Golden Globes 2011 Red Carpet

Warning: this is a very long post with a lot of images (76, I think) so it might take a while to load.

As promised, this is my Golden Globes 2011 red carpet post. I'm only focusing on dresses worn by women on the red carpet. I've excluded outfits worn to the after-parties and what the men were wearing. Men's fashion doesn't interest me as much as women's and there just isn't room for all of the red carpet and after-party outfits.

Elegance seemed to be the order of the day. Most of the women on the red carpet looked ladylike, glamorous, and beautiful without looking trashy or messy. 

There was a rainbow of colour on this red carpet with lots of sequins and beading and sparkle. Most dresses are shades of white or black but bold blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds were all over the red carpet. 

Style-wise, dresses were varied mostly strapless or one-shouldered. Big shoulders appeared in a couple of dresses Texture through pleating and ruching is still prevalent but most of the texture comes from the elaborate beading and sequins or flowers. There are quite a few trumpet- or mermaid-style dresses where the hips are fitted and the skirt increases in width below the knee but there were numerous sheath dresses as well. Trains on skirts are getting shorter (finally!) and ball gowns look out of place.

Jewelry and accessories were understated. The chunky "statement necklaces" that have been everywhere over the last few seasons were conspicuously absent on this red carpet. Makeup was mainly subtle and natural, letting the dress take center stage.

With all that said, let's look at the actual dresses. Here they are, sorted roughly by colour.

Shades of white (including nudes and pale colours)

Gia Mantegna in 
Lorena Sarbu

Pretty but kind of boring. The black sash helps because otherwise this dress would look like a big towel.

Hailee Steinfeld in Prabal Gurung

Gorgeous!!!! She's a teenager but her dress looks amazing on her. There's just enough sparkle to make it interesting but it  doesn't overwhelm her. Even better, it's white but doesn't look like bridal wear.

Nicole Kidman in Prada

Not everyone loved this look - I think many found it boring - but I think it's fabulous on her. It's sleek and the overall sequins don't add too much texture, just lovely shine.

Vanessa Williams in Roberto Cavalli

This is the least crazy Roberto Cavalli I`ve ever seen, I think :) This dress, like Nicole Kidman's, is allover sequins but looks a bit flashier. The dress doesn't fit her all that well... notice the bellybutton?

Jennifer Lopez in Zuhair Murad

OMG. What do you say to this? It reminds me of so many other JLo dresses; she's not taking a risk here. The shawl is pretty and the dress simple and the look isn't bridal, so I guess this is ok.

Susanne Bier

I imagine she's wearing a Danish designer. This dress is lovely and fits her well, although it is a little bit bridal.

Jennifer Love Hewitt in 
Romona Kevesa

She looks like she's standing in a pool of fabric which isn't attractive. The waist and skirt silhouette is attractive but the super-sized crumb-catcher is a little too much.

Tilda Swinton in Jil Sander

You have to admire her for going her own way, even when that way is shapeless. A fitted, stretch top would have worked better with the skirt. I do love that she doesn't wear makeup to these events.

Kaley Cuoco in Katherine Kidd

How pale and ethereal the skirt is! It's a pretty dress but the colour washes her out. Her hair is also a bit messy for the dress.

Dianna Agron in J. Mendel

I don't love this dress but she looks polished and comfortable. At least her boobs aren't fighting to get away and the colour suits her. I love her hair.

Leighton Meester in 
Burberry Prorsum

Um, wow. The waist is strange on this dress, not to mention the sleeves. And the skirt. And the fabric.

Sandra Bullock in Jenny Packham

Like Scarlet Johanssen's dress, there's something weird going on with the sleeves. Of course it's hard to notice the sleeves because of her hair - especially her bangs. That cut does nothing for her or the dress.

Heather Morris in Lorena Sarbu

Now this, I love. Love! the shape is perfect for her and makes her look sexy and beautiful. I love the sleeves and the allover sequins, too.

Sarah Hyland in Max Azria

I want to like this, I really do. The bodice is interesting and the lower skirt is fine but the dress is too flat over her abdomen, making it look big. The colour isn't quite right for her, either.

Michelle Williams in Valentino

She needs to learn to stand up straight. Posture is important! Then again, good posture wouldn't make this dress look more mature. The pattern is just a bit too juvenile and shapeless for the red carpet.

Julie Bowen in Tadashi Shoji

In many ways this is a lovely dress; I especially love the ruffles. I'm not keen on the striping effect on the torso, however, and the colour definitely doesn't suit her. She looks washed out.

Kelly MacDonald in J. Mendel

The colour is completely wrong on her and the silhouette does her no favours. The ruching and cowl neck and peplum all look droopy and sad.

Anne Hathaway in Armani Prive

A knockout! I didn't love the shoulders at first but they've grown on me because they balance the dress. Love the colour and overall sequins. Gorgeous.

Blues and greens

Amber Riley in Oliver Tolentino

This sequinned dress has a lot of texture and it looks good on her. It would look better if the texture weren't all over the dress - but at least the colour is gorgeous! 

Jane Krakowski in Badgley Mischka

A lovely dress in a great colour! The only thing I don't like is the shoulder strap because it looks weird.

Jenna Ushkowitz in Rebecca Taylor

This colour looks great on her but the skirt looks strange. Maybe it's because it's too long and all ruffled.

Hope Davis in Bibhu Molapatra

I don't know why I love this dress, but I do. The colour and style are gorgeous and suit her well. I'm not sure what to make of the limp, straggly train, however. Take the train away and the dress is fabulous.

Amy Adams in Marchesa

A beautiful colour, but this looks like a bridal dress in blue. It fits her well and looks lovely on her. The big flower-things could possibly be a bit smaller but they still work on this scale.

Tina Fey in L'Wren Scott

I love this navy velvet dress! I wish that Tina Fey would learn how to pose in a dress, though, because her pose detracts from the beauty of the dress.

Mandy Moore in Monique Lhullier

Meh. This looks like a bridal gown in blue. I love the tulle in the bodice but I don't like the skirt shape or  fabric.

Julia Kurbatova

Many people didn't like this but I think it looks lovely. I love the leaf embroidery on the bodice and the fit of the dress. I also love the colour combination.

Catharine Zeta-Jones in Monique Lhullier

Another bridal gown, this time in dark green. The colour is perfect against her alabaster skin and the dress shape suits her figure (plus her boobs aren't trying to escape). The dress looks very heavy to wear because of the overall texture.

Elizabeth Moss in Donna Karan

I almost love this except for the area around her hips. It looks a bit too big for her there. The bow on the bodice is also kind of saggy. At least the colour is fabulous on her. I do wish she'd worn a slightly brighter lipstick to bring more attention to her face.

Mila Junis in Vera Wang

Another strangely ruched green dress. Again, this colour looks great on her, but this dress isn't flattering to her figure. It makes her hips look huge.

Angelina Jolie in Atelier Versace

Many, many people are saying that this was the best dress of the night. Angelina Jolie looks vibrant and beautiful in this colour. The style seems a bit old for her, though. The allover sequins add an interesting texture against the smoothness of her hair and skin.

Yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks

Helen Mirren in Badgley Mischka

What a beautiful silhouette! I wish she'd chosen this same dress, which looks phenomenal on her, in a bolder colour. She'd look so much better if the dress was red or green.

Lara Spencer in Angel Sanchez

I love this dress. The details on the bodice aren't too overwhelming and the dress fits her well. The colour isn't quite right for her, unfortunately, and so the dress is wearing her. I also wish that she'd done something more sophisticated with her hair.

Kyra Sedgwick in Emilio Pucci

Not many people can wear this orange but she manages to pull it off. The pleating and ruffles give an interesting texture. I wish she'd done something else with her bangs.

Katie Lee in Christian Dior

I love, love, love this dress. I love the bodice, I love the skirt, and I love the colour. She looks amazing in this colour and style and her hair is lovely.

