these days, partly because I haven't been sleeping well. It takes me a couple of hours to get fully to sleep and until then, I sleep very lightly and am awake a lot. Part of this is the pain which is up a bit. Part of this is also that I'm worrying, and I should take some anti-anxiety meds - but the only thing I have is the clonazepam which knocks me out completely. I'll go and see my doctor this week to see if he'll give me something milder like Ativan.

Why am I worried? Well, my tumour markers were up ever so slightly the last two times we took them, and I go in to do the bloodwork on Tuesday. I've been feeling a bit nauseous quite a lot lately and I've got funny aches on my right abdomen just behind and below the rib cage. So I'm worried - although I'm sure that I've got no real reason to be and that I'm just being a worrywart. Realistically, even if I have got a reason to worry, worrying won't do any good at all because it won't change the outcome of the test. I should be practicing belly-breathing or something instead of worrying :)

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

This is October?

This has got to be the hottest, stickiest Thanksgiving weekend I can remember. It got up to 26C today plus it was crazy humid - with the humidex, it was 36C or so. That might be normal for August, but isn't way far away from normal for October.

I went for a walk this evening, after it had cooled down a bit, and a thunderstorm rolled in. I was walking quite quickly so that I could get back home before the rain got really bad when Ian came to get me. how sweet is that? He'd seen the lightning and drove out to find me on my walk so that I wouldn't get electrocuted by the lightning or drenched by the rain. I'm a lucky, lucky girl, I tell you.

No craft show for me yet

I didn't make it into the craft show... the organizer was calling to let me know that I was still on the waiting list, that it had 22 people, and that I could be called at any time from now until the show to sub in. I'd have rather heard that I was in the show :) Still, I'll get the application forms early for next year's show and maybe I'll make it in.

Today was one of those days where I end up doing not much of anything :) I slept in until noon and spent the afternoon vegging in front of the tv. I guess I haven't been doing that much lately - aside from being woken at just before 7am and sleeping for another couple of hours - but I still felt quite tired. Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut and if the pool is open, I might go swimming. It's freakishly hot out there and so I might choose to stay home if I don't have to go anywhere :)

My curling is so much better

I went to the curling workshop tonight. It's the first time I've been on the ice since April; as I'm sure you can imagine, getting used to the ice takes some time :) Interestingly, since last April I've been able to improve my balance quite a lot with bellydancing and working out. At Well-fit, where I work out, I do some exercises on one leg or else while standing on those half-dome thingies while doing arm work. For example, I do ball wall squats, where I lean against an exercise ball against a wall and squat on one leg so that that knee is at 90 degrees. Yes, that's as difficult as it sounds.

Anyways, having better balance has definitely paid off as far as curling goes. I'm much more secure on the ice. For the first time ever, I'm able to slide out of the hack without holding on to any rocks! That's a huuuuuge accomplishment for me. This isn't to say that my rock delivery is perfect; I do have a lot of areas that need attention, as I found out tonight. They videotaped me and others and then later critiqued the delivery. It was very useful.

When we got home, there was a call from the person who organizes the Christmas in Ancaster show. I tried calling back but no one was home. I'd sent in my application way late (they were still accepting them) and I was put on a waiting list because there were already some jewelry people. I'm hoping that since the organizer called I might be in the show. Cross your fingers for me! It's not a cheap show - $165 for me - but I'm hoping that means that it would be a success for me. Here's hoping.....

Bellydancing!

I got to go to bellydancing today! I wasn't sure if I would because I've been dog-sitting the last few days. I'd planned to take a ball stability class on Tuesday nights but it's been canceled so I'm taking a veil class!!!!! I'd wanted to take the veil class before but I couldn't justify taking three bellydance classes this term (I take a class on Thursdays, too).

I love veils - they're so beautiful on stage. They do require a lot of work, though. Imagine keeping your arms straight and up for an hour... that's what my class was like. Thank goodness I've been working out and have started swimming lessons. My arms and shoulders look very strong in the mirror :).

Interestingly, because I'm taking the veil class AND the Thursday class, I'll be in the recital twice. Of course this means that I'll have to learn two choreographies. I think that what they're doing is taking a single song and each class has a two or three minute segment of the song in which to do a dance. It makes the recital move much faster and kind of pulls it together, too. I'll have to get a veil; usually they're silk crepe de chine and I think I might have some red sari fabric in the right weight.

Some improvements

I think I finally got caught up in sleep today. I slept until 12:30pm today with only a couple of awake hours between then and last night at about 11pm. Whew!

Interestingly, I'm taking painkillers less often than usual. Yesterday I took painkillers at about 9:30am and didn't take them again until after Well-fit, around 7pm. I did take them just before bed last night and then when I woke up, and then not again until the evening. I'd been taking them every 5 or 6 hours, before. I'd love it if I could take less painkillers with no adverse effects :) We'll see how things go over the next few days; if this trend continues I'll actually start trying to lower each dose.

Shopping and swimming

I got to go shopping again today! My friend needed shoes and we were able to find the perfect pair for her :) I also bought myself the cutest little red plaid purse. I thought about getting the similar clutch but I wouldn't have been able to fit anything in it and it didn't have silver threads in the fabric. I can't wait to get everything moved into my new purse :)

I also had both swimming and Well-fit today. Wow, that's a lot of work. Swimming is hard because I don't know what I'm doing and I do things inefficiently. There are supposed to be two other people in the class but neither of them showed up, so I got a private lesson. That worked out ok. She was able to really give me detailed instruction which was quite useful. I won't have lessons next week and so she wants me to be sure to practice swimming at least once a week outside of class. Hopefully I'll find some time to do that.

