Nuff' Said

Brief hiatus in Vancouver over.

Can't blog.

Too Hot!

Heat Wave - 33C (91F)

Still on holidays.

House is over 25C (80F) at night.

No Air Conditioning.

Must seek relief!

Good friends, Good conversations

It never ceases to amaze me how good life can look after one gets a full 8 hour nights sleep. I feel better than I have in weeks.

That compounded by a most excellent conversation with a friend last night helped me to realize I'm not crazy, I'm just perimenopausal. My friend is fully menopausal, but as we spoke and shared our experiences I could basically take her story, cut out her and husbands names and insert my own (and hubbies). I felt comforted to know I wasn't alone. AND the fact that husbands just can't understand the hormone battle the rages within us women.

Unfortunately - the symptoms are still very present, but I know to stop looking for the men in white who want to give me a new jacket that does up in the back.

Now .... if I can only explain all this to my husband without getting the eye roll.

It's Friday People - Rejoice!

It's Friday and I have next week off work. Although I'm still working through the same issues (mentioned in my last post) I plan on heading over the the Mainland on Sunday afternoon. It will be good to get away, and its just for 2 nights.

One of the disadvantages of 'where' I live is its attached to, and belongs to, where I work. So even doing something as seemingly relaxing as sitting out on our back deck - I look into my works parking lot. I never really get a break from the place.

The hubby is not on holiday's next week, so any adventuring I'll be doing will be on my own. Normally I'm all over that, but the way I've been feeling lately make the thought of doing fun things alone - a little lonely. And I don't just want to stick around the house.

I'll figure it all out. Who knows, maybe I'll go on a mad shopping spree that keeps me in the air-conditioned malls all week. Why not? There's food, there's bathrooms, there's entertainment, there's people ..... we'll see. But don't get all excited for me or anything. I probably won't get up to much to blog about.

Cheers,
LJ

Not in a Good Place

I deleted yesterdays post. I've never done that before, but the post was written from an over-tired, over-heated, over-bitchy place. Not a good place.

Everything and everyone is just plain bugging me these days. Please pray for my husband, he's getting the brunt of it. Poor man.

I can't really figure out whats going on with me. Although I have a sneaky suspicion it has something to do with weaning myself off my anti-depressants AND menopause (or pre-menopause). A cocktail mix that is not recommended.

I tried to talk to my hubby about it last night, but somehow the whole conversation turned and revolved around him. And he NEVER tells me whats going on in his world, so I let him talk. However, this left me feeling somewhat unfinished and unresolved.

I wanted to tell him that I'd had an anxiety attack yesterday. I'm planning on going over to visit his sister on the mainland next week for two days, and I suddenly felt extremely anxious about going and leaving him. Furthermore, upon realizing that is was an anxiety attack - that I'd had one a couple of weeks ago, but didn't recognize it at the time.

I'm not prone to having them, so they are beginning to scare me a little. Which sounds kind of weird that you would get scared for being anxious ... isn't that just compounding the issue? All that to say that I don't know where all this is coming from. There are simply too many factors at play here. Is it withdrawals from my anti-depressants? Is it the beginnings of menopause? Is it the heat? Is it lack of rest? So many factors.

The bottom line is that I don't like me much these days, and I don't like the edgy feelings I'm living with. What do I do with them, and how do I stop hurting the people I love?

Can anyone relate?

Sucking the Fun Out of Summer

Here on the island we have a local health authority (acronym known as VIHA). They are often known to post health information (obviously!) and warnings regarding a variety of things surrounding your health. Recently (although I now can’t find the specific article) they have pronounced roasting marshmallows over your campfire as unhealthy and unsafe.

I stumbled on to this story by means of reading the “letters to the Editor” on our local newspapers website. The readers – much like myself – initially thought that VIHA were having one over on all of us. “Oh, lets have fun, and see if we can pull the wool over some yocal’s eyes!”

But no, their article is completely upfront and spoken in earnest.

VIHA suggests that IF you are going to roast marshmallows this summer, that you should: 1) thoroughly sanitize your hands before touching any food item (ok, somewhat legit’). 2) Take your roasting stick and quickly thrusting the twig in the fire and removing carbon from the twig with a clean tissue. And 3) they finally suggest that once roasted, if the marshmallow has flames coming out of it, it’s too hot to eat (DOH!).

In a day and age where we take more precautions in life than ever before – where do we ever get a chance to learn from our mistakes? I’m not suggesting we rush out there and throw flaming marshmallows at people, but a little common sense goes a long way.

Did eating that worm when I was 6 do permanent damage to me? Did NOT sanitizing my hands and or my marshmallow stick (or wiener stick for that matter) put me one step closer to the grave? If that be the case I should have died – or worse – many years ago. But instead, I got to be a kid and learn that dirt doesn’t taste that good. That touching a burning marshmallow with my hands or my lips – may burn me.