Emma Stone in Calvin Klein

This dress is pretty, but plain, and the colour washes her out. Some details of some kind would have improved the look of this dress on her.

Nancy O'Dell in St. John

Now this is how to wear this style of dress! She owns this dress style and colour. If only her hair weren't quite so messy.

Katey Segal in Douglas Hannant

When I saw her accept her award I thought she looked like Cuddy on House. Neither the colour nor the style of this dress are right for her, and her hair looks awful with it. 

January Jones in Versace

If she wanted to wear the most talked-about dress on the red carpet, she succeeded. Some love this and others hate it but no one is indifferent about it. Personally, I think the colour is ok on her and the style looks all right. I don't like the knee-length skirt under the fringe; I think it should be shorter or longer. I also wish that she had a band over her cleavage as I think this dress is too revealing.

Christina Hendricks in 
Romona Kevesa

The dress silhouette is fabulous! The colour works with her skin but not her hair and that flower is practically eating her head. I like the ribbon on the hem and I'd love the dress if that flower were much smaller.

Edie Falco in Valentino

Another red that looks wonderful against her skin but that doesn't work with her hair colour. I love this dress otherwise.

Sofia Vergara in Vera Wang

I love the fabric used for this dress because it shows both pink and dark coral, adding depth and interest. I really like the pleated neckline and waist, and the black belt definitely adds to the dress. The silhouette and colour work for her.

Julianne Moore in Lanvin

Pretty much everyone, including me, thinks that this dress looks terrible on her. The poufy sleeve, the wrinkles, the weird-looking hem, all conspire to make her look like she just wrapped fabric around her willy-nilly. Definitely a mistake.

Claire Danes in Calvin Klein

Pretty much everyone, including me, thinks that this dress is one of the best from the red carpet. The colour is fresh and looks beautiful on her and the silhouette is quite flattering. Love her hair, too.

Lea Michele in Oscar de la Renta

Another bridal gown, this time in pink. She looks like the diva she is. I think I'd like it more if it didn't have that comforter of a train.

Natalie Portman in Viktor & Rolf

The colour is lovely on her but the rose looks strange. If the rose weren't there this dress might be better although then it would look like a pink monstrosity. It might be better if the rose design were in a different colour and added to different parts of the dress.

Megan Fox in Armani Prive

I love the woven bodice but I don't love the matte skirt with the front slit. The colour is good on her and the silhouette is good, but this dress doesn't succeed like it should.

Julianna Margulies in 
vintage Yves Saint Laurent couture

I'm not a fan of light pink with black. To me, the contrast is too much. I like the skirt on this but the bodice doesn't look right. That might be because of the way that she's standing; she needs help with her posture, too.

Maria Menounos in Pamela Roland

I love this and I wish I could wear it myself! The play of matte/shiny textures appeals to me and I love the neckline. The colour works for her.

Scarlett Johanssen in Elie Saab

This dress fits her very well and the colour is ok. There's something weird about the sleeves. I think I'd have liked it better if they weren't there or were longer and less full.

Naya Rivera in Douglas Hannant

I love this dress even though it doesn't fit her perfectly: the bust isn't perfect and the hips are weird, too. Maybe I just love the colour?

Blacks

Melissa Leo in Marc Bouwer

The sleeves are different but I love this sequinned black dress. I especially love the neckline and silhouette and I think the dress suits her perfectly.

Annette Bening in Tom Ford

It looks like she woke up, rolled out of bed, and threw on the dress as she rushed out the door. The sack of a dress isn't all that attractive and her hair  is a mess.

Jane Lynch in Ali Rahimi

I don't think this is the first time that Jane Lynch has chosen a dress with a lovely bodice and a not-so-lovely skirt. She looks like she's melting into the floor and like her hips are ginormous. At least the bodice works for her.

Piper Perabo in Oscar de la Renta

Piper Perabo is smiling like this in most of her pictures. I wonder how she felt about this the next day, because her mouth looks like an elastic band. The dress is gorgeous although the ruching on the right side ends too low.

Eva Longoria in Zac Posen

This is some kind of whale tail! Too bad she's melting into the floor. I know she's short but she can do better. And that skirt/train looks dated.

Halle Berry in Nina Ricci

I don't like mullet dresses (short in front, long in back), and there's something about this dress that I really don't like. Maybe it's the matte black chiffon train. I like the bodice but the skirt/train just doesn't work, in my opinion.

Julie Stiles in Romona Kevesa

This is a black bridal gown. I like the shoulder ruffles and the bodice but not the skirt.

Kat Kramer

I almost like this dress; I like the skirt and the bodice and especially the asymmetric lines. What I don't love is the lace thingy on the one shoulder. With the asymmetric lines the lace shoulder strap looks a little too designed. This dress makes her look short, but at least she's not melting into the ground.

Jessalyn Gilsig in David Meister

Another black bridal gown, this time covered in lace. The bodice is sort of interesting and the dress is flattering on her, but it does yell out "bridal!"

Giuliana Rancic in Zac Posen

Those things on her boobs look strange, don't they? It gives the bodice an unusual shape at the top. The pleating and gathering makes the skirt interesting.

Julianne Hough in Marchesa Resort

I love this dress: it's simple yet elegant and it looks comfortable, too. The collar is what makes this dress most interesting. She looks fantastic in this outfit.

Jane Fonda in Georges Hobeika

I'm not usually a fan of sheer sleeves and yoke but I love it here because of the way they've been embellished. I'm not sure how I feel about the extra shoulder thingies, but I think I don't like them. Still, she looks radiant here and the dress definitely suits her.

Jayma Mays in Alberta Ferretti

Now this is a sexy dress! Look at that plunging, sheer neckline and the texture of the sequinned lace fabric. Gorgeous! I don't love her makeup because the eye is too heavy for that lipstick colour. Her hair is lovely.

Jennifer Lawrence in Louis Vuitton

I almost love this dress. The straps are a little long and heavy for my taste but I love the fabric and silhouette. Unfortunately, the dress appears to be wearing her and not the other way around: she needed to do something different with her makeup or hair to stand up against the dress, I think.

Shaun Robinson in Oday Shakar

I love, love, love, love this dress. I'm a sucker for allover sequins but what I really love is the form-fitting silhouette paired with the single sleeve. This is a very sexy dress and she wears it to perfection.

Olivia Wilde in Marchesa

Many people picked this dress as their red-carpet favourite. I don't know. I like it, of course - how could I not, with the gradated sequins and gorgeous bodice? I think I'd prefer this dress if it weren't so full and if it was less of a ball gown. It looks like some tulle is escaping down there in the bottom right and I think it has the right idea. I don't like her hair for this dress, either; it's  too every-day to really look right.

Kelly Osbourne in Zac Posen

Not everyone loved this dress but I do. I especially love that line of colour running asymmetrically down the dress. It works with the bodice and the one-shouldered neckline. This dress would be perfect if it wasn't too long and if she weren't melting into the floor.

Hayley Atwell

This is definitely an unusual silhouette with the big shoulders, nude bodice, and black skirt. The silhouette works for her but that nude colour just isn't right. I love the feathered hairpiece.

Prints

Gabourey Sidibe in Marc Bouwer

It's a shame that there aren't many good red-carpet choices for larger ladies. This dress is definitely flattering but it would be so much more gorgeous in a solid colour or an ombre or something like that. The print, while interesting, doesn't really work for the red carpet. Still, she looks amazing and radiant in it.

Jo Champa in Dolce&Gabbana

I haven't been able to find the designer for this dress. Kylie Minogue wore the same dress by D&G on New Year's Eve at the Jools' Annual Hootenanny but I still don't know who designed it. As perfect as the dress was for a New Year's Eve celebration, it was just as wrong for a red carpet appearance. She should have lots of red-carpet dresses to choose from, so why on earth did she choose this one? There's no need to announce that she's a cougar on the prowl; most people can figure that out themselves. The colour is great on her but the silhouette does nothing for her figure. This was definitely a bad choice.