A very fun day

I spent the afternoon at a "Crock-a-doodle" party. They supply the ceramic piece and paints and you paint it. They take it away and fire it and you get the finished piece. I chose to do the cookie jar and, just as with the mandala, I had to fill in all of the whitespace. The design I ended up with is not exactly the same as I'd had in my head (I imagined something sparse and got a very full picture), but I think it looks ok anyways. I'll take a few pictures when it comes back to me for you.

I had a great time at the party - I met a number of people I hadn't met and saw some people I haven't seen in a long time. It was a lot of fun catching up. I also liked seeing what everyone else was making - they all looked so much better than mine! I'm really glad I went this afternoon :)

Ian bought some software that will help us keep track of our caloric intake and exercise so that we can honestly record what we're eating. Both of us are about 15-20 pounds over what we're supposed to be and the weight just won't come off by doing nothing (our current approach). We set things up so that we want to lose the weight over a year and it figured out what our daily caloric intake should be. It also allows us to "bank" calories to be used within a certain period of time, like a month, for special occasions.

The program allows us to keep track of our measurements, weight, or BMI - whichever we prefer. It seems to be a robust program, and hopefully we'll continue to use it. It works with our recipe software, too, which is cool :).

A good shopping day

I went to the Oasis bead show today. I didn't buy very much: an 8" strand of aquamarine faceted hearts in graduating sizes (only $35 - that sort of thing usually runs about $100), two 16" strands of freshwater pearls in silver or grey, an 8" strand of tiny blue sandstone dice, and an 8" strand of snow quartz cubes. I really don't need that much because I have quite a lot of beads, and I didn't want to spend that much. I'm very pleased with my purchases. I especially love the aquamarine; it's my birthstone and I'll have to make something for me out of those beautiful stones :) I'd be happy to make something for someone else, too, of course - let me know :)

After that I went shopping for a dress. We're going to a wedding in a couple of weeks and I always like to have something new to wear to those sorts of things :) I ended up buying this dress in red. Even though that link says this dress is casual, it's really pretty and I think it'll be fine for the wedding (especially with a cute black jacket over it, which I already have, and a red hat, which I have).

The colour is gorgeous! The dress has a swingy skirt and a cute top. It isn't all that well made - the cute swingy skirt has parts that need to be re-sewn with elastic. I also need to shorten the top bit and I'll do that by taking it up at the shoulders. However, overall I'm very pleased with this dress and think it looks really nice on me.

I already have shoes that I can wear with it. I have my tall red patent sling-backs that match it and some red suede flats that match it. I also have some black shoes that would work, and some nude-coloured flats that would work. So sadly, I don't need to buy new shoes for the wedding.

When support groups go bad

Thank you for all of your suggestions - I appreciate everyone taking the time to think about a solution and send it/post it. We tried the heat-shrink tubing on a D-ring that I have and it could still have been cut open with the strap. It also didn't prevent the ring from deforming more :( The owner of the bag doesn't have a soldering iron, so she couldn't do that.

What I ended up doing was buying a "quick-link", used for repairing chains, and sending that so that the owner can replace the D-ring with it. It's an oval shape with a twist-lock and it should hold the straps together without going undone. I've sent the quick-link out to the owner and hopefully she'll be able to put it in to make the bag work.

I had a Skills for Healing workshop today and I'm afraid that it didn't go well. During the sharing circle (a time where everyone shares something, usually personal, that is completely confidential), someone was writing down what people were saying. I noticed this and when it came to my time to speak, I asked her to not write things down. She claimed that she wasn't writing down anything about the participants and their names weren't there, but finally agreed to not write anything that I said.

Later on, the subject came up again and another participant turned to me and said "What makes you so insecure?" I replied by saying that I didn't think I had to answer that, and the person who'd been writing stuff down leapt to my defense. The facilitator didn't say anything.

Even though names aren't associated with the notes this person was making, she was summing up what each person said. She was the facilitator for a group that I've since left and our paths cross regularly. This is the second time I've had to ask someone to not write what I'm saying. Honestly, I thought there would be a rule against this, but there wasn't.

I think that if something is confidential and no one is supposed to talk about what's going on outside of that sharing, then no one should be writing down what people say. I feel violated by this - is that something weird to me, or what? I also felt attacked by that other person, who as far as I know was never told that saying that sort of thing isn't appropriate :( . I left the group quite upset and am thinking that I don't want to go back to this particular group. I did speak to the Program Director about this - maybe things will change.

Help with a project

Help!!!! Remember the bag that I made? I'd used a D-ring to connect the strap to the bag. I anchored the curved part of the ring to a strap that was sewn onto the side. The straight side of the D has a small gap which I knew about but thought would be ok because the gap was 1/8" and the strap was 2" wide.

It turns out that there is a flaw in my design and the strap is slipping out of the D :( :( :( I'm so embarrassed at the thought of having sent out a bad design :( I don't know what to do. Obviously it needs to be fixed but I'm not sure how to go about this. I'd like to be able to send the owner something that she could then use to fix it, but if that's not possible she'll have to ship it back and I'll have to fix it myself. Ian suggested having the owner apply hockey tape to the flat part of the D. Does anyone have any other ideas how to fix this? Any thoughts would be appreciated - I'm really stuck, here, and I know many of you sew and design things. I'll go with the hockey tape solution if there are no better ideas. Thanks in advance.

I spent the day shopping with another friend. This time, we ended up at Square One. We didn't really see much until we got to H&M. I ended up buying four tops and my friend bought one. I'm very pleased with my new tops :) I tried on quite a few dresses there, too, and there's one that I loved but that didn't come in my size - I think it would have been good for a wedding that we're going to. I may try and find it at another store.

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 :)