Is it just me, or are there certain people out there who are just looking for ways to suck the fun out of fun??

+++++++

And on a completely different side note: Thank you to all who commented on my last entry. I terribly thrilled that almost all my my readers actually responded.

Behind the Tweed Curtain

After a day of sitting behind a reception desk I really needed to get out and take in some air the other night. The weather has been spectacular, and this evening was no exception.

Behind our house (a half block or so away) are several sports fields leading to a Recreation Centre. I can leave my house and not have to walk along a street. Last night I decided to do just that - stay off the busy street - and see what was up at the baseball diamonds. Between the baseball diamonds and the Rec Centre, and in the middle of the parking area lies a plot of land surrounded by a tall, thick hedge. Rarely have I seen any kind of action in this secret place, and most of the time you kind of forget its there. However, tonight - there was activity on the large scale, albeit low rumbled almost whispered voice levels.

It turns out the hidden place behind the green hedges is a lawn bowling pitch. There's always been something slightly mythical or sacred to me about lawn bowling pitches. One part because of the mystery that surround the thickly boarder area, and in part because - you only ever see seniors gaining entry.

Quite by happenstance I found the entrance, which was clearly marked with a "Visitors Welcome" sign, so I walked in.

What to my wondering eyes did I see ....? A sea of white hair, white shirts, and manicured lawn and many many many little black balls rolling down the green. I am by nature a introvert, however my curiosity and the welcoming feel of the elder onlookers drew me in to ask "Excuse me, can someone please explain the rules to me?"

You never know about the older generation. They might likely bite your head off to gain back some misspent youth. I was fortunate to interrupt four of the more kindly kind, and they were more than willing to explain the basic gist of what I was observing.

As they explained, in the obvious Scottish dialects, the basic rules of the game it would appear that lawn bowling is a loose combination of bocce ball and curling. This game is taken VERY seriously by its players, as was evident on the tournament contestants faces, as well as my new found teachers.

To be honest - with 4 of them all speaking at me at the same time AND in varying degrees of brogue I was hard pressed to completely grasp the finer points. However, one thing I did learn is that the balls that are thrown are weighted, and you throw or roll the ball in such a way that the weighted side will make the ball roll to the left or to the right. The ultimate objective being to be the closest a small white ball at the center and end of the alley.

Clear as mud, right?!

I stayed for 10 minutes or so, and was given a warm welcome to return on Saturdays and Sundays and watch again - on a non-city-wide-tournament day. Marie and Mary would keep a lookout for me. They truly were lovely ladies, and they were very quick to tell me that there is a league in the city for younger set - of which I clearly qualified.

I continued on my walk home with visions of lawn bowling possibilities in my future. My far far far away distant future.

Gone! Gone I tell you!

EVERYBODY! Stop what your doing, don't move. I've lost something and I don't want to step on it!

My week has completely disappeared and I can't locate it anywhere. Have you seen it? I know that it was here just a minute ago, but I turned my back for a second and its gone.

The same thing happened last week, but I put that down to first week back after holiday's with a smattering of a statutory holiday in the middle. But this week has no excuses. It's just gone.

If you see it can you please let me know. There is so much more I wanted to do with it, but just didn't get there.

Much appreciated and have an excellent weekend, I at least know its just around the corner.

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

I always cringed a little when my teachers in September asked us what we'd done over the summer. Having grown up in small towns we really didn't get up to much.

However, I am proud to say that I did in fact learn something about myself over my recent two weeks on holidays. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this information, but at least I fired off a neuron or two - that's got to be good for the old noggin'.

As I said in a previous entry our first week of holidays were spent up at a rustic cabin on a lake up island. It truly was lovely, and a person could get used to waking up in that kind of setting. However, this particular accommodation was without cable (TV) & wireless connection for my laptop.

That might not sound like such a hardship, and to be honest I can live without TV, and I can live without internet/email (for a week) - but I am hard pressed to live without BOTH at the same time.

I am someone who sits in front of a computer every day and has learned to rely on the internet for news and a great deal of entertainment. And when it comes to TV, its often a background accompaniment to whatever is going on in my home life. The husband is a little more 'addicted' to TV than I, but to when I can't have one, I resort to the other.

To live without both ..... stretched my every capillary!

Although ... I had to laugh when we got home. We hadn't been in the door for more than 10 minutes, the kitchen was where EVERYTHING got dumped and I was beginning the task of restoring order, when I hear the "background" sounds warbling down the hall to my TV deprived ears. The HUSBAND had the TV on and was already watching the recorded episodes of "People's Court" that he'd missed.

NOT 10 MINUTES into out arrival of reality! Our bags hadn't even been unpacked yet.

I digress - As much as I enjoyed our time away, I missed not having both connections to the outside world at the same time. I thank the Lord (truly) that I had a laptop that could play DVD's.

This is what I learned on my summer vacation.