Christina Aguilera in Zuhair Murad

Imagine this dress made of white beaded and sequinned lace over a white fabric (instead of black on nude) and what do you have? A bridal gown, of course. I think I have to stop watching all these bridal shows because I'm seeing bridal everywhere! Back to the dress. it should work and be gorgeous on her, and it definitely fits, but there's something wrong. Maybe it's just that it looks dated, like we're seeing the her from a few years ago. Maybe the dress would be better in less contrasting colours. Either way, it's long past time for her to change her look, maybe into something more natural this time.

Catt Sadler

This is definitely an unusual dress but I like it. It fits her and is eye-catching and it seems to suit her. The colour definitely works for her. Her hair is a little tall, however. She could have brought it down from the heights just a bit and it still would have looked great.

Heidi Klum in Marc Jacobs

I never thought I'd mourn for the days when she only wore short, tight, shiny dresses everywhere, but that's the point I'm  at right now. Did she think that the red carpet would be laid out on the beach this year? The colourslook ok on her but the dress isn't flattering at all and her hair is much too casual for such a casual dress on the red carpet. I wish she'd find a look in between her old one and this frumposity.

Helena Bonham Carter in 
Vivienne Westwood

Helena Bonham Carter is nothing if not interesting, and this getup is definitely interesting. The dress is unusual, if not particularly flattering and her hair is its usual mess. At least the colours work on her. I kind of like the idea of wearing different shoe colours on each foot because it makes matching prints so much easier. At least no one can say that she's dressing for anyone but herself. That's good, right?

Golden Globe Awards

Last night the 2011 award season began with the Golden Globe Awards. Of course I watched the red carpet coverage, because the dresses are my favourite part! I think that the majority of the red carpet dresses were white, grey, or nude but we'll know that for sure tomorrow when I post my red carpet review.

I tried to watch the entire award ceremony itself. Really, I tried. I've heard that some people loved the show but it just didn't appeal to me at all. Part of the reason for that was probably that I wasn't emotionally invested in the results; I just didn't care who won. I watched the Primetime Emmy Awards and many of the winners there were nominated here. I'm sure that many of the films that were nominated here will be nominated for the Academy Awards. Some might wonder what the point is in having these separate award shows that cover the same shows and movies.

I might still have watched the whole show, but then Justin Bieber appeared and co-presented the award for best animated film. Since when does appearing in one CSI episode make him qualified to present an award at the Golden Globes? His appearance was a little too trendy and obvious and I didn't think he belonged there. Honestly, I'm a little tired of everyone jumping on the Bieb-wagon and I'm definitely tired of seeing him in non-singing situations, so I turned off the tv after his appearance.

I might have felt a bit differently about the show, or at least not so annoyed by Justin Bieber's appearance, and I might even have kept watching if I'd enjoyed watching the host, Ricky Gervais. Unfortunately, his opening bit and many of his later comments were unfunny and fell flat. The crowd didn't applaud or laugh much at most of his comments so I don't think I was alone in disliking him as the host.

It seemed like Gervais was just saying things to try and see how far he could go and that he wasn't really trying to be funny. To me it seemed that his comedy approach was more, "I'm feeling mean, I don't care about you, and let me tell you exactly what I think about you" than the usual "I'm happy and I'm poking fun at you because I like you." The latter is funny and people feel like they're part of the joke whereas the former is just mean. I felt that he sucked all of the energy out of the event every time he stepped on stage.

I hope that the rest of the awards shows this season are better than last night's show. They could be worse, I guess, but I'm really hoping that the hosts will be funny and less negative in their jokes. And I beg the powers that be to keep Justin Bieber away from all of the movie and tv award shows.

Making changes to the house

ach weekend, Ian likes to do something productive around the house. He doesn't have much time to work on the house on weekdays so if we don't do things on the weekend, things don't get done.

This weekend, we made some changes in the downstairs bedrooms. The bedroom with the better light is going to be my sewing room and the other one is going to be a workout room with our exercise bike, weights, and yoga mat.

The flooring in the workout room used to be those giant puzzle pieces used in playrooms and we took it out ages ago because we didn't like it. Unfortunately, without a floor covering, that room was very loud and echoey. To fix that problem, we took the carpet out of the sewing room and put it in the exercise room. We'll be putting in a new floor in the sewing room anyways so the carpet would have had to come up sooner or later.

As we were pulling up the carpet in the sewing room, we discovered something interesting: the closet walls were built on top of the carpet. The original floorplans had put the closet on the other side of that wall and I guess at some point they decided to move the closet into the room. For whatever reason, the "professionals" they hired didn't cut the carpet and install the new closet walls against the concrete.

Because that room is getting new flooring and it seems silly to keep closet walls that are sitting on carpet, we'll almost certainly fix up those walls. We may put the close back where it was originally planned or we might actually extend the sewing room to make it super-big. Of course I'd like to do that because it would be easier to fit all my stuff in there and I'd be able to have a crafting and sitting area in there. We need to think about that before we go ahead with plans. It may be that we'll enlarge the room after the sewing room is set up; I don't know.

The carpet didn't fit perfectly in the exercise room but it covered most of the bare concrete, at least, and it definitely helped to reduce the noise there. We had some extra ceiling tiles that were used in the largest basement room and we put those against the wall which further muffled the sound. We're thinking of getting a huge piece of foam, covering it with some nice fabric, and putting it up on the wall as a more permanent noise-reduction plan.

Finally, we put in a new ceiling fixture in the exercise room. The previous owners put a combination light/ceiling fan in each bedroom but that fixture made the exercise room feel really claustrophobic. Even though we put the bike to the side of the room, those fan blades felt really close! We put one of those small half-dome ceiling lights in the room and we're quite pleased with the look.

Putting the light in was a bit of a trial because the two bedrooms were wired strangely. Instead of the lights in each room being wired separately, they were kind of daisy-chained together. The first time the new light was put in, the light switch worked for both rooms. There was an extra wire that somehow was used to separate the light switches in the rooms.

This house is full of surprises! We never know what we're going to uncover whenever we start trying to make changes. That's part of the fun, though, right?

I should have listened to Ian

Ian likes to joke that I'm a baby who can't take care of herself. It's sort of a joke based in reality because I don't always make good decisions, sometimes I don't think things through completely, and I'm a bit clumsy. Of course I like to think that I'm not a baby who can't take care of herself or her things, but sometimes Ian's right. Case in point: my kindle.

I like to in the bath and when I got the kindle, the rule was that I had to put the kindle in a ziploc bag so that if I dropped it in the bath, it wouldn't get wet. Ian made up this rule because the kindle isn't free and because I've been known to drop a book into the bath and sometimes to dip a corner into the water. It happens when I get sleepy in the bath and start dozing and my hands let go of the book they're holding.

For some reason last night I figured that I didn't need to put the kindle in its ziploc bag. Even though that's the rule, I haven't always done it and hadn't dropped or dipped the kindle into the water.

You know where this is going, right?

Yes, I dropped the kindle fully into the water last night. I pulled it out right away and dried it as best I could. I told Ian this morning and he managed to open it up and there was still a lot of water inside. Sigh. We left it out to airdry and right now it's sitting in a tightly closed container with rice, which will hopefully draw out the water. It would be better if we had those drying agents that you find in shoeboxes but we didn't have any, and the rice is supposed to be a good substitute.

There's about a 50/50 chance that the kindle will work again. If it doesn't, I'll have to order a new one. No matter what, I'm never taking my kindle into a bath again unless it's in a sealed ziploc bag. I've learned my lesson.

Ian is not impressed and I've done nothing to make him think that I'm not a baby who can't take care of herself or her things... in fact, I think I've reinforced that perception in both of us. Next time, I'll listen to Ian and do things by the rules. It's definitely the less expensive and less embarrassing option.

