Cotton On To The Anniversary

It seems fitting that as I type this there is stranger in a mask dangling from a rope on the edge of my balcony.  Instead of dialing  911, screaming or good old fashioned fainting, I am proceeding with my writing in this crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous joint we call home. It's just another day in my life. On a brighter note, it’s the anniversary of our move to Canada!

Two years ago today, my ever prepared spouse, P, my then three year old daughter, Lanes, and I descended upon the fair shores of British Columbia. Well, not literally. We were jet propelled across the border from the U.S. in my nutty sister's rickety yet reliable van.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to compile a collection of my most knee slapping-ly entertaining entries and put it into a book. I have been rereading and editing the blog from the beginning and I realized how long two years is when it's put into words, but how short it seems in a blink of an eye.

So here we go again with a no holds barred review of our year(s) here, as it is seen from the eyes of my meticulous spouse, P, my deliciously mischievous kindergartner, Lanes, and my endearingly cumbersome self.

P: Ah, dutiful and annoyingly meticulous, he is still known to fill out forms before they are even printed and offer you twenty five solutions to a problem you didn't think was a problem. I think he has seen the most change over the past two years.

Having struggled to secure employment when we first moved, I am happy to report that he is employed on a permanent basis.  It seemed to take forever, but he had faith and was steadfast in his attempts to secure a job. Thinking back on those times, I still feel exhausted on his behalf, and I brace myself at the thought of the action words he stopped short of using on his resume, like flambeing or executing.

What he is doing now is far simpler than what he was used to, but it gets him home at a decent hour and appears to be good for his health--although he is home with a really bad cold today. One he no doubt will graciously share with is offspring and spouse.

Unusally for him, he took sick leave today. As I type this he is talking to a coworker about finding something on a rack near the women's washroom. Considering Lanes thinks all he does at work all day is play with a stuffed animal, I guess we are moving up in the world.

When he gets home, he normally spends a lot of time speeding through the information superhighway, trolling for vacation deals or new places for us to live. In the end, we are still with clipped wings in our drearily amusing crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous apartment. I think like the mold that lives within its walls, we are here to stay.

Lanes: my little cookie has grown so much since we moved to Canada. She has lost two teeth and gone up two sizes. She was an itty bitty tiny thing and now she is the size of half a camel. I'm starting to miss seeing the baby fat in her cheeks and when she sleeps I long to see some hint of what she looked like as a baby.

She had a whale of a time in preschool, bolstered by the comraderie she had with her buddies there. This month, she had to get out of her comfort zone and brave the world of kindergarten on her own. I just about gave myself a coronary worrying about it. We survived so far.

Lanes has her drama queen moments, but we can see her growing up when she uses rationale and figures out things like consequences. I actually miss the days when she was little and had 'issues' like the time she was upset because she wasn't in all our pictures.

Tired of the tantrums, I told her it's because she was in my belly, and so therefore, she was in all the pictures. I was rather delighted at my uncharacteristic bout of genius. That was until some rather conservative folks visited our house for the first time.

When they did the usual polite commenting on how lovely our wedding picture was, Lanes at once pipped in, 'I was in Mamma's belly!'. The lady looked a lighter shade of pale and immideately glanced at me and I had to quickly explain myself. P, of course, thought it was hilarious, although I did notice he was starting to sweat a little.

Yours truly:  Compared to last year, I have actually moved onwards and upwards, albeit at the pace of a slug on a morning walk. On the positive side, I found answers for the literally nagging pain I have been having on my side, I'm fully motorized, and I'm writing.

On the not so positive side, the homeopathy I'm taking to cure my ailments, which turns out was my liver and not my gall bladder as I was self-diagnosing, has me on a strict diet and I spend my days dreaming of all the foods I've loved before.

I have no choice but to drive Lanes to school and back. If we take the bus, it's still a ten minute walk for me alone, eighteen with her dragging her heels and moaning about physcial activity. Which is strange because she gives the Road Runner a run for her money on the playground.

I live in constant fear of what to do when winter comes, so I put in an application to transfer her to a school that is within walking distance. Because our ghetto falls on the 'wrong side' of the road, we were bumped into another cachement. It figures.

The waiting list is long, and it has me wondering, how important is a kindergarten education? Hmm. I'm sure I'll figure it out many ulcers later. I need to figure out a solution to this asap. This worrying about driving in winter thing is too much for me!

To make matters worse, I had a mishap yesterday. To get into our garage we have to take a key and turn it into a tiny kiosk thing placed on a tiny yellow island.  As I was going down the slope, the sun got in my eyes and before I knew it the front tire went over the island with a ear crushing thud.

Next thing I know, the island was sandwiched between the front and rear wheels and I was jammed in the car because there was a pole from the kiosk blocking my door. Lanes was looking thunderstruck thinking I broke her Daddy's car. She kindly volunteered to tell him so I won't have to. I imagine she thought I was getting a time out.

I was rather flummoxed and not sure how to get myself out of this jam, particularly because I couldn't see the damage. I had horrible thoughts of the fire department having to come and get me out, when luckily, the nice man who came to fix our dishwasher was leaving just then and he quickly sprang to action and with his instructions and a turn here and there, I was free.

He was nice enough to get on all fours and look at the car for me and gave me the green light. I was shaken and stirred and feeling rather foolish.  As such, I'm going to look up how much it takes to rent a horse and buggy. P told me he nearly had the same thing happen to him, but it was no consolation for my anal retentive self.

Other than that drama, I'm working on a Best of Canadoodling book. Over the year, I put up 'Blogs from the Belly' on Kindle, unedited as it was, just to see how it goes.
I wish I could write for a living, but a soon as I put that out, I'll have to figure out a way to join the real world work force.

I can't knit a sweater straight off a sheep, arrange my pantry cupboard in alphabetical order or perform third grade math in my head (or apparently get into my garage). What I have is my writing. It's what I love to do, but I guess this year I'll have to do what I have to do. Never fear, I shall continue with my Canadoodling!

The most important thing I have to say on this our anniversary, is thank you thank you thank you my loyal readers. It makes me stupendously happy every time you log on and have a giggle and a laugh alongside me as we take this journey together.

Thank you for logging on, leaving comments, sharing this site and letting this rather flummoxed stay-at-home mom kindle her desire to be a writer. It means more to me than you will ever know, and your support is great fodder for my sanity--what's left of it anyways.

Oh, and that dangling stranger, he was power washing the years of grime off our walls. Fancy stuff for our ghetto! Maybe next year we might have chairs in our lobby! With that I must sign off, may the adventures continue and more musings from BC next week...