Movie night returns

For the first time in I don't know how long, we went to our friend's place to watch a movie. I was a little nervous going there because there were several other couples going and I'm still not totally comfortable in groups. I feel emotionally delicate and fragile and being around a lot of other people can be overwhelming for me, even if I already know everyone.

I did breathing exercises to calm myself down (and to stop whining) on the way there so by the time we arrived I was ok. We watched Dinner for Schmucks, a comedy about an executive (Paul Rudd) who is invited to a dinner where each person brings one "idiot". The executive doesn't really want to go, but then he meets the perfect idiot (Steve Carrell). Hilarity and wisdom ensue.

The movie was quite funny and had lots of hilarious lines. We were all laughing and giggling throughout the whole thing. I wouldn't have rented it but watching it for free suited me just fine. If you like the comedy of Steve Carrell, you'll like this movie.

It was good to get out and laugh with people for a few hours. Part of me wanted to hide at home instead of going anywhere but I know that I can't hide at home forever. I have to get out and be with people and do things for fun outside the house for my emotional and mental well-being; going to tonight's comedy movie night was the perfect small step in the right direction.

I think that went well

I think I really going to like the book in Book Club. It wasn't available until yesterday so we did a bit of an overview today and basically, the book will be teaching us how to face adversity and worth through it instead of hiding from it. We did a bit of the meditation that's integral to the book and I had a relatively easy time settling into the posture and doing the meditation, which is a good sign. Of course we've committed to doing the meditation each day for the next two weeks (at least), even for just five minutes a day, so we'll see how easy it really is to do the meditations.

The counseling appointment also went well, I think. She was easy to talk to and I spent most of the hour talking. I was a little nervous going in because I wasn't sure what I wanted to get out of this or how much it would help. At the end of the session she said that she was happy that I was seeking therapy, which was quite reassuring.

She said that she usually does strength-based work, using the fact that people have lived through struggle as a way of getting through other things. I don't know what the other approaches are and I'll ask her about that when I see her next week, but I figure that it's worth giving this approach a try. If after a few sessions I feel that this approach isn't working, I'll try another with another therapist. For now I'll see her once per week and see how it goes.

This afternoon has been quite tiring - self-discovery and talking about my past is emotionally exhausting. Tonight I'm taking it easy and trying to avoid any hard thinking. Since I'm on my own tonight, that's not going to be all that hard. :)

What a busy week!

It feels good to be settling into my own house and back to my regular routines. I wish I could take this whole week to rest and relax but I'd already had appointments booked for the week.

Yesterday I saw my optometrist. I told her about my red eye from last week and she checked the eye but couldn't see anything. She said that the problem was most likely the beginnings of an infection that I managed to catch before it got worse. I'm supposed to watch for pain and photophobia in my eyes as those are symptoms of sarcoidosis in the eye. My eyes were a little light-sensitive when the eye was red but I wasn't winding in pain or anything.

I discovered that it's getting to be time for new lenses, too. The prescription in my left eye has deteriorated by 0.25 and the prescription in my right eye has improved by 0.25. No wonder everything looks fuzzy to me! My glasses' frames are beat up and losing their coating so I'll get new frames this time around. Even if the frames were in perfect condition I think I'd look for new frames because they don't go as well with my natural hair colour.

Tomorrow my Book Club starts up again; this time, we're studying When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron. I'm looking forward to seeing the Book Club members again as they're a huge source of support for me. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Speaking of support, I have my first appointment with an individual therapist tomorrow after Book Club. I'm a little nervous about that appointment because I don't know what to expect. Going to get individual support is a huge step for me and of course it's scary. I hope that I connect with this person and that she's familiar with the types of mental illness that are found in my family - especially the Borderline Personality Disorder that my mom had. If tomorrow's appointment doesn't work out for some reason then I can ask to see someone else there. We'll see how it goes.

Luckily, once I get home after tomorrow's appointments, I'll get to relax all evening (much like I've done today). I can hardly wait :)

Home!

I arrived home yesterday evening at about 6:30pm EST after a long day of traveling.

I got started a bit late yesterday morning and so I took a taxi to the airport instead of the public transit. The roads were icy and slushy and the driver took it slowly and carefully and got me safely to the airport. Slow and careful is just about unheard of for a taxi driver! Between that and the fact that the conditions were so bad, I gave him a ginormous tip. He deserved it.

My trip home had two parts: the flight to Calgary and then to Kitchener, with a two-hour layover in Calgary. The flight to Calgary was uneventful and smooth. The only thing I didn't like was that someone near me reeked of alcohol; the kind where it's oozing out the pores because the person drank for hours the night before. The smell was so gross. It shames me to think that I smelled like that when I was drinking. I must have reeked, some days. Thankfully those days are long past me now.

The flight to Kitchener had several small children aboard. A remarkably well-behaved three-year-old sat  directly behind me with her awesome mother (who was holding her small infant through the flight) beside her. The mother held her smaller, infant daughter through the whole flight and you wouldn't have known that there was an infant there if you hadn't seen her. The mother was patient when explaining things to her daughter and generally really nice, even when I asked the daughter to please be gentle when using the tray on the back of my seat.

One row back on the other side of the plane was a young mother with her screaming child. The girl had a screaming, crying temper tantrum in the airport whenever her mother didn't let her go where she wanted. Unsurprisingly, she continued to scream and cry during the flight in part because she was under two years old and was held her in mother's arms instead of having her own seat. I'm sure she would have howled through the flight even if she had her own seat, though. Funnily enough, the nice mother offered to give this demon child's mother a hand getting off the plane - even though she had two of her own!

Ian was there to pick me up at the airport and drove me home. We had a wonderful evening just being together watching tv and hanging out. I miss everyone in Edmonton already but it's good to be home.

Homeward bound

This is my last night in Edmonton: early tomorrow morning I'll set off for home. I had some reservations about coming here so soon after my mom died because I thought it might be too much for me. It turns out that coming here was the right thing for me to do because I needed to see everyone  here and re-connect with them.

During each visit with my friends and family I felt surrounded - almost enveloped - by their love and support. I felt like I didn't have to be sad by myself and that everyone was there to help me mourn. This has given me so much comfort and I'm grateful to everyone for being here.

As much as I've loved being here, it's time to go home. I miss the house and I miss being with Ian and I have appointments at home. I'm leaving happy and relaxed, if a little sad to leave my friends and family behind, and I'll take with me my experiences from this trip

Getting home may not be as relaxing as my time here has been., however. We got so much snow yesterday that the city couldn't keep up with keeping the roads clear so driving was bad. Making the roads worse was the ice underneath all that snow. The weather hasn't improved all that much even though the snow has mostly stopped: there's still a bit of snow coming down and a wind blowing the snow into lovely shapes.

If the roads are still bad tomorrow then I might try and take public transit to the airport. It would take about the same amount of time as taking a taxi and would cost a lot less. The only disadvantage would be that I'd have to walk to the light-rail transit station with my suitcases. This wouldn't be fun, but it can be done.

Connecting with my family

I spent a few hours each of this evening and yesterday afternoon with my nephews. It was wonderful to see them and get to know them. They're interesting people, and I like spending time with them.

Each of them has asked when Ian is coming next. They all know of him and they've met him a couple of times, but they've never really spent any time with him. I hope that he comes with me for my next trip and that we can spend some individual time with each of my niece and nephews.

Tomorrow my sister and I are going to another therapy appointment after we spend some time with each other in silence. Our therapist is encouraging us to try to be in the moment - without saying a word - with each other. I guess the point is to see if we can have a comfortable silence between us. I know that I can sit in silence with Ian and with my friends but I've never really tried it with my sisters. It'll be interesting.

I'm happy that I've been able to spend time with my family while I'm here. I still miss my mom so very much and I feel a hole in my heart where she used to be, but at least I have the rest of my family.

Shop until we drop

My niece and I went shopping out at West Edmonton Mall today. I don't usually go there when I'm in Edmonton because I grew up with the mall so it's not a big attraction for me. However, there are some stores there that aren't found anywhere else in Edmonton, like Sephora, Zara, anthropologie, and Victoria's Secret, and I wanted to shop at these stores.

Fortunately, all of these stores were in the same general area around the ice rink so we didn't have to go through the entire mall or go back and forth through it. And boy did we shop! I bought something at almost every store we went into, which is unusual for me. I might have spent more than maybe I should have, but I needed everything I bought. Even the makeup.

One of my favourite purchases was a 7"x9" sketchbook with a soft turquoise suede cover that has gorgeous gold foil design on it. It's soft and beautiful. The therapist had recommended that we get a sketchbook and use it and I'm looking forward to using this sketchbook. I'd have bought more of them but this was the last one in this size that the store had.

I had a great time with my niece, looking at this and that in all of the stores and chatting about stuff. I was happy that she went with me because I enjoyed her company and we both had fun. I wish we both had more time to spend together but I'm running out of days here and she's busy with school. I'm grateful for the time we were able to spend together, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing her the next time I'm here.

Relaxing in Edmonton

While I'm here in Edmonton I'm making an effort to see all of my friends because it's been a really, really long time since I was here on a social or vacation-type visit. Re-connecting with my friends has definitely been the highlight of this trip... seeing them again reinforces why we're friends and why our friendships have lasted as long as they have. It's funny how we've been able to just pick up where we left off the last time we got together.

Most evenings this week I'll be spending some time with my niece and nephews. I haven't seen them in ages, either, and I want to get to know them better. They're getting older and it means a lot to me to stay a part of their lives.

I'd hoped to go out and see a movie tonight but I woke up at 4am with pinkeye. Because of all the stress I've been under together with the traveling, I've been more prone to getting sick. I've been trying hard to take care of myself and to not overdo it but the pinkeye showed up anyway. I picked up some on-the-shelf antibacterial eyedrops and if they don't fix the problem in a couple of days I'll go to a walk-in medical clinic here.

In the meantime, the pinkeye makes my eye sensitive to light and movement (and I feel kind of icky) so I'm going to take it easy tonight before the next few days.

Happy New Year!

I spent last night with my sisters and their families at our Christmas celebration. I've been to my sister's house many times but I'd never been there in the dark or by bus. So what better way to get there than to take the bus in the dark? I got all the bus directions and everything but didn't actually write down my sister's address. I knew the house number but it turns out that I didn't know which avenue the house was on or that if I made it too the transit center, I was too far north.

So when I got to the transit center and the bus started going south again, somehow I thought I was too far south, so I got off the bus and started walking north. I walked for about 20 minutes north, realized that nothing was familiar, and started walking back south again to the transit center. By that time I was lost, I was cold, and I was starting to get scared. So here I was, walking down this road whimpering to myself while people were driving past and shouting "Happy New Year" at me. I was feeling too lost and scared to even swear at them so each time I kind of meekly said "happy new year" to each one.

Fortunately, I made it back to the transit center and remembered my sister's number (after a couple of tries) so that her husband could come and pick me up. I was a bit late and a bit cold but that was ok; I still had a great time and was there to bring in the new year.

I was also able to take the bus back with no problems, now that I knew where I was :)

Here's hoping that 2011 is a much less stressful year, and that it's filled with peace, happiness, love, and good health for all of us.

There was a Wednesday?

You know how when you sleep all day and you wake up the next day and you don't really know what day it is? I'm in that place. I went to bed at about 11pm on Tuesday, slept until 7pm Wednesday, went back to sleep about an hour and a half later, and got up this morning around 9:30am.

Apparently I needed the sleep.

Tuesday night I'd been trying to read my Mom's diaries and appointment books starting from 2000. I got about three years in and I just couldn't read any more... I felt like my heart was going to break, reading about her appointments and her hospitalizations and shock therapies and different doctor's appointments. I started crying uncontrollably and even though I stopped reading I didn't stop crying, so I took an Ativan. And then I slept.

Unfortunately, I lack the skills to cope with that kind of uncontrollable crying: taking Ativan works but it isn't a long-term solution. I hope to learn some new skills through one or another therapy. I also think that maybe it isn't time to read my Mom's diaries, that maybe I should give myself some time to grieve before reading them so that they don't affect me as powerfully.

Sister friends

My sisters and I had a great afternoon shopping and hanging out. Who knew that a fur vest could give rise to so many giggles? It was so nice to just be with my sisters and laugh and talk. After our shopping adventure we had our counseling session. We're going to a few counseling sessions together to help us develop a stronger relationship between us. We've always had our parents in common but we want to have a relationship based on more than the fact that we're related.

Our mom often played two against one and would say things about any of us behind our backs to the other two. If she had an issue with one of us she never just talked to that person about what was going on, instead talking to anyone and everyone but that person. My dad mostly stayed out of things or would relay messages for our mom.

Add to that the fact that when we were vulnerable around our mom, she would poke at that vulnerability and hurt us, and you can see where we might need some help being close to each other. As a result of the way we were raised, my sisters and I don't know how to talk to each other like normal people do, especially when we get upset or we're angry. I've really enjoyed our sessions and they've definitely given me things to think about. We'll have at least one more session next week and possibly others over the phone or skype or something.

I'll be seeing an individual counselor when I get back to Ontario. I know I need help with some things but I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do when I get there. I know that I have some behaviours I don't like and it would be good to get those under control, but I also think I could use some help processing my upbringing. It's hard to know exactly where to start. It's also hard to think about where to start because my thoughts slide around the most painful and vulnerable areas without looking too deeply at them. Maybe the counselor can help me figure out where to start.

I'll definitely be spending more time with my sisters while I'm here. I'm excited at the prospect of being closer to them and to be more aware of and involved in their lives. There's just us now and it's important to me that we forge strong, healthy bonds between us so as to not lose the connection we have to each other.

On the road again

Yesterday flight from Toronto to Edmonton was definitely an adventure.

This is the first year I've flown anywhere on Boxing Day and I think it'll be the last. I didn't really think that a lot of families would be flying but of course it makes sense that they would be traveling that day since Christmas is over. On my flight were four children under two years old and so none of them had their own seat. that's really not a big deal but the worst-behaved was sitting directly behind me. For some reason, his parents thought that bringing the fire truck with sirens and speeding sounds was a great idea. I had no idea how disruptive it is to have said firetruck run sideways across the back of my seat but I know now.

I was surprised at how great an arm the kid had, too. He threw a container full of candies or lego or other small pieces right at the back of my seat, breaking it open and startling me. Then he started kicking my seat. All of this happened before the flight even took off and I knew that I couldn't handle that child for four more hours so I changed seats. There were free seats in the emergency row because they don't recline and I sat on the aisle there. I know that I probably shouldn't be in an emergency row but I figured that I was the last line of defence there and that it would be ok.

After I moved I ended up sitting next to a fellow who was coming home to Edmonton after visiting his family in Ontario. I'd planned on sleeping through the flight but it seems that he needed to talk. So I listened to him until he got tired and then I was able to read and doze off. I hope he feels better.

He was actually the third person that seemed to need to talk or reach out to me: the other two were in the airport and were also pre-boarders. The one woman had been going since noon in Halifax and she was diabetic but didn't have any food and her insulin was packed (I don't think she'll do that again). I had some trail mix that was in my Christmas stocking and I gave it to her because I figured she needed it.

Every time I talked to someone there was this voice in the back of my head saying, "Look at me being all normal. I'm talking and I'm not telling them that my mom killed herself!" Weird, I know.

I like the hotel where I'm staying: it's right downtown above a mall so I have easy access to things without having to go outside. There's a grocery store only about three blocks away that can be almost completely reached without setting foot outside. My room faces outside due north so it's fairly quiet. The tub is also deep enough for soaking and has jets (which I doubt I'll use). I have a mini-fridge and I think I could get a microwave if I wanted - we'll see about that. I can make hot water for tea and oatmeal and I don't have a freezer so I don't know that a microwave will help that much. We'll see.

I do wish there was another chair and maybe a coffee table in the room, and there is a pillar kind of in the middle of it. The room could also probably use a fresh coat of paint. Even with those drawbacks I like the room and I think it'll be a comfortable place to spend the next two weeks.

Merry Christmas!

I hope that this Christmas is full of peace and love for all of you and that Santa was generous to you. Santa gave me exactly what I wanted: a low-key Christmas with lots of time to myself to read, have a bath, nap, or surf the internet. My day has felt a lot like a normal day to me except that we're at Ian's parents' house. I feel completely at home here so being here hasn't been at all stressful for me.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to Edmonton for Christmas and to see my family and friends. Traveling is inherently stressful for me because I'm not sleeping n my own bed or eating my own food. This year I've got grief on top of the travel stress and between the two I won't have a lot of energy left for other people. In past years I would try and cram as much as I could into each day that I was there but I can't afford to do that this time. I'm thinking that instead of doing two or more activities each day I'll start with one and see how it goes. I can't emotionally afford to come back from Edmonton needing a vacation! :)

That's not to say that I won't have any fun while I'm in Edmonton. I expect to be mourning some of the time but mourning doesn't mean that I can't enjoy myself. It means that my fun might be more on the low-key side but the fun will still be there.

Speaking of fun, I gave myself a Christmas present: a class in basic silversmithing. I've wanted to learn how to solder and make rings and whatnot for a while and when I saw that the course is starting in January, I signed up. I'm excited about learning something new and about the prospect of getting back into making some jewelry when I get back.

The joys of having a port-a-cath

How can it be Christmas Eve already? Where has the time gone?

Yesterday the nurse came to flush my port. The port has to be flushed every four to six weeks to prevent clotting in the catheter and since I only receive Pamidronate every eight weeks, the nurse has to access and flush the port in between Pamidronate appointments.

My port is a little finicky to access. When I first got it, the nurses had trouble accessing it because it would slide around and the needle would end up going alongside the port. Thankfully, scar tissue has grown up around the port and now holds it in place. Now the port finicky because it's set a little deeper than most ports which stick out so much that you can clearly see them underneath clothes. Because I'll have my port forever I didn't want it showing that much so the doctor put it in a fleshier area and set it a little deeper than usual.

My finicky port has given even experienced nurses trouble and yesterday's nurse wasn't experienced: she had accessed and flushed exactly one port before mine. She ended up poking me with the access needle six or seven times. She even managed to get the needle only half-way in, which I didn't think was possible and is something I'd never seen before. In addition to the multiple needle sticks, there was something about the way she was holding the port that made the experience even more painful. I think she was actually pushing the port down instead of fixing it in place and pushing it up, if that makes sense. The area around the port is now very tender and I know it'll be a while before the access holes heal up.

I don't usually mind when new nurses access my port because it's good experience for them but it's not usually so painful. If I'd known that she'd never accessed any ports before yesterday I would have asked for one of the more experienced people to come with her and show her how to handle a tricky port like mine. I ended up giving her tips on accessing my port which finally led to success. She was grateful for the experience because she learned a lot and got to see the process through to the end.

At least the port has been accessed and flushed and I'm all set to go. I guess I can think of the experience as my gift to the nurse. The pain will fade away soon enough and she did learn a lot about dealing with finicky ports. And it's not like I can access the port myself: I don't have what it takes to stick a needle in my own skin and since I'm a bit squeamish, I have no desire to learn how to do it. So Merry Christmas, nurse!

So there's one gift done. It's not the kind of thing I usually expect to give but it worked out fine in the end. As long as no one else expects to get this kind of gift from me, I think I'll be good to go.

I don't love you anymore, Netflix

I loved Netflix since it was first available on the PS3. I could watch movie after movie after documentary after movie - no wonder I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. 

Sadly, things have changed. Apparently Netflix tests user interfaces (UI) all the time, so at any given moment a subscriber might be faced with a new UI. Yesterday we were switched from this regular UI:

Netflix's old UI. See the nice menus on the left? You didn't
have to use them, but they sure are handy for people like me
who like to browse through titles.

to using this test UI:

The test Netflix UI we've been given. There are no menus
and navigation is very difficult. It's harder to use than
Rogers On Demand.

In the old UI, I navigated through a menu system to find the genre of movie I wanted to see and then I'd browse through those titles. The titles in a genre were arranged in rows of five and I'd scroll up and down through the rows. If the cursor paused on one of the titles, the description would show up below. This UI was easy to use and fairly intuitive.

There's no menu system in the test UI. I scroll down through the rows to find the genre I want and then I scroll sideways to find a title. Pausing on a title brings up the description in the right -hand third of the screen. Some of the genres have 250 titles in them and I just don't have the patience to scroll through them. Plus at least one other genre is shown above or below the one that I'm looking at, cluttering up the screen.

I know that some people would like this new UI but I don't: I find it harder to navigate through the titles and I have a very hard time browsing to find something to watch. The end result is that I'm not watching anything on netflix and that leaves me feeling unhappy. I like watching movies and I used to like watching them on netflix.

Of course I called them today to tell them that I was very unhappy about this because I'm vocal about things I don't like. I told them that if the menu system doesn't change back we'll cancel the service. I can't justify paying every month for a service that is almost impossible for me to use. Since this is a test they should be able to switch the UI back to the old one or one of the two others being tested.

I love the idea of netflix and the fact that I can watch so much stuff. But if I can't find stuff to watch because they're messing with the UI, it's not the great product I thought it was. If you're ok with being a guinea pig for netflix, you don't care about a product's ease-of-use, and you like watching movies streamed through your PS3, netflix on the PS3 might be the product for you. 

Today's wonders

Ian and I went to see the Wonders of Winter this evening. I had the car to run some errands and since the Wonders are near Ian's workplace it made sense to see them when I picked him up. Each one of these Wonders is a scene or animal or cartoon character made out of different colours of rope lights. Most of these scenes are sponsored by different companies in the region.

We hadn't been to this event in a few years and it was interesting to see all of the new scenes that have been set up. There are a lot more of these scenes than there used to be so there's a longer walk to see all of them. Because we got there just after dark, we shared our time with a lot of kids. As much as we enjoyed it, it was funny to hear the little kids all excited over the scenes.

I had a bit of time today between appointments and spent some time wandering through the drugstore. I've been on the hunt for a good eyebrow pencil for a long time. My eyebrows are so sparse and light as to be nonexistent and I'd like to be able to darken them. The problem is that most eyebrow pencils for brunettes have a lot of red in them which looks awful on me. My natural hair colour is ash brown with streaks of grey and not a red highlight to be found.

Luckily for me, I managed to find a non-red brown eyebrow pencil today: Quo Cashmere Brows in Brunette. It's perfect! One end is sharp for drawing lines and the other is soft for filling in and smudging a whole area. I tried it out and it looked great. I think I'm going to be very happy with this eyebrow pencil - hopefully I get a chance to use it soon.

Looking at things a new way

I was having a hard time this morning thinking about my Mom and how I didn't do everything that I could have done to reach out to her. It's going to take some time for me to learn how to deal with that guilt and with the guilt that comes with the knowledge that I'm free to not be like her anymore. Before, I couldn't fundamentally change the way I behaved because I learned it from my family and doing anything else felt like a betrayal to them.

Fortunately, the social worker from the cancer center called while I was feeling this way and we had a good talk. She's happy that I have a plan in place to get some counseling in the new year and she understands how shocking it is when someone commits suicide. She did give me some ideas that have stuck with me: first, that my Mom was an adult who made her own choices and no one can take those choices away from her; and second, that she knew both how to kill herself and how to ask for help (in the past she had called the crisis line) and she made her choice.

Hearing from someone else that my Mom's death was her own choice helps to deal with it. It isn't a choice I wanted her to make or one that I approve of but it wasn't my choice to make. This is a very freeing concept.

The person I talked to today felt that I didn't need to see her again because I have a plan in place to deal with my grief and the aftermath of my Mom's death. I can always call her or her replacement (or other people) if I need to talk again. I'm so lucky and grateful to have all of this support around me.

We went out tonight

Friends of ours are moving to the US at the end of this month and had the second of their two going-away events tonight. I'm not really in the mood to see a lot of people but because they're moving, I made a special effort to go to their party.

It turned out to be really fun, and we stayed a bit longer than I thought we would. There weren't many people there when we first arrived so we had a chance to talk to our friends and catch up. We also ate too mnuch of the yummy things they had.

This was the first time I've been out among people since my Mom died and although I was a little nervous about going at first, I'm happy that I went. It was good to get out and be amongst people. Our friThat's a big sends knew about my Mom, of course, but it didn't come up in discussion at all because we were all too busy talking about their moving and job adventures.

I don't think that I'm going to be going to be going out every night or anything, but I feel more comfortable hanging out with people other than Ian and my family. This is good; to me it's a sign that I'm starting to heal a little bit.

Lethargic and grumpy

We'd planned to go to a friend's place tonight to see a movie but I just wasn't feeling up to it. I'm feeling quite lethargic most of the time and I'm impatient when anything deviates from whatever I'd planned. It seems that I'm also feeling quite a bit of anger that I'm so far controlling but that I don't like.

The anger stems from the uncertainty around some stuff related to my mom's estate. She died without a will and without appointing anyone as her executor. Her estate's pretty small so my sisters and I are trying to figure out the best way to do something. All of the uncertainty and the pressure to make decisions - and no clear decisions to be made - leaves me feeling flustered and upset and I handle those best when they're plain old anger.

At least I have an appointment to see an individual counselor in January. This isn't the person I was going to talk to at the cancer center; it's someone else at a local counselling place. We'll see how that goes. I figure that it can't hurt and there are things with which I could definitely use some help.

I'm looking forward to the day where I'm finished grieving my mom's death... and the day that all of her estate stuff is permanently wrapped up.

Oncologist appointment

Funny how life goes on even when something bad happens. I'd like for everything to just stand still while I deal with things and feel better but things just don't work that way. Case in point: my oncology appointments, one of which was today.

I never really look forward to my oncology appointment. Even though I've been incredibly superlucky and not had any progression for over four years now, I know that my cancer will progress someday. So every time I see the oncologist, there's this niggling worry in the back of my mind that today is the day I find out that my superlucky streak is over and the cancer has progressed.

Fortunately, today wasn't that day. My cancer is still stable with my tumour markers at 35. Yay!

Honestly, I'd have had a hard time dealing with bad news from my oncologist because of my Mom. If the rest of the world won't stop and wait for me to deal with things, I prefer to have only one life-changing event going on at a time.

Speaking of my mom, I did tell my oncologist and nurse what happened. They were very sympathetic and offered to put me in touch with the therapist at the cancer center. Apparently the person currently in that position is moving on and there's a new fellow taking over. The nurse thought it would be better if I could see the new person for continuity reasons. I haven't heard from them yet but I hope to hear from someone tomorrow.

One box at a time

As soon as I opened the boxes from my Mom's place today I started crying. As I started to look through more and more of the boxes I cried harder and harder until I finally curled up into a ball on the floor and wailed and cried.

I knew that opening the boxes would be hard but I didn't expect it to be quite as difficult as it was. It's the first time I've cried like that since she died. By having these things it was clear in a way that kind of wasn't before that my Mom was dead. Cleaning out her apartment was hard but we could have been helping her move.

We didn't have a service for my Mom at her request so I didn't have the opportunity to get closure there. I'd also wanted to see her body before it was cremated but I was talked out of doing that by my sisters on the advice of the funeral home. At the time one of the reasons I wanted to see her was to let her touch my soft cashmere sweater, which I'd promised to do when I saw her. That would never have worked because of the decomposition but I also wanted to see her just to see her. I know she wouldn't have looked like I remember her - my sisters were told that decomposition was accelerated because of the pills my she took to kill herself.

There were good reasons why seeing her was a bad idea but I wish I'd stuck to my gut and seen her anyways. I would have been able to say goodbye to her in person and I think that it might have done me some good. Since I lack a time-travel machine, I can't go back and change things and so I need to use what I've got to gain closure. The boxes full of Mom's stuff is what I have and it's what I'll use to deal with her death and to gain the closure I need.

The opened boxes are still sitting in the hallway. At least I've looked in the boxes and know where their contents need to end up. I suspect that it'll take a while to deal with and put it all away. That time will be a great opportunity for me to deal with my grief and if I can only put away one box a day, well, that's better than no boxes a day.

I'll tell you, though, just the act of opening the boxes and looking at their contents left me feeling drained and very sad even after the ativan. I plan to spend the evening sitting in front of the tv watching whatever is interesting while trying to process the emotions I feel.

My boxes are here

Ian talked to our next-door neighbour and explained that he wanted to clear the driveway himself, at least for a while. If he decides that it's too much work then the neighbour will start clearing it again for a very reasonable fee. It's really no trouble for him to do it but Ian wants the exercise. For now, anyways :)

The boxes I shipped from Edmonton have all arrived. They make quite a pile in the hall! The dressform and rocking chair arrived yesterday and the rest came late this afternoon. I couldn't bring myself to open them today... there just wouldn't be time to properly deal with everything. I suspect that opening boxes and looking through everything again will take a lot time and space.

I don't think I mentioned this because of what happened with my Mom, but our furnace died the same morning she did. (Yes, December 2, 2010 was quite a day for me.) We were meeting with the furnace people and filling out the paperwork for the new furnace when I got the call about my Mom. The next day was very busy for Ian as he booked our flights and made arrangements with people so that we could have the new furnace installed while we were away. I wasn't able to do any of that stuff as I was too upset and couldn't figure out how to do anything.

A friend of ours watched over the furnace installation and energy audit for which I'm very grateful. We're very happy with the new furnace as it's quiet - it's so much quieter than our old furnace - and seems to work well. The energy audit helped them calibrate our furnace and means that we'll get some money back because we've improved energy efficiency in our home.

If you're interested, we ended up buying a dual-stage furnace which brings the fan up at about 60% to start and then increases to 100%. Apparently this results in more even heat than the one-stage, on-off furnace. We also got the extra-good filter that takes out smaller things than the regular filter. We have allergies and I can get sick easily (that fateful day I also discovered that my neutrophils dropped to 1.1, which means I'm quite susceptible to infections) so having a very good furnace filter is good for both of us.

The point of me talking about this is that because we weren't there during the installation and because we didn't finish filling in the paperwork, the person we were originally talking to is coming by tonight to go over the installation and the findings. So even if I wanted to open all of the boxes and go through them right this second, it's better to wait until after this person has come and gone.

Tomorrow I have the house to myself until after curling so I hope to start going through boxes then, providing I'm up to it.

ps - I want to thank the reader of my blog who contacted my cancer support center about my Mom. I also owe that person apology, which I was going to give at the last meeting of the Book Club but I didn't make it. Can that person please email me? My email address is on my profile. Thanks :)

Snow snow

We got a bunch of snow last night. Not the 1.5m (5ft!) of snow that London has received this past week, but about 6in or so. It's quite windy out there which has sculpted some interesting snow shapes in the backyard.

I love just looking at the backyard and seeing the changes that come with each type of weather. It's beautiful in the summer and fall with all of the plants and it's gorgeous in the winter, too. now I have a reason to stare out at the backyard because Ian put up the bird feeders that his parents gave us. The birds have found it and we both enjoy watching the little chickadees come and go. There are other birds that use the feeders but we don't yet know what they are.

It looks like a peaceful, private winter wonderland out there with the snow and the birds and the bunnies (who forage under the bird feeder) and the neighbourhood cats and the squirrels.

The front yard is lovely, too, but it's not as peaceful or private. For some reason our neighbour - the one who put in the weeping tiles and did the landscaping - has been clearing our driveway. We haven't asked him to do it and the last time he offered to do it for the winter I asked him to send us a quote for the work for the winter. It's very nice of him to do the work but I'm not comfortable getting it done for free. Nothing is really free and by accepting a free favour we open ourselves up to being asked for a favour in the future and possibly risking conflict if we say no. I don't mind him clearing the driveway; I just want to pay a fair price for it.

Neither of us really know how to approach our neighbour, though, and I guess I'm hoping that we'll just see him one day and we can talk to him instead of going over there or calling him. If we don't see him this weekend we'll have to figure out a way to talk to him so that this gets straightened out before too much time has passed.

Did all that really happen?

For someone who usually writes here every day, it's weird to not have been writing stuff down over the last week. It wasn't that I was that busy every day but I had a hard time just opening the laptop, let alone writing my blog. It's been a tough week.

I still feel like I'm in shock, like my mom didn't die. When I'm walking around and see someone about the size of my mom, especially in a red coat, I gasp because I think it's her and that maybe it was all a mistake. And then I remember that she really did die and I feel sick and sad again. I grieved when my dad died but I think I feel even more grief this time, maybe because the death was unexpected or because she was my last remaining parent.

My sisters, their husbands, Ian, and I all managed to get my Mom's furniture and stuff divided up and as many loose ends tied up as we could. By "dividing stuff up" I mean "shipping a lot of stuff to Ontario". There wasn't much time to sort through everything at my Mom's apartment and I couldn't just get rid of stuff... so I took it for me. Fortunately, there wasn't any overlap between what my sisters and I wanted so it was ok for me to take the stuff. I also took her wooden rocking chair because I'd been told that it was given to my Mom when I was born and I just couldn't part with it.

I ended up shipping 11 boxes of stuff plus the wooden rocking chair (and a dressform my sister gave me) home. Yes, 11 boxes! It makes me look like more of a hoarder than I already am, doesn't it? :) It's all supposed to arrive tomorrow and I have no idea where it'll go, but I know I wanted it all.

A few of the larger pieces of furniture stayed in the apartment for people in the building who don't have anything and most of the the rest of the stuff  into a building re-use-it area. At least this way everything will be used by someone.

One sister and I separately talked to the maids who cleaned Mom's apartment and apparently they really liked chatting with her and couldn't understand why she killed herself. She was kind of ornery and all but they (and others) really liked her and will miss her. Mom didn't seem to know that people cared about her or that they liked her; in her diary she talked over and over about how sad and lonely she was without seeming to realize that people did like her and would be her friend if she wanted. That's so sad.

I'm home for a couple of weeks before I go back to Edmonton for my scheduled Christmas trip and I'm looking forward to having some time to myself in a comfortable environment. I feel like I need to give myself the time and space to process everything that's happened and I hope that I'll be able to start doing that over the next couple of weeks.

Tying up loose ends

We've basically sorted everything at my mom's place now. I've set aside quite a number of things that I want to ship home: her sewing machine, threads, notions, knitting needles, books, afghans and quilts, and pictures.

I've started reading her diary beginning in January of this year and I'm overwhelmed by how sad and lonely she was. I didn't know, and if I did know, I brushed it off by saying that she was exaggerating it. Now I see that she was deeply unhappy and I wish I could have done something for her.

Why didn't I write her more? Or call her once in a while? Or send her cards that I was thinking of her? Why did I have to be so impatient with her instead of being as kind to her as I would be to any of my friends? I could have treated her better - no matter how she treated me or pushed me away because she was lonely and afraid - and I didn't. I wish I could go back and change what I did and said to her. I'm so sorry.

Knowing that she was in so much internal pain, in a way I'm relieved that her pain is over. Even feeling nothing is better than the way she was feeling before. I hope she's at peace.

My feelings are still very strong: right now they're mostly just a big ball of sad and hurt and guilt and shame, with a bit of anger for seasoning and relief for spice. It's going to be a long time before I'm able to fully articulate the way I feel.

Wrapping up a life

Ian and I flew to Edmonton yesterday so that I could help my sisters wrap up our mom's life. Ian came with me so that I wasn't alone and had someone to lean on.

A part of me still didn't feel like my mom was really dead until I got here and saw her apartment. I'd never seen the apartment before - she moved since I was last in Edmonton - and first I had to get used to the fact that this is where she lived and that she really was gone. Every time I looked at something and imagined my mom living her life I started crying.

The Medical Examiner has confirmed that my mom killed herself. There were lots (hundreds) or partial pills found in her stomach, and she left a note detailing what she took. She took the pills between about 6:30pm and 10:30pm on December 1 and died sometime early in the morning on December 2.

If I'd called her on their wedding anniversary I would have been the last person to talk to her... if she answered the phone at all. There's no way that I could have stopped her from killing herself.

We found her daily diary - kind of a list of what happened every day - where she talked about how she was so unhappy. I wish I'd known how unhappy she was.... one of the reasons I'm crying so much is that I can feel the sadness and desperation in her things. The tragedy of the whole situation is overwhelming. I hope that if she's still out there that she's out of pain and is feeling less lonely and unloved.,

My mom

My mom died today. She killed herself by overdosing on some pills she'd apparently been keeping for some time. I'm so very sad and hurt. I feel like a little kid whose mommy is gone I don't understand why but I must have done - or not done - something.

My mom had deep-seated mental issues and was in treatment for many years in an attempt to deal with them. She could be very selfish and angry and could seem manipulative but she could also make me laugh, and I enjoyed sitting there with her and talking or watching movies (we shared the same tastes in movies!). She was such a smart, educated woman and we had many interesting talks.

My happiest memories about her are from when I was a teenager and a young adult and we'd hang out together at the mall or outside and we'd talk and laugh. They were good times, and I missed that connection I had with her later. She was always mentally ill, we think, but it got so much worse after she hit her head about 10 years ago. Her personality fundamentally changed then and while I still loved her I didn't really feel I knew her. We drifted apart.

Her death comes as a shock because we all thought that she was getting better. I knew she was struggling, as I say, but she hadn't tried to kill herself in a few years so I didn't think she was on her way to suicide. Plus she was planning for events in the future, like our Christmas celebration and appointments next year. And she seemed slightly more engaged in life around her.

I knew that her wedding anniversary would be a hard day for her because my dad died almost two years ago and I'd planned to call my mom and talk to her but for some reason I thought that day was today and it was yesterday. So I didn't get the chance to say that I loved her and knew she was having a hard time and I feel guilty about that. Even if I had called her, it might not have made any difference, and even if it did, she might have killed herself anyways another day.

I wish I had been there to talk to her more over the last year. I wish I could have seen her before she died and told her that I loved her. My heart breaks not just for me being sad but also for my mom, because she felt her life wasn't worth living.

Rest in peace, Mom. I miss you. I hope you've found Pere, wherever you both are now.

Another movie

I'm still working my way through Netflix's movies - I can't figure out if it's a good thing or a bad thing that new movies are added every week - and I recently watched one that I loved: Exam. In this movie, eight candidates vying for a job are undertaking an 80 minute exam in a room. There are only a few rules: don't spoil your own paper; don't choose to leave the room; don't communicate with the guard or anyone outside the room; and answer the one question before them. As the exam begins, the applicants turn over their papers to discover that they are blank.

This is a very good psychological thriller. It starts fairly innocuously as the applicants realize that they can talk to each other and they try to figure out where this question is located. As they fail to find the question, the applicants become more frustrated and the claws really come out. The second half of the movie is as compelling as the first half as each person tries to gain an edge over the others.

This movie reminds me very much of Cube, a favourite of mine, which is probably why I liked it. Aside from the opening scene, the entire movie takes place in one room and we feel as claustrophobic as the characters while they (and we) try to solve the puzzle.

If you liked Cube, I think you'll like Exam. It's definitely worth